Page 75 of Not Your Little Girl Anymore

It doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter because there is never going to be anything between me and Alec Sokolov.

“It’s done with, OK? I just want to lay down.”

She nods. “Yeah. Just take my bed for now, OK.”

“I can’t take your bed from you.”

Chloe laughs. “Dude. Go sleep in my fucking bed and shut up. I’m fine out here. Seriously. When I’m actually home, I fall asleep out here anyhow. Go. Make yourself comfortable.”

She pulls her phone out, swiftly typing over the screen. If it were any other time or place, I would nag her until she gives me the details of this mystery man she’s been seeing, but right now, I don’t have it in me to prod.

Getting off the couch, I grab my bag and swing it over my shoulder. “Chloe,” I say, pulling her attention back to me. “I love you.”

She gives a sweet smile. “Love you too, bitch.”

When I get into Chloe’s bedroom, I shut the door before sitting down on her bed. A sigh falls out of my mouth as soon as my butt hits the Temper-Pedic mattress, and the foam hugs my sides. I tug my bag onto my lap, unzipping the large pocket, and shove my hand inside, moving it around until my fingers wrap around a hard, metal object. Pulling it out and holding it in both hands, I stare down at my father’s spare gun that I stole from his safe before leaving the house. It wasn’t hard after all. All of Dad’s passwords have been the same for years.

My birthday.

The barrel taunts me in ways I know are wrong.

I didn’t steal it because I wanted to kill myself, although I admit I thought about it once or twice on the walk to Chloe’s.

I stole it because it’s the only thing that will protect me from my father.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Alec

Everything feels different.

It’s like my whole soul has flipped upside down, and the more I try to pull myself back up… the deeper it gets.

Missing her, that is.

I miss the sound of her laugh.

I miss the color her skin turned when I said her nickname and the way it felt being next to her. I was relaxed and less worried. I felt comfort in ways I hadn’t in a very long time. She was like my own personal succubus.

It’s stupid, really, considering it’s only been a couple of days since I last saw her, but knowing I no longer will hurts.

I thought that I was protecting her by not telling her that her father arrested me time and time again, but it was I who was being fucking selfish.

That’s all I ever am.

A selfish man who will only care about himself.

Aunt Jules’s words snake through my mind. The same ones that taunted me every day since she gained custody of us.

You’re never going anywhere, Alec. You’re just as selfish as your mother and father when they decided to let the drugs consume them and forget that you and Callie ever existed. Never thinking about anyone but themselves. Blocking out the reality of life. You’re just like them.

For years, I have tried to block out Jules’s thoughts of me. Knowing that I would never be like my father. I am nothing like him, but as I sit on my couch in my apartment, waiting for Chase, I can’t help but feel like my aunt was right.

It wasn’t until I spoke to Summer that first time on the commons bench that I realized something inside of me shifted. I fought it, hoping that maybe I could focus on revenge instead. How stupid of me to think that revenge would soothe the anger I withheld all these years.

Revenge is worthless. It only pushes you further from where you want to be.

And now… now that selfish part of me, that black hole in my heart… it’s thicker. Darker. Deeper. And there is no way I can crawl myself out from under it.

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