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“Oh shit,” Jax said from where he and the blonde were now staring at us wide-eyed.
I loosened my arms, and she broke free with enough speed to stumble when she hopped out of the tub.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” I got out and touched her shoulder, but she flinched. It felt like a bullet to my gut. I kept my voice calm and didn’t reach for her again. “What’s wrong?”
She spun, and shining blue eyes met mine, rimmed with tears. “I believed you before.”
I stepped forward, unsure where she was going with this. “Believed me about what?”
“That you had me,” she said, and I froze. How many times had I said that to her? She grabbed her clothes off the ground and stormed off into the sea of people. I went to follow her, but Jax held me back with a firm hand on my shoulder.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. She’s hurting. She needs time.”
My chest burned, and I swallowed back my words. I used to be the one she turned to when she was hurting. I broke free from Jax’s grasp and locked my fingers over my head, growling out, “Fuck!”
SEVENTEEN
PIPER
I’d escaped backto my dorm after fleeing from the fair and had been sitting here for a good forty minutes, surrounded by my books and trying to concentrate. But it was useless with the memory of Lucas’s arms around me.
My roommate wasn’t here. I’d have to ask her what she was up to since our schedules rarely lined up. I’d been worried about moving in with her before, but she’d proven to be an excellent roommate, even if she was a little too obsessed with the Huskies for me.
On every surface of our room, there was some form of Huskies merch, whether it was a poster, her backpack—even her freaking pillowcase had their logo on it.
Intense superfan didn’t start to explain it.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to keep my friendship with the boys a secret. I had to stop them from coming here at all costs. She was bound to lose her ever-loving mind.
Spending time with Lucas today was like a time warp. For a brief few moments, I let myself lean back into him and feel his arms around me.
When he whispered, “I’ve got you,” every memory of him telling me those same words came rushing forward. The times he’d pull me from nightmares and hold me until I calmed. He stood above that cliff and convinced me so long as I jumped with him, everything would work out. It was all lies. I wasn’t safe with him at all. He’d abandoned me when I needed him. I sucked in a broken breath. He broke me.
I practically ran from the fair, not wanting him to see me cry. I’d worked through this several times with my therapist. She’d helped me with techniques to calm my breathing, and I reminded myself that I had control of my reactions. I’d cried enough over that boy.
We all grieve differently, but this wasn’t just grief. He chopped me out of his life like a tumor. It hurt so bad I struggled to breathe. He was the one person who made me feel safe, and he’d abandoned me when I desperately needed him.
I was naive enough to think he loved me, even though he’d never said that to me, and he proved me so wrong when Marcus died. People don’t leave their loved ones like that. It took time for me to work out who I was if I wasn’t Marcus’s sister in love with his best friend. I hadn’t realized that had become my entire personality until they were ripped away. I’d spent the last year finding myself again.
The door banged open, and Misty’s neon green hair bounced with her as she entered. I really did love her hair.
“Oh my God, I had no idea you were gonna be here. I’m so excited. I feel like you’re never around.” Her voice came out in a rapid mess of bubbly words.
“Yeah…sorry, I’ve been busy hanging out with friends. I’ll be around more often.” I couldn’t help my smile that matched hers.
Loud beeping pierced my ears, and I pressed both hands against them to suppress the sound. My breaths came out too hard, and my heart was rapidly trying to escape out of my throat. I swallowed it down, repeating the same few words. “It’s just a drill. There’s no fire. They told us this would happen.”
Misty opened the door and peeked her head outside. Students were shouting at each other, but all my focus landed on the burning smell of fire that wafted into the room.
My lungs hollowed out, and the room started to spin, knocking me to my knees. The smoke grew thicker, burning my nose with every weak breath I took.
Misty dropped down beside me, her voice high-pitched with panic. “We’ve gotta get out of here. You need to get up.”
Memories flooded me, taking over rational thought. I curled into a ball, covering my head with my arms. Small hands pulled at my shoulders, but I was lost to that night twelve years ago. Black smoke billowing at the ceiling and flames crawling up the walls. A whimper escaped my throat, and my eyes burned.
“Get up, please, Piper. Get up,” Misty pleaded with me, and she shook my shoulders, but I buried tighter into a ball, my fingers digging into my hair until my scalp screamed in protest. I couldn’t hear, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see anything but flames. The lick of heat up my limbs. I could hear her crying, but I couldn’t respond.
I trembled, and my breath was too shallow as my vision turned fuzzy. Distantly, banging sounded on the door, but I was too far gone, blackness closing in on me.
