Page 3 of Wreckage

The way her lips parted when she read, like whispering the words into the world, made whatever story she was reading real. The way her fingers traced the spine of her book absentmindedly. She never looked up or reacted to anyone, even when they whispered about her behind her back, even when the guys catcalled her or said nasty shit about her on campus.

She was an enigma, an irritation, a constant reminder of everything I’d lost and would never have.

And yet, the moment she left us in the student center, I felt hollow.

Like I’d been sucked dry, left to exist in the nothing around me.

It pissed me off.

I slumped back against the leather couch in my apartment, dragging a hand through my hair as the memory clung to me like a stain I couldn’t scrub from my mind. I hated her presence, but I hated her absence more.

What the fuck was wrong with me?

Elena had always been like this. Always quiet, constantly alone, always fucking untouchable. She never tried. She never wanted. And maybe that was what I hated most about her—that she acted as if none of it mattered. As if we didn’t matter.

I remembered the first time I saw her.

I was twelve. She was eleven.

Dad had brought Lacey and Elena over to the house for the first time, and I’d been standing in the kitchen, gripping the counter’s edge so hard my knuckles had gone white. My mom had been gone for six months by then, and I still woke up every morning thinking she’d be back.

But she never came back.

Instead,theyshowed up.

Elena had been small, her arms wrapped around a book like it could protect her from the world around her. Her dark hair was too long, brushing the backs of her skinny arms, and she had big, unnervingly blue eyes that flickered around the room like she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to be there.

I’d hated her then, too.

I'd hated the way she stayed quiet when Troy and I asked her questions and watched us like we were wild animals she didn’t know how to approach. I’d hated how my dad looked at Lacey, like he’d already decided she belonged there.

And I’d hated the way Elena never changed.

She was still that same quiet, nerdy girl. She just looked different now—infuriatingly beautiful, full breasts I caught myself staring guiltily at more than I cared to admit, and that air of nothing goddamn mattering. It drove me insane how my friends had wanted her. They’d all whispered about her at parties, commenting on the way she looked in thoseoversized sweaters and leggings like she had no fucking idea what she did to people.

But she ignored them just like she ignored me.

And maybe I hated that about her most of all. Nothing Troy or I did ever got her attention. She’d duck her head further and keep going.

I shoved the thoughts away and grabbed my keys. I needed a distraction. Anything to drown out the way my thoughts kept circling back toher, her, her.

The party was already in full swing by the time I got there. Troy’s frat always threw the best parties. Troy himself was a party animal, so it made sense. I was more reserved and studious than he was. Music pounded from inside the frat house, bass heavy enough to shake the walls. People spilled onto the lawn, red Solo cups in their hands, voices loud and slurred.

This was what I needed.

A fucking reset.

I went inside, slipping through the bodies pressed together in the hallway. Someone handed me a beer, and I took it without question, tilting it back and letting the cold rush burn away the last remnants of Elena’s face in my mind.

Halfway through my drink, a girl pressed against me, her arms looping around my neck.Rachel.My guaranteed lay. We went way back—all the way to freshman year in high school. We’d been hooking up since I was able to grow hair on my balls. She was accepted at Lakewood like I was. I knew it had to do more with it being her old man’s alma mater rather than her intelligence because she was simply average in that department.

“You finally decided to show up,” she purred, pressing her lips against my jaw.

I smirked, letting my hands settle on her waist. “You waiting for me or something?”

“Maybe.”

She pulled me closer, her mouth finding mine, and I let her. I let her pull me into the dark, her hands roaming and her body distracting me.

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