“I’m done playing these games, Kelsey. You say you trust me but then won’t give me the chance to explain anything before you shut me out of your life and move on to the next person.” His voice was hollow. It held no emotion anymore. “I want you, Kelsey. I want you so damn bad, but it’s obvious I can’t change your mind. I can’t make you want me … or love me.” He turned and began walking away from me, straight to the stairs that led to his apartment.
I had nothing left to say. I could no longer feel anything. Not the chill from the rain, or my broken heart. So I just stood there in the rain and watched him go.
I finally decided standing there in the rain like an idiot would not help matters, plus I had the strangest feeling I was being watched, so I headed back in to Shot’s to find Jessi so we could leave. When I stepped inside, I began searching for Jessi, but I couldn’t find her anywhere. She wasn’t at the bar, I was searching the dance floor for her when someone stepped in my path.
“Nate. I really don’t have time to talk,” I said to him, still looking around the crowded dance floor for Jessi. “I’m trying to find Jessi so I can go home. Have you seen her?” I asked.
When he didn’t respond, I looked at up at him. He was staring at me with no expression on his face. His whole demeanor was beginning to scare me, so I made a step to go around him when he grabbed me and pulled me to his chest.
I automatically tried to push off his chest, but he held firm and I was beginning to panic. I didn’t like him holding me like. This wasn’t the Nate I was used to.
“Let me go, Nate,” I firmly said, hoping it would break through whatever haze was in.
“From day one I have been there for you, Kelsey. Day. One. Have I not? Why is it that you can’t see what is right in front of you? I would treat you so good. So damn good. You would want for nothing with me. Don’t you realize that?” I could see he was becoming agitated and I wildly scanned the room for Jessi. Where in the hell was she?!
“Nate, please, let me go and I promise you we’ll talk about this.” I tried to reason with him, but I could tell nothing I was saying was getting through. I couldn’t smell alcohol on his breath, so I didn’t know where this change was coming from. He had never even remotely acted interested in me as more than a friend.
“Do you know how much it kills me to watch you pine away after Kane?” He spat Kane’s name out as if it was a piece of garbage. I didn’t like where this was going, and I needed to get away—now.
“You’re too good for him, Kelsey. He will never amount to anything. He doesn’t even have parents. He would have been set if he hadn’t screwed up any relationship that he had with his grandparents. And you see that he couldn’t give up the women, even when he had something as good as you to call his. If you were mine, I swear, I wouldn’t even be looking at other girls. My whole world would revolve around you. I would treasure you, Kelsey.”
He obviously didn’t know about Kane and his grandparents reconciling, which now had me believing that he didn’t know anything at all about Kane now. And I was pretty sure I had not told him the reason Kane and I were no longer together.
“It should have been you and me from the start. I didn’t pursue you because I thought you would be smart enough not to fall for Kane’s shit, but you see now, don’t you? You see how he deceived you and how he could so easily forget about you when it came to Katie.
Now that you’re not burdened by him anymore, we can give us a shot, though. I can show you how it feels to be spoiled and pampered.” He smiled, but it had a disturbing edge to it now, and made my stomach turn.
“You are quick to forget, Nate, that you haven’t asked me what I want, and I don’t want those things. Not with you, not with anyone! I’m not the type of girl who can be bought into a relationship. You would have known that if you were really my friend,” I hissed at him, then something else he had said sank in and I glared at him, “I never told you that I caught Kane with Katie. I never told anyone besides Jessi, and I am pretty sure she never told anyone.” I jerked my body one last time, which broke the hold he had on me, and I turned to run and find Jessi.
I made my way toward the back where the bathrooms were, still glancing over my shoulder to see if Nate was following me. I didn’t see him, but I also didn’t see him standing where I had left him on the dance floor. All the hair on my body stood on end. I needed to find Jessi and I needed to get out of here and away from him.
I pulled out my phone and began typing out a text to Jess. I knew if I couldn’t find her, she would at least get my text.
Big trouble. Need you now. Nate is a psycho. Meet me at the bathroom.
There, now all I would need to do is wait by the bathrooms for her and then we could leave and I could forget about this whole mess.
What the hell was that?! Had I given Nate the impression somewhere along the way that I was interested in him as more than a friend? Looking back I didn’t think I had, so I didn’t know what tonight was all about.
I was looking down at my phone, willing it to chime with a text from Jessi, when someone grabbed me from behind. The person who had me placed one hand over my mouth, and knocked my phone out my hands with the other.
“Shh, we are just going to go talk,” Nate’s voice hissed in my ear. “You can’t just walk away from me, Kelsey. No one disrespects me like that. Now you’re going to keep real quiet. You’re not going to put up a fight and you’re going to come with me.”
I started to shake my head no when I felt a sharp poke in my side. I wasn’t stupid, I knew what it was. It was a knife. The bastard pulled a knife on me.
“Please don’t make me hurt you, Kelsey. I don’t want to hurt you. I just need to talk to you. To make you understand, but know this, if you cause a scene I will hurt you and if I can’t hurt you … I will hurt the people you care about. Do you understand?”
I began to panic. Where was Jessi? Had he already gotten to her? There was nothing else I could do. I couldn’t take a chance on him hurting anyone else, so I nodded to let him know I would do whatever he wanted.
“Good. Now we are going to slip right out this door over here. Come on.”
He began pulled me to the back exit of Shot’s. I heard the door open and I felt a rush of wind. I looked around at the bar full of people, and no one seemed to notice what was going on. At the last minute I spotted Kane. He was standing tall above the other as if he was looking for something. I was praying he would glance my way and see what was happening but he never did and the door to Shot’s slammed shut along with any hope I had that someone would save me.