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He knows.
He’s as good as told me he remembers. That it was all a lie. Because what he said he’d do to break me… That’s exactly what he did.
I shudder again, a sob wracking my body this time.
He destroyed me, and he did it by never telling a soul. And now, he wants me to know it. He wants me to know it was all by design, that he’s been plotting it all along. That all along, he knew. He never forgot. He just doesn’t care. It means so little to him that he’s forgotten it by choice.
He made me crawl. Beg. Call him my king.
And he was.
I was nothing to him.
He’s filled my heart and soul with anguish and shame and hope and love and agony every fucking day of the past year.
I was so forgettable I didn’t even register for him.
He was my everything, the lifeline I held to when the storm of the Dolce boys got too rough, too brutal.
That’s not a word I’d use to describe sex.
I remember him saying that last year. I remember everything.
And it’s too much. I can’t hold it in. He made something live inside me again, and it’s grown too big for the cage I made to contain it. It’s going to tear out of me, and when it does…
It’s going to kill me.
It’s too much. I can’t hold it all inside anymore, and I don’t know how to get it out.
I want to slice my skin open to let it out.
But I can’t leave marks because Mom will see them. I can’t punch things like Royal does. I can’t cut myself like Harper does. She doesn’t know I’ve seen the marks she cut up her arm, but I have. I know those marks, not because I have them, but because a hundred thousand times I’ve wanted to do the same.
I can do two things—I can drive, or I can drink.
Or I could do both.
I think that over. But as much as I would love to go out in a blaze of glory, cocooned in the safe space of my June Bug, I would hate for them to have to cut me out of her. I would hate to destroy her, and I’d hate to leave a gross mess of a corpse for Mom to identify. It’s the same reason I can’t step to the edge of the roof, spread my arms, and fly. I wonder what that moment would feel like, the few seconds before I hit the ground. I bet they’d be exhilarating, worth dying for.
But that would traumatize the entire zombie horde. I don’t want them wondering if I’m dead, poking my body. I don’t want them joking they thought I’d bounce because surely I’m made of plastic.
No, if I was going to make it all go away, I’d need to use something neat and pretty. Something that would let Mom be proud one more time, and everyone at Willow Heights stand over my open coffin and say, “Perfect even in death.”
I lift my head and take a few deep breaths of the cold air, letting my exhale billow as a plume into the night. I can smell that Colt is smoking again, and a craving claws along my insides like a branch scratching at a window. I run my ring fingers along the rims of my eyes, making sure no traces of tears remain.
If I want to be perfect in death, I have to be perfect in life.
I can fake it as good as Colt Darling. I’m the fucking queen of fake. What am I doing, over here crying like a little bitch instead of fighting back?
I could tell him I know he’s faking the memory loss. That would take care of him.
Duke would ask what I meant, and Colt would challenge me, not believing I’d out myself and admit I fucked a golem like him. And when I did, Duke would push him off the roof.
Fuck. Why can’t I just do it, let him get it over with?
I’ve spent a year trying to forget him, and I can’t manage to go a single day without him invading my thoughts, burrowing into my veins like a poison that’s infected my mind, my heart, my soul. I tried to lock Colt in a memory box of sacred treasures like I did my memories of Rylan. I tried to focus on my job, to be a good queen and satisfy the Dolce boys and obey their every command, but Royal dumped me anyway. I tried to love Rylan again, but I can’t even do that right.
Colt ruined everything. He ruinedme.
