But you can’t move on from someone who lives inside your bones.
You just learn how to bleed quieter.
Sighing shakily, I strip out of my clothes and take a quick shower.
Standing under the hot spray, I cry. I just let it all out until there’s nothing left.
Then I towel off and climb under the covers. Sleep takes me fast, heavy and merciless, pulling me under before I can think too hard about Hayden.
Morning comes cruelly.
Gray sunlight spills through my curtains while exhaustion clings to me like another layer of skin.
I barely remember getting dressed. Barely remember driving to school.
Everything feels muted and wrong, like my entire world tilted slightly off its axis the second Hayden came back fromthe dead. Every laugh is too sharp. Every whisper feels aimed directly at me. I barely make it to my locker before I feel him.Hayden.
The air changes around him somehow.
One second, I’m alone.
The next, he’s here caging me against the lockers with tattooed arms braced on either side of my head while his body heat wraps around me making me gasp.
He smells like smoke, leather, and trouble with a hint of floral underneath it.
Perfume. Another girl’s perfume.
The realization slices straight through me and he notices instantly. His green eyes darken while his mouth twists cruelly.
“What’s wrong, Ophelia?” he murmurs slowly. “Thought you liked pretending with other people now.”
Pain flashes through me.
“You followed me,” I accuse, and he scoffs.
“You brought that motherfucker to our spot.”
The quiet fury in his voice nearly cracks me open.
“I didn’t know where he was taking me,” I say, and he laughs harshly.
“Sure.”
My anger rears its ugly head.
Not only is he calling me a fucking liar to my face but he called me Ophelia.
What in the actual fuck?
“Why do you even care? You had girls all over you at the warehouse. You asshole!” I spit, and his jaw flexes.
God, what I would give to run my tongue along his skin and sink my teeth into him.
He suddenly leans closer inhaling softly near my neck, making me shiver, then pulls back with visible disgust. “Yousmell like him,” he growls with so much hatred in his voice it literally guts me.
“So do you,” I snap back. “You smell like a fucking fish market. I wonder how many fucking STDs you’ve caught in such a short amount of time.” I laugh, but something dangerous flashes through his expression.
Hurt buried beneath cruelty.
