Page 25 of The Consequence of Loving Me

I throw my blonde hair over my shoulder, trying to appear as nonchalant as possible. Putting up my shields that were just slightly lowered right back into place. I pull my lips into a smile, “You won’t.”

And then I reach across the table and steal one of his fries.

I can taste the chocolate of the milkshake on my tongue as if it were yesterday. I can feel the way his green eyes analyzed every last part of me. It’s agonizing. My skin itches and much to my dismay, my eyes fill with tears.

It was the best night of my life.

It led to the best year of my life.

And then, it led to the worst times of my life—to the hell I’m still living in.

Connor and I were just friends for a week before his witty jokes and persistence won my heart. He was the silly boy in love with the entitled girl. We were never bound to work. But we were happy in our short-lived fairytale. He consumed every part of me. There wasn’t a single part of me that didn’t also belong to him. It turned out that my hard armor was guarding the softest heart. A heart that danced out of my chest and made a home in him in less than seven days.

A sob escapes me as our year together flashes through my head.

The soft curls of his hair. His dumb jokes. The way his body didn’t fit into the coupe my parents gifted me on my birthday. The way he loved every inch of me. The way I loved being his. The way I loved feeling love.

The way I felt when it came to a crashing end.

It all flies through my head until I can’t pinpoint what is my reality and what is my past. I hit my pillow with my balled fist over and over, trying to release the tension in my body, the tension in my mind.

I can hear my phone vibrating on the end of my bed—probably my mother.

I want to answer it and yell at her. To scream at her for uttering the name I never want to hear again, can’t afford to hear again.

But I don’t have it in me to battle her. I can’t even battle my own demons right now, let alone her.

So I let the tears fall from my eyes until my naked skin dampens. My naked skin that is still naked from the night before with Tristan.

The irony crosses my mind. The fact that these tears I cry for the boy who knew me inside and out are washing my naked, dirty body from a night with a guy I hardly know.

I think of Connor. He was constantly trying to make me better, trying to prove to me that deep down I was a good human being.

He was wrong.

Right now, all I feel is dirty and evil. As I cry for a man from my past while I sit here naked for a man who has no part of my future, my skin begins to crawl. I want to get out of it. I want to wash every mistake—the past and the current—from my body.

I fly off my bed and into my bathroom as fast as I can, not even bothering to put something on me for the walk from my room to the basement bathroom.

My mind doesn’t stop to consider if there’s somebody down here or not. All it can register is the fact that I am so dirty and gross and damaged that I have to wash it, scratch it, remove it from my body.

The bathroom door slams behind me as another sob breaks from my body. I can’t get to the shower quick enough. My hand shakes as I push the nozzle as hot as it will go. Water sputters out of the shower head. I don’t wait for the water to warm before I climb in and let it run down my body.

The tears won’t stop coming. No matter how many times I tell myself I don’t deserve to grieve—or feel anything—it still comes.

The sound of a door shutting pulls me from my memories. And now I have to wonder if someone was down here. If someone in my present just witnessed this breaking. This thing I try to hide so fiercely.

The hot water stings my skin. I relish it as the night before gets washed from my body.

I can almost feel Connor’s memories getting washed from my mind.

Almost.

15

Maverick

My feet hurry up the basement stairs, racing like I can’t get out of here fast enough. The coffee mug in my hand splatters hot coffee everywhere, dripping down my hand and onto the carpet. I fiddle with the doorknob, slamming the basement door behind me. I hastily slam the coffee cup on the kitchen counter and then beeline for my room. I have enough mind not to slam the bedroom door, and I push it shut softly before resting my forehead against it as I gather my thoughts.

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