“What? Too much?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Everything about him is too fucking much. The shirts. The fake charm. The way he struts around like his dick deserves its own ZIP code.” She scoffs. “He doesn’t give a shit about you, Sky.”
Heat climbs up my neck. “You don’t understand my relationship at all.”
“I know enough.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I’m aware you don’t laugh anymore.”
The words land hard. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
Cassie keeps going, her voice sharper now. “I know things, Sky. I know that when you answered this phone, you sounded like someone reached down your throat and squeezed. I know you make excuses for that man. And I am aware that you stopped coming out with me because he doesn’t like my attitude, which is frankly offensive because it’s one of my finest fucking assets.”
“I didn’t stop coming out because of him.”
“Bullshit.”
I don’t tell her the truth.
That ever since that day behind Sanders Street, when Liam’s hands were on me and Connor’s voice whispered in my ear and the three of them closed in from every direction, I can’t bearound crowds anymore. That something broke open in me that day and never fully sealed back shut. That being pressed in by too many people now sends my pulse into a place I can’t talk myself down from. That it has nothing to do with Damien and everything to do with what those three assholes did to me in that alley while Cassie shook on the other end of a phone, calling the only person who ever came running.
I don’t tell her any of that.
I never have.
“You know what I think?” she says. “I think you got so used to surviving that you forgot you’re allowed to live. And instead of figuring that out, you’re sitting there in the dark like a good girl while that asshole scrubs off whatever cheap perfume he’s been buried in before he slides into bed next to you. And you’ll say nothing. Because that’s what you do now. You say nothing, you take it, and you call it a life.”
My jaw tightens so hard that my back teeth ache. “Fuck off, Cass.”
She laughs. Short and sharp. “There she is.” Cassie’s voice softens by a fraction. “There’s my girl.”
I stand from the couch because sitting still is impossible.
“I am happy,” I say, forcing the words out too quickly.
Cassie goes quiet again. I hate it when she does that.
“No, you’re not, Sky,” she says.
I move to the window, staring at my reflection in the dark glass. Tired eyes. Hair loose around my shoulders. A woman wearing someone else’s life as if it might fit better if she holds still long enough.
“You don’t get to decide that, Cass.”
“No. I don’t.” Her voice wavers, just enough to permit the emotion beneath to show. Just enough to remind me that behind all the gum, the sharp mouth, and the sarcasm she wears like a second skin, she loves me in a way that has never once asked foranything in return. “But I am familiar with what you look like when you’re alive, Sky. I was there.”
“Don’t.”
“I was there when you were with him. When he loved you like you had never been loved before in your life. Like you were the only thing in the room worth looking at.”
“Cassie.”
“I was in that hallway at school. A seventeen-year-old boy who had never looked at anyone the way he looked at you. Not once. Not even close.”
“Stop.” My voice comes out louder than I intend.
