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CHAPTER SIX
Indi
Iwoke alone with Xoan’ssong lyrics for company and knew he wasn’t coming back. The page I drew for him crumpled in my hands, and I doubled over, the agony of fresh heartbreak piercing my gut like a blade ripped in every direction at once.
I didn’t have a friend at Rippton to call; I didn’t have anyone here. So I locked myself in my dorm and cried, the song he played on repeat in my head no matter what other music I listened to.
One week, and I was an utter mess.Maybe it's a good thing he’s gone.We both knew it was a fling. That’s why I wrote the words on his sheet. I ran through the ones he filled out under it, a story unfolding in a few words, played on a chorus of heartstrings, his cramped writing filling the page at the bottom.
Or run because you can, steal my second chances,
Take them, starve me into a thousand fragments
Of starlight in those perfect midnight eyes
I blinked, reading the lines over again. It was like he’d taken some future version of us, and shredded it down into a dozen lines or more, predicting our future from the past. My throat burned, and I swallowed bitter acid.
Somewhere beneath the blankets my phone buzzed. I collected it, tracing my fingers over the marks Xoan left on my hips, on my arms–hell, he marked my entire body with his brand of rough love that made my blood sing.
My phone rang insistently, and I picked it up without looking, without talking.
If it was him...would he even talk to me? Would he call?
Spoilers: it wasn’t him.
“Hello, Indiria.” Lance’s voice sounded greasy through the phone. “Are you enjoying your time apart?”
It was anotherhim.Those words filtered through my brain, and my heart tore a little more.
“Why, Lance?” I whispered. “Just let me go.”Please. Let me be free for once.
“You’re my fucking wife!” he screamed suddenly over the line. “You’re mine and I won’t!” He sounded like a petulant child, albeit a terrifying one.
Run from heartache, what we can’t ever be
You can have my encore tonight
But what will you give in return to me?
Xoan’s last question, the lines he never sang, haunted my mind, swirling around in his voice as Lance abused me, screeching from my phone.
I blinked at the device and clarity descended on me.
“You’re stalling the divorce.” Silence, blessed silence, the sort Xoan would have loved blanketed Lance’s frenzied echoes. “Aren’t you?”
“Our marriage is binding,” he snarled. “You cannot walk away from me.”
I tilted my head on one side, able to think through the problem for the first time without fear of what I said next. “Money. Have you lost it all, Lance? All your job gave you, what Xoan gave? All the ties you made?” I started to laugh, falling back on my bed and clutching Xoan’s words to my chest as the power switched sides. “Oh, my God. You’re broke. You do need me, don’t you?”
His last tie to his paycheck, if he hadn’t already fucked us both over in a fit of rage like I suspected he had.
How karma backfired on the self-saboteur.
From the moment Lance told me about the opportunity with Xoan I’d been wary. Now, in retrospect, it all came crashing down, hurting everyone he aimed that self loathing at...including himself.
His silence was a quiet confirmation of my assessment.
“It’s okay,” I said softly, condescendingly. “It’s over now. I’ll make sure of it.”
