Sidelined by Emma Hart

return combined with his words ricochets throughout my body until it does nothing but burn every bit of me it touches.
    I feel numb, yet I can still feel every inch of the pain making itself known once again. The reality attacks me almost brutally, and the weight of it bears down on me until I’m close to being crushed by it.
    I grab my keys from the side table in the hall and run downstairs. Once I’m in my car, I start it angrily and head toward Corey and Leah’s place. I drive far too aggressively, beep my horn too loudly, and take corners too sharply. But I don’t care. I can’t care. Right now, I need my best friends.
    I pull up outside the house after the painstakingly long drive and bang on the door until someone answers.
    “Macey? Are you all right?” Corey’s brow furrows.
    “Is Leah here?”
    “No, she’s at her mom’s with Ryann. Something about a movie audition. What’s up?”
    “Fuck!” I slam my hand into the wall. “Thanks.”
    “Macey!”
    I wave over my shoulder and get back into my car. The drive to Grace’s house takes only a few minutes, and I punch in the gate code in harshly. When the gates open, I tear up the driveway before stopping quickly and getting out.
    I knock on the door—this time, more patiently but just as loudly—until Grace answers.
    “Macey,” she says cheerily. Her smile drops when she looks at me properly. “Honey, what’s wrong?”
    “Corey said Leah and Ry are here. Are they?”
    “In the front room,” Grace says as she steps to the side.
    I kick my shoes off in the hallway and walk into the main room. Leah and Ryann are talking excitedly about something that makes no sense to me right now, but they stop when Grace clears her throat. Slowly, my two best friends turn to me.
    “Mace. He came?” Leah whispers, and I know Jack told Corey and Corey told Leah.
    I nod slowly.
    “And?” Ry prompts.
    I shake my head and cover my mouth with my hands. My legs feel weak, and it’s like there’s a bomb of emotion inside me ready to explode with devastatingly painful consequences.
    Grace guides me to the sofa and sits me between the girls. “Let it out, honey,” she whispers with a kiss to the top of my forehead.
    Her words open the floodgates. As the words fall from my lips, tears escape my eyes and trail down my cheeks. My heart hurts painfully because everything I thought I knew is wrong. Totally wrong. Even down to the fact that he admitted that he wasn’t going to tell me.
    All that proves is that the guy I thought I loved isn’t the guy I loved.
    I loved a total bastard, one who thought it was acceptable to sleep with someone when we were taking a break. How many more times did he do that? How many other girls did he sleep with when we were on a break?
    As my friends wrap their arms around me, I realize that today has done one thing—it has reminded me that the only men you can trust are your father and your brother and the only relationships worth fighting for are the kind I have with my girls.
    Everything else is a crockpot full of shit. Love is a bullshit fantasy made up by storytellers and dreamers to trick us into believing that happily-ever-after exists when, in fact, real life is full of far more villains than Rapunzel or Cinderella ever had.
    “Men are bastards,” Ada, Leah’s aunt, proclaims when my tears quiet down.
    I look across the room at her. “Hear, hear.”
    “But not all of them are bastards all of the time,” she says, looking at me. “Just like women are bitches, but not all of them are bitches all the time.”
    “Aunt Ada,” Leah says warily. “Where are you going with this?”
    “Nowhere, Lele. I’m simply making an observation.” She winks at me. “Now, doodle on a donkey’s backside, Grace. Did you hide the cookies again?”

    Cal looks at me. “Want me to arrest him?”
    “For what?” I snort, putting a bigger-size bra to the back of the rack. “Breaking my heart? I’m not sure that’s legal, bro.”
    “I could