Page 64 of I Blame the Rival

She reaches out to touch me, but I quickly pull away. Silence falls between us as I bore a hole into her shoes, the pressure in my chest building with each inhale.

“Skylar. Can you look at me?”

When I don’t move she lets out a soft sigh, “Alright. Can you tell me why you won’t look at me?”

I swallow, feeling the nausea return, “I don’t want to see you look at me like everyone else does.”

“How does everyone else look at you?”

“Like I’m the rival.” I close my eyes, feeling the bitter truth penetrate my skin, “The bad apple from a line of rotten seeds. The black sheep from the other side of the tracks.”

“Skylar.” Lacey breathes out my name but I shake my head.

“They’re right, Flower. I’m the son of an abusive man and the brother of a violent one. I just… I just wanted you to see me as just Skylar for a little bit longer.”

All along I’ve been telling her I wasn’t a hero. Just the broken toy people use as a cautionary tale. The little Vin brother who has to draw his way through anger management.

The sad fact of the matter is, people like me don’t get a happy ending.

Lacey steps forward, her fingers reaching out to caress my face. I press my cheek into her hand, wishing I was strong enough to turn away.

“You’ve never been just Skylar.”

She cradles my face, trying to get me to look at her, “You’re the only person I’ve wanted to talk to since I found your first message. Every week, I would count down the days to my next therapy session just so I could see your writing.”

Her words scrape the rough edges of my heart, but I don’t raise my gaze from the ground. Being around Lacey has helped me not hate the person I see in the mirror every morning. She’s helped me remember just how many parts of myself are still good.

But if she looks at me now, that will all change. Because there is no hiding from the irrefutable stain of the Vin last name. The violence my brother unleashed on Taber’s lacrosse field last year.

All because of my silence.

Lacey clears her throat, recapturing my attention, “And then I met you and my world got so much brighter. Finally, I had found someone who wasn’t afraid to linger in the darkness. Someone whose secrets were just as heavy as mine.”

She runs her finger up my cheek and down my nose, gently tracing my face.

“You don’t need to be afraid, Skylar. I don’t blame you for what happened to Cody and I don’t hold it against your brother either.”

I shake my head, “Vector hurt him, Flower.”

She sighs, “I know. But that doesn’t change the way I see you. And it shouldn’t change the way you see yourself either.”

Slowly, I drag my eyes over her Tigers jersey and up to her face. Lacey stares right through me, her big green eyes filled with warmth and understanding.

But there’s one aspect she doesn’t understand.

I open my mouth to tell her the truth, the reason I’ve carried around so much guilt all these years, when she kisses me.

Pushing me back against the wall, Lacey presses her body against mine, stealing the breath straight from my lungs. Her nails scrape against the back of my neck and my hands instinctively latch on to her waist, pulling her flush against me.

My train of thought gets completely derailed when Lacey swivels her hips against me. Letting out a quiet groan, I scrape my teeth along her bottom lip as my hands trail down to feel the soft flesh of her ass. She grinds against me in response, her tongue tangling with mine as I gently press into her.

Intertwining our fingers, I bring her arms up over my neck before running my hands down both sides of her torso. She shivers against my touch, and I break away to trail my lips along her jaw and down her throat.

“Skylar.”

Lacey’s nails dig into my shoulder and I freeze, suddenly afraid I pushed her too far.

“What’s wrong?”

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