I hated how those memories made me feel. Helpless, mostly, like I was fourteen again, flinching from my old man’s boot or the smack of a bottle on my ribs.
But there was something else, lurking just under the skin. Desire. I fucking hated the word, but it was true: seeing her broken did something to me. Twisted up everything I thought I knew about right and wrong, about what I was supposed to want.
And all I wanted—all I fucking wanted—was to be the only thing she ever thought about. I wanted her to see me, even if it meant she had to bleed for it.
That was the part I could never say out loud.
Fuck. I closed my eyes, just for a second, and tried to find a place inside myself that didn’t ache for her. There wasn’t one.
I wasn’t supposed to want this. Wasn’t supposed to be so easy, so fucking eager, to turn all that pain into hunger. Into the kind of longing that ate you alive. But I did. And I hated myself for it.
Am I a monster? Maybe. Maybe that’s all I was ever going to be. Or maybe there was some secret self buried in that rot, something better. But when I pictured it, all I saw was her—Amelia—broken and shivering, and me the one reaching through the bars to hold her.
There were four of us, drifting through the fake comfort of Oakdale’s town square like we belonged here.
Shane and Sabrina were walking ahead, as if their joined hands and loud voices could keep the world at bay. Amelia behind them, Amelia always behind.
She wore blue today. Not a soft, happy color. Dark blue. Deep as lake water, the kind that drowns you if you let go for even a fucking second. I watched her, couldn’t help it.
Maybe she was. Maybe I was one of them.
We hit the street festival at golden hour, all bright lights and music and the stink of fried dough. Kids ran around with balloon swords, old men smoked on the benches, and watched the chaos like it might bite.
The strip was packed. Locals and tourists, a mess of energy that made my skull throb. All I felt was the static between us. Amelia’s eyes on the back of my neck. My own gaze locked on her like a predator.
Sabrina darted ahead, dragging Shane past a tent with handmade jewelry. “Come on! You have to try on the turquoise. It’ll bring out your eyes,” she teased, waving a beaded necklace at him.
“We doing this, or are you just here to set a world record for embarrassing me?” Shane called back, grinning. His face open, earnest. He didn’t know what it was like to hide everything raw inside.
“Both,” Sabrina said, her laughter slicing through the noise.
Amelia barely smiled, just ducked her head, hair falling in her eyes.
I wanted to say something. Anything. But what could I say?
I don’t want to hurt you. I want you under me, hands knotted in my shirt, begging for something I don’t even know how to give. I want to strip you open and see if all your softness is as breakable as it looks.
Fuck.
Instead, I fell in step next to her, our shoulders almost touching. Close enough to smell whatever she’d washed her hair with.
She kept her chin down, but her pulse was visible in the hollow of her throat.
“You look like you’re gonna bolt,” I muttered, quiet enough so only she’d hear.
Her eyes flicked up. Dark brown, wary, but not afraid. Never afraid of me, not anymore. Maybe she should’ve been.
“Why would I run?” she murmured, voice thin but steady. “You’re not that scary anymore.”
Bullshit. I was worse. I was just better at hiding it.
“Could’ve fooled me,” I whispered, letting the words curl between us.
A spark. She looked away first. Her small hand tightened on the strap of her bag, knuckles white.
I wanted to grab her, right there, and pull her against me. See if she’d push back or just melt. I wanted to know which part of her remembered all the things I did.
Every word, every moment in that fucking cage, every breathless second when I could have broken her and didn’t.
