My mouth went dry. I’d have killed for a cigarette or something to take the edge off, but there was nothing in the world that could dull how badly I wanted to get my hands on her.
She was the only thing I’d ever wanted that made me feel alive instead of just less dead.
I kept my eyes on the horizon, but every cell in my body tracked her as she swam, as she waded out, the ocean sluicing down her thighs, the blue suit dark and clinging, the curves of her body carved out like sculpture.
She came out of the water, dripping, skin goose-pimpled from the chill, and she was so fucking alive it hurt to look.
She didn’t come straight back to our towels. Instead, she stood with her arms stretched up, letting the air dry her, her nipples outlined through the suit, her hair wild and tangled down her back.
She peeled the suit up to adjust it, the movement casual but so intimate it made the world tilt sideways for a second.
I felt my fingernails dig into my palm. I’d left marks there before, just to keep myself from grabbing her when I shouldn’t.
11
AMELIA
Rain poundedon top of the house like a monster. It came in hard and fast, cascading in the dark. I couldn’t tell everybody how the terror was consuming me. How I could only think about drowning in black water, and Blake’s face at the edge of my vision.
Then came nights huddled with Caiden underneath the rain while we shivered and tried to keep distance.
The air inside stank with sweat and vodka, the lights down low, shadows pooling in every corner. Laughter and music crashed through the rooms like waves on the rocks, trying to drown out something darker beneath.
Alex was pressed in close, his arm slung loose around my shoulders, his grin sloppy and eager. He was handsome in the way that never quite reached his eyes. Safe, solid, offering the kind of warmth I’d always thought I wanted. His thigh pressed against mine on the couch, fingers brushing circles over my bare knee, slow and possessive.
“Another drink?” he asked, his voice slurred, his smile tracing my mouth.
I nodded, let him pour, let his hand linger a little too long at my waist. I wanted to want him. I wanted to let my body goheavy and warm and safe, to sink into the simplicity of being wanted by someone without ghosts in their eyes.
Sabrina shrieked with laughter at something on her phone. Sydney danced in circles with Shane, spinning wildly, letting the storm inside match the one out. The world spun, wet and reckless, and I let myself float through it, letting Alex’s touch anchor me.
He leaned in, breath hot against my ear, voice rumbling. “You look like you need a rescue. Want to get some air?”
I almost said yes. Wanted to let him save me, to let someone’s gentle hands close the ache inside me. But the room felt small, the night pressing in, the rain a hush that promised nothing good.
I glanced at Caiden and caught the flare of something feral in his eyes. Jealousy, rage, hunger. I couldn’t tell where one ended and the next began.
Alex’s hand slid higher on my thigh, thumb tracing promises just under the hem of my dress. I let him. I wanted to be seen wanting, wanted to know I could still be wanted at all.
But under the heat, there was a cold edge. Like the thrill of standing at a cliff’s edge, wondering if this time I’d let myself fall.
Caiden’s gaze pinned me. I saw a flash of childhood. My mother’s boyfriends in the kitchen, the way I’d learned to feel danger before I could name it.
The same tight coil of fear and longing, the shameful thrill of being watched. I knew that look in Caiden’s eyes. I’d grown up flinching from it, and now I craved it. Needed it to remind me I was real.
Alex’s mouth brushed my jaw, soft and careful. “You okay, Amelia?”
I almost told him I was fine. I almost let myself believe it.
But Caiden’s hunger was a shadow at my back, and I was so tired of being the girl who ran from the dark. I leaned into Alex’s hand anyway, let him touch, let Caiden see. Let the storm outside rage while the storm inside me coiled tighter, darker.
A lyric throbbed through the speakers, low and raw—“You’re the only thing that cuts me, the only pain I want…”—and I wondered if anyone would notice if I disappeared into the rain. If anyone would care, except for the boy in the shadows, burning holes through me with every glance.
I wanted to feel safe. I wanted to feel nothing. But all I could feel was the ache pulling me toward the thing I’d spent my whole life learning how to survive.
Alex poured me another shot, his palm warm around mine as he handed it over. Lightning flickered in the window, painting the room in white, then washing it away, leaving nothing but the steady drum of rain and the thick heat of too many bodies crammed together.
The couch vibrated with laughter. Sabrina and Sydney nearly in each other’s laps, Shane sprawled in the armchair, grinning at his phone. I tipped the glass back, let the vodka burn a clean line down my throat, tried to believe it could chase out the cold.
