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“We’re fine,” I mumble, not willing to meet his eyes.
“Didn’t seem that way to me. Odd, no, given yourrelationship.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re fine,” I fumble, taking a couple of steps backwards, needing the support of the wall before my knees fucking give way.
“I was at the club, Pen. I saw everything.”He was at the club?
“Your Jeb’s bitch, why don’t you askhim?” I spit back. The best form of defence is offence, right? Besides, it’s not as if he doesn’t know the whole sorry story, well at least part of it. He was there that night too.
York stands, striding over to me. “I’m no one’sbitch,” he snaps, looking more the bloodthirsty vampire now than he ever did when we were young. He’s so pale, his skin’s almost luminescent, tiny blue veins run beneath the surface entwining with the oak tree’s branches and roots. Close up, I can see the intricate detail of the bark, it’s branches are thick and heavy with leaves, some are leaden with rain drops that drip to the ground.
“I belong to no one,Pen.”Unlike you. He doesn’t say those words, but I know that’s what he’s implying.
I flinch, as though he’s slapped me.
I want him to call me Titch. I wish I didn’t, but I do. Goddamn him. Goddamn all of them.
Swallowing hard, I drag my gaze away from his tattoo and look up into the eyes of the boy who could, once upon a time, look right into my soul and know exactly how I was feeling. He steps close, his forearms pressing against the wall as he cages me in.
“I don’t belong to anyone…” he repeats, and I have the sudden urge to capture his cheek in my palm, to feel the dark blonde stubble that grows there scratch against my skin.
“Except the Breakers. You belong to them,” I whisper back, the crack in my voice giving me away. I grit my jaw, refusing to look away from the ice in his gaze. It’s sharp, jagged, cold… and yet, I can feel the heat from his body like he has a fire raging just beneath his skin, waiting to break through the last layers of the ice in his eyes.
He leans in close, his lips a hairsbreadth from mine. “You did once too,” he mutters, his forehead pressing against mine. My chest heaves. I’m so fucking close to lifting my chin, to pressing my lips against his. It would be so easy to fall back into his arms. To let him really see the truths that lie beneath this thin mask I wear.
“That was a long time ago,” I say instead, pushing down the cold dread I always feel when I’m reminded why our friendship was so spectacularly destroyed and why it needs to remain that way.
“What are you hiding, Pen?” he mutters, almost to himself.
“Please, just leave.” I duck out of his arms, sliding away from him and backing up to the opposite side of the room. He turns slowly, his eyes glinting. He watches me for what seems like an eternity and I feel naked, bare beneath his penetrating gaze. Every ounce of strength I have is used to stiffen my spine, to shut down.
“Why didn’t you trust us, huh?Why, Pen?” He asks, but I can tell by the look on his face that was an internal thought he wasn’t supposed to say out loud.
“Trust?” I bark out a laugh, hating the brittle sound. “You became one ofthem. How could I?”
“And yet you…” he shakes his head, laughing just as coldly. He opens and closes his mouth, as though warring with himself. I see a flicker of the old York, the one who wouldn’t hesitate to take me in his arms and hold me close in comfort. “You know what, Pen, this was a fucking mistake,” he sneers, his eyes frosting over once more.
I watch him leave, every step away from me chipping away at my heart. When he gets to my front door, he turns and any kind of emotion he may have let filter through is gone.
“Did you like the drink by the way?” he asks, his hand curled around the door knob so tightly I can see the white of his knuckles.
“That wasyou?”
“Can’t an old friend buy you a drink?”
“We’re not friends anymore, York,” I whisper.
His fist pounds against the door frame. Once, twice, three times, my heart slamming in time with the sound. “I fucking know that,Pen.”
Then without another word, he yanks open the door and storms out of my flat leaving me breathless and heartbroken all over again. It isn’t until much later, as the rising sun filters through the cracks in the curtains, that I realise the significance of his tattoo.
It looks exactly like the tree I stood beneath that night we first met.
