Paradisal Tragedy by Ada Marie

wanted was to pull Matt outside and give him the beat down of his lifetime. He felt a sting of jealousy rush through him, knowing what Matt had shared with Annabella. He had no right to feel the way he did. I t was wrong, but he couldn’t help it.
    “I have no idea when she’ll be back, she’s at the hospital,” Matt told him.
    “Hospital, what happened? Is she hurt? She’s going to be alright, isn’t she?” Travis asked unable to stop the words from overflowing.
    “We don’t know all the details, but when her brother brought her downstairs, her hand was wrapped in a bloody towel. If I had to guess, she punched something. It looked really bad though,” Matt told him. “They’re probably going to be a while.”
    “I’ll wait for her, and don’t bother telling me not to,” Travis said, pushing past Matt and into the house. Chelsea, Maxie, and Aubrey all stared at him as he entered. Matt vanished out the door.
    “Why are you here?” Aubrey got up from her chair and walked to him.
    Travis already didn’t like her, and he couldn’t understand why Annabella was friends with her. She was stuck up, rude and she reminded Travis so much of Marissa.
    “I’m here because Annabella is my friend, and I’ve come to check on her,” Travis informed her. “Not that it’s your business.”
    “God, you are an even bigger idiot than I thought. You should just give up, she doesn’t like you, and she and Matt will find their way back to each other, and soon you’ll just be in the past.” Aubrey spoke with confidence.
    No matter what she said to him though, Travis would never give up. Annabella was his friend, and he cared about her. He wasn’t going anywhere.
    “You don’t scare me. You can hate me, you can tell me to leave her alone; hell you can even tell me that I’m nothing but a loser. The thing is, I don’t care what you think about me. I don’t give damn how much you don’t like me. The only person whose opinion matters to me is Annabella’s. She’s my friend and I’m hers, and that’s not going to change unless she says the words,” Travis commented.
    “She’ll say the words, I know she will. Guys like you come and go, but guys like Matt are always there. You’ll never be able to make her happy. You’re a lowlife,” Aubrey accused. She couldn’t describe the hatred she had for him. Why couldn’t he just leave Annabella alone? Why couldn’t he just let her reconcile with Matt? They were the ones who needed to be together, not her and Travis.
    “She’s right you know?” Chelsea cut in. “Matt and Bella belong together. You’re just wasting your time.”
    “You know what? You guys know nothing about her. I bet I can tell you more about her in the week I spent with her than you could tell me in the years you’ve known her. Do you know what she said to me? That you guys hated her. She feels like an outsider when it comes to you, and she didn’t want to be around that. You make her feel like she should be guilty for who she is. She needed you to just be her friends, but rather than do that, you made her feel like a broken toy that needed to be fixed. The difference between us,” Travis paused, gesturing between him and them multiple times, “is that I don’t care who she is. I don’t want her to change for me. I just want her, whatever way she is.”
    “That’s not true. We don’t treat her like a broken toy; we love her,” Maxie said.
    “You have a hell of a way of showing it,” Travis chided.
    “You don’t’ know what you’re talking about,” Aubrey shouted in his face.
    Travis backed away. “Maybe if you were a better friend, she wouldn’t spend so much time avoiding you.”
    “You have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve been a better friend to her than she’s been to me in the past few months.”
    “That’s bull. Did you ever think maybe underneath all her changes that she was going through something? Did that ever once cross your mind? Did you ever think