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“What?” I asked.
“Is this the part where you tell me that we had fun, but you want some space?”
“Isn’t that your line?” My brow arched, and his expression darkened.
“Low blow, shortcake.”
Tension stretched between us. Fraying at the edges. Making my stomach churn.
“Sorry”—a soft sigh escaped me—“that wasn’t a nice thing to say.”
“So why’d you say it?” Noah came around and sat on the edge of the bed, not caring one bit that he was buck-naked.
My eyes drank in the sight of him. The cut lines of his body, the smooth sun-kissed skin stretched over corded muscle—the tattoos decorating his skin like intricate armor.
“This isn’t my life, Noah. I don’t get the guy. The happy ending.”
“What did he do to you, shortcake? Your ex?” His eyes searched mine as he reached for me, brushing the flyaway hairs from my face, silently begging me to let him in. To give him the truth.
“He hurt you, didn’t he?” he added when I said nothing.
A bitter laugh bubbled in my throat.
“He didn’t hurt me, Noah. He completely destroyed me,” I whispered, pain lashing my insides.
“You can tell me, Aurora. You can trust me.”
“I…” But I couldn’t say the words.
How could I?
How could I tell him that my boyfriend and my so-called best friend had been sleeping together behind my back?
That when I found them together in his bed—the bed where I’d given him my virginity—that they’d looked at me with so much pity, a part of me had withered and died.
“Did you really think that we’d go the distance?” he’d said, gazing at Tierney in a way he’d never looked at me.
Not once.
Because that was my destiny, to be the girl on the sidelines. Always overlooked for the pretty, popular girl.
And one day, maybe not tomorrow or in a week or even next month, Noah would realize that.
He would realize he could do so much better than me.
“It’s okay,” he said, sensing my discomfort. “We don’t have to talk about it now.”
I nodded. Because what else could I do?
I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to give him the truth. To tell him how, after Ben dumped me for my best friend, I’d binged so hard that I’d made myself physically sick. And then I’d smashed up every mirror in my bedroom because I saw exactly what he saw, a fat ugly girl unworthy of his love.
For weeks, I couldn’t look at myself without doubling down on my self-hatred. I was so disgusted and angry for ever letting myself fall for the fantasy.
For ever believing him.
Every day at school, I had to relive the pain and heartache all over again. Seeing the two of them with our friends, their friends because, let’s face it, they had only ever been friends with me because of Tierney and Ben in the first place. They were the perfect couple, and Tierney was the girl everyone expected Ben to be with.
Pretty, popular… perfect.
