Page 70 of Before You Fell

Then he sees me and the heat drains from his face. His expression empties so quickly it seems violent.

“Willow.”

The woman jerks back, startled, but I don’t look at her. I can’t. If I gaze at her, I’ll have to face all the parts of this that are real.

Phoenix moves fast, shoving her away as he leans forward. “Wills.”

I turn away because he doesn’t get to use my fucking nickname now. He doesn’t get to put softness in his mouth after sticking his cock in someone else’s. He doesn’t get my fucking tears or the satisfaction of watching me bleed where he can see it.

I keep walking.

“Willow,” he calls to me, louder this time. “Wait.”

My heels hit the hallway floor with steady thuds. Every step feels too calm, as if my body has decided to be graceful even as my heart tears itself apart.

He calls my name again, but I keep walking.

By the time I reach the main room, I am moving too quickly for anyone to stop me.

I collect my bag without looking around and make it to the elevator.

The doors close and for a few seconds, only my reflection remains in the metal. Pale face. Bright eyes. My mouth clamped tight enough to hurt.

Still standing. Still not crying.

The elevator drops me into the lobby, and I walk straight through it. Past polished floors and soft lighting, then out the front doors.

Cold air hits my face hard enough to sting. Good. I need something to feel that isn’t his hand in her hair. Not his mouth falling open for someone else less than a week after it was at my ear, telling me things I was stupid enough to believe.

I step onto the pavement and pull out my phone.

My fingers shake, but not enough to stop me. I open the app to call a ride because I didn’t bring my car. I planned to drink tonight, not to run from a man who made me feel used.

My phone rings before I can confirm the ride.

Phoenix.

Of course now he wants to fucking talk. Now that I have seen him with his cock in some chick’s mouth, he has decided communication might be useful.

Well, fuck him. Fuck his ego. Fuck the man he has become and every rotten thing he hides behind.

I decline the call.

It rings again almost immediately.

My thumb hovers over the screen, and for one sick second, the girl who used to know him tries to rise within me. The girl who wrote songs with him beneath trees. The girl who believed there was still something good beneath all that fame, arrogance, drugs, and women.

Then I see him again in my head—head tipped back and her mouth on him—and my stomach turns so hard I nearly bend with it.

No. He is not that sweet boy anymore. He hasn’t been for a long time. He is this man now. A man who uses people to get through whatever ugly thing is eating him alive.

The phone keeps ringing and I let it. I’m fucking done answering him. He can be someone else’s disaster. I’m fucking done.

The ride home is quiet, except for the sound of my phone lighting up in my lap, showing Phoenix’s name.

I decline him once. Then again.

By the third time, I stop looking at the screen and instead open a message to Dad.