Page 40 of For Three Seconds

I shook my head. “I’m not going.”

“But isn’t your brother one of the coaches?”

I gave him a look, surprised that he would know that about me.

Isaac blushed. “The guys talk.”

“About me?”

“Something like that,” he offered.

I was trying to think what that meant when I bumped into someone.

“What the fuck is wrong with you. Don’t you watch where you are going?” the whiney voice said, and I froze.

It sounded familiar because it was a voice I’d grown up hearing. It was more familiar than my own.

I froze.

I stopped breathing.

I hated myself a little at that moment.

Gigi was there, and she still looked as delicate and graceful as ever. Her hair was a bit shorter, and the baby fat from her face was gone. She looked like a model, so put together, while I was a mess. Knowing she went to this school was one thing, but seeing her was another.

Three years, and I thought I’d let time pass me by when, in reality, it was just waiting for me to catch up. Time was patient and elusive; we were mortal and fragile. You could evade your problems, but sooner or later, they would catch up to you, and when they did, they wouldn’t have mercy.

She looked up, and her eyes collided with mine. Her eyes flashed with pain, and I knew I was the cause of it. It didn’t matter how Gigi had treated me—at the end, what I did was much worse.

“Why did you have to come here?” she spat at me before she turned away and left.

I was beginning to ask myself the same question. Out of all the places I could have gone, why did I agree with my brother? The truth was, I was too much of a coward to be alone, and I had hoped that after all these years, my sins could have been water under the bridge. Well, the bridge was at its limit and had started to overflow.

“Well, guess you fit in as much as I do,” Isaac said.

He had no idea. I didn’t answer; instead, I walked away.

Holy crap.

Fuck.

I slept with Gavin.

I couldn’t deal with the emotions that rushed over me this morning, and I had to get away. I was glad I’d insisted on driving. Ever since my parents died, I never wanted to be stranded at a party. I didn’t want anyone to die because of me. If an accident happened, it was better if I was alone.

Walking through the back of the house, my dress under Gavin’s shirt made me feel cheap. I was lucky I didn’t run into anyone on the way to my house. Once I was in my driveway, I let out a relieved breath my brother wasn’t home. The first thing I did was take a hot shower as if that would wash away the hickeys on my skin and the markings on my body.

As if that wasn’t enough, the soreness between my legs was a brutal reminder of who I had slept with. Even if Gigi didn’t matter to him, she mattered to me. A sick part of me laughed because last night, I hadn’t thought of her at all.

That was the thing about lust; it was selfish. But love? Love was selfless. What Gavin and I had was lust that didn’t care who it hurt.

The knock on my door startled me, and my heart thumped wildly, thinking it was Gavin coming to look for me. Those damn butterflies that only came to rise in his wake fluttered.

I took a deep breath and opened the door only to be caught off guard at Gigi standing there still in yesterday’s clothes. Her mascara ran down her cheeks, and her eyes were swollen from crying.

“You’re not going to invite me in?” She gave me a sad smile.

I couldn’t remember when the last time she’d come over.

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