Chasing His Kickass Luna Back

#Chapter 90: Sabotaged

Abby

At the mention of the email and the rare ingredients, Karl’s face turns pale. Seeing him like this

instantly fills me with an odd sense of dread as my mind begins to whirl with unending questions: why

did Adam send him that email? Why did Karl give him rare ingredients? When did Karl give him rare

ingredients?

“Karl, please tell me what’s wrong,” I say again, more urgently this time.

He takes a deep breath, then finally speaks. “I bought a ton of ingredients for Adam,” he admits, his

voice barely above a whisper. “Rare ones. For his restaurant.”

My heart is in my throat. “For Adam’s restaurant? But why?” I ask, genuinely confused.

“He asked, and I just figured I would help him out,” he murmured. But as he speaks, his eyes dart away

from me, indicating that he’s lying. I’ve always been able to tell when he’s pulling my leg.

“You’d better not be trying to lie to me right now,” I warn, my voice brittle. “I know you too well for that.”

His shoulders slump, and he looks down at his hands, gripping the edge of the bed with white knuckles.

“Alright, fine,” he finally says, his voice low. “It wasn’t that.”

“Then what was it?” I press, but deep down, judging from Karl’s appearance I’m not sure whether I

want to know the answer or not.

Karl hesitates, then takes another ragged breath as though trying to steady himself. “I gave the

ingredients to Adam to bribe him into… into breaking up with you.”

The room spins. My head is swimming with thoughts, feelings, questions. I can’t fathom why Karl would

do such a thing, and I jump up to my feet, my voice rising an octave. “You what? You bribed him to

break up with me? But why?”

“Because, Abby,” Karl’s voice is shaky, “I knew he was g ay, and that he wasn’t being honest with you.

The ingredients were a way to convince him to be just that: honest. To come clean about his

orientation, so you wouldn’t waste your time on something that wasn’t real.”

His words hit me like a sledgehammer, demolishing everything I thought I knew. I look at him, stunned.

“And since when is that any of your concern?” I find myself asking. “I don’t recall ever asking you to be

my knight in shining armor.”

Karl pauses, his face still as pale as before. He can’t meet my gaze, and instead keeps his eyes

averted to the floor in front of him. “I care about you, Abby,” he says. “I love you. It pained me to see

you being tangled up in a relationship with someone who didn’t feel the same way about you.”

His words give me pause. I can understand his reasoning a little bit, but it doesn’t make it right. “You

never should have gotten involved. It wasn’t your place.”

There’s a heavy silence. Karl still can’t meet my gaze, and it infuriates me even more. I find myself

pacing the room, clutching at my hair. To think that all this time I thought that Karl was changing,

becoming a better person, only for this to happen, makes me sick.

“Listen, Abby,” he says, standing in my way. “I could see how he looked at you, how he looked at other

men. I just wanted to help.”

“You could have talked to me instead.”

“Yeah, I know I could have,” he says, his eyes darting around in that telltale manner once more. “But I

—”

It’s then that it hits me. I hold my hand up to make Karl stop, and pinch the bridge of my nose, letting

out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. “You never knew,” I murmur. “Not before you bought those

ingredients, at least.”

“What?” he murmurs. “Abby, I—”

“Be honest,” I hiss. “I know you, Karl. I can tell when you’re lying. You didn’t know about his orientation

before you fabricated this whole plan, did you? It just so happened to work out in your favor, didn’t it?”

There’s a long, heavy silence. After what feels like an eternity, Karl finally meets my eyes, and there’s a

raw, aching vulnerability there that makes my heart drop into my stomach. “You’re right,” he says

quietly, his voice filled with regret. “I didn’t know at first. I just knew that he wasn’t that invested in you,

and figured that he’d take the bait.”

My heart shatters. All at once, I want to scream, cry, and pass out. I can’t decide which; maybe all

three. “I can’t believe this, Karl. How could you do something like that? Something so… c unning?”

He looks as if he wants to say something, to justify himself, but he doesn’t. Instead, he stands there,

staring at me with a sort of defeated look in his eyes, as if realizing that there are some things that even

words can’t fix.

“Abby, I—”

“Don’t,” I cut him off, my voice breaking. “Just don’t even bother, Karl. I’ve heard enough. And to think

that all this time, I really thought you were changing, becoming a better man like you said you would.”

“But Abby, I am,” he pleads, trying to take a step toward me. “Trust me, Abby. I’ve been trying so hard

to be better for you. To be the man that you deserve.”

I can’t help but let out a wry chuckle. “Bu lls hit,” I snarl.

I pull away from him, putting as much distance between us as the room will allow. “I’m booking a train

home first thing in the morning. You can stay here, and you don’t have to worry about coming back to

the restaurant with me. We’re done, Karl.”

His face crumples, but he doesn’t argue. He knows he’s lost this battle, this war, and so do I. Maybe

both of us have lost in our own ways. For a moment, we lock eyes, and I see a flicker of hope in his

face—but I can’t bring myself to look at him for any longer. Just looking at him makes me sick.

Without another word, Karl crosses to the door to leave. But he pauses there, his hand on the

doorknob, and speaks without looking over his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Abby,” he finally murmurs, his

voice choked with emotion. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

“It’s too late for that, Karl. You already have.”

…

It’s past midnight, and I’m still at my desk, hunched over my laptop as I try to find the earliest train

home.

Adam is ga y; I can accept that. What I can’t reconcile with is the gnawing question that keeps echoing

in my mind: Would Adam have taken Karl’s bribe regardless of his orientation? Did Karl’s rare

ingredients just expedite the inevitable? Or did they manipulate the course of my life, making a puppet

of my emotions and a fool out of me?

I feel a crushing weight on my chest, making it hard to breathe. I’m so alone. My hand moves

involuntarily to my phone, my thumb hovering over Chloe’s name on the contact list. I could call her. I

could spill everything, tell her she was right, drown my sorrows in the comforting echo of a friend’s

shared outrage.

But I hesitate.

I can’t do it. How do I tell Chloe—or anyone—that Karl fooled me once again? That I believed he had

changed, that I trusted him when I shouldn’t have? My pride bristles at the thought, and the screen

blurs as I blink back tears.

No. I won’t tell Chloe. I won’t tell anyone. Instead, I lock my phone and place it face down on the desk.

I’ll go back home, focus on my work, my friends, my family—anything but him. I’ll start over for the

second time, build something new on the ashes of yet another heartbreak.