Page 97 of Behind the Bars

“What is it?” hebarked.

“I just…” My words faded away as my mind tried to hold on to the broken pieces I saw in his gaze. I recognized that. I understood the sadness he harbored somewhere deep inside his soul, because it matched my own. What I didn’t understand was the harsh side he was committed to presenting to the world, to me. “I just wanted to check that you wereokay.”

“I’m always okay.” He brushed past me toward TJ’s house, and I sighed,following.

“It’s okay if you’re not okay,” I told him. “I know I wouldn’t be okay coming back to the place I grew up, being around the memory ofKat—”

“Shut up!” he barked, turning around to face me in the middle of thestreet.

“What?”

He moved closer, his strong build reminding me how small I was in comparison. He hovered over me, inches away from my face. His warm breaths brushed against my skin as he spoke. “Justdon’t.”

“Elliott—”

“You don’t know me anymore, and I have no desire to r-r-rebuild a friendship. I didn’t come back for you,” he told me, his tone socold.

“I never said you did,” I whispered, feelingembarrassed.

“You look at me like you believe I did, though, like this—likewemean something, but we don’t. You mean nothing to me and I mean nothing to you, all right? I came back to help care for TJ and t-that’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. Do youunderstand?”

I nodded and my shoulders rounded. Each second, I felt smaller. “Yes.”

“Good.” He turned around and walked toward the house, then he stopped once more. “AndJasmine?”

“Yes?”

“Never mention my sister to me again—ever.”

He left me standing in the road as my mind tried to catch up. I was completely stunned, frozen still, the same way he had been moments before. Then, as I discovered my thoughts, as I realized what I should’ve said to him, I stormed back into thehouse.

“No,” I whisper-shouted toward Elliott, knowing TJ wassleeping.

“Excuseme?”

“I said no. You don’t get to talk to me like that. You don’t get to belittle me and tell me to shut up because you’re sad—and don’t lie to me and say you’re not sad, Elliott, because you are. You are sad, and I saw it. In that split second when you first turned around, I saw the real you, the hurt you, and I’m sorry I brought her up. That was me crossing the line, but you don’t get to tell me to shut up for checking on you. You don’t get to tell me who I can and cannot be. If you want to ignore me, if you want me to ignore you, fine, but don’t ever tell me to shut up again. I’m not the girl you get to tell to shutup.”

“You’re right.” He shifted around in his shoes as his eyebrows lowered. “I’msorry.”

I stepped backward, a bit taken aback by hisapology.

I hadn’t expected it atall.

“Oh?” Imuttered.

“I don’t—” He paused, and the corner of his mouth twitched. “I didn’t mean to…” He stuffed his hands into his pockets, lowered his stare, and cleared his throat. When his head rose, he locked eyes with me, and that softness I’d once known was back in his stare. “I don’t know how to exist around you,” he told me, so raw, so truthful. I saw him, saw how much it pained him to tell me that before he walked away, leaving mestunned.

He confused me so much. It amazed me how he could be so hot and cold in a span of seconds. I wasn’t certain how to take it, what it meant, but I did know I felt exactly the same way hedid.

I didn’t have a clue how to exist aroundhim.

Yet still, even with his shadows, I craved for him tostay.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Elliott

Isufferedfrom nightmares during sporadic moments of each day. Each time I looked in the mirror, it bothered me my face sometimes reminded me of my sister’s. Every room I stood inside of at TJ’s had some sort of memory of her attached to it. The hallway toward the bedrooms even had markings of our heights since we were two years old. His house was my second home, where we celebrated all holidays, birthdays, and randomTuesdays.

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