Page 240 of Did They Break You

When Cortland left me on that porch, crying and alone, to keep me safe.

I wrapped all those moments up into my paper, and I didn’t mention Storm, or Brinklin, or Chase. Didn’t mention Silas, either, or even my mom.

Just those three.The three who love me most in the world.

A smile curves my lips as I reach for my paper, only to have annoyance obliterate all good feelings as I see Cortland has taken one of my orange glimmer pens and crossed out the first line of my paper

Love feels like dying.My words.

But the last word is scribbled out, and sloppy cursive takes its place, then a line is squeezed in underneath it.Living.

Love feels like living, pretty baby.

CHAPTER

SEVENTY

CORTLAND

Maya stops walking,staring up at me as the color drains from her face.

I slide my phone into my pocket. The one she keeps blowing up. And I step toward her, crowding her against the brick wall outside of Remi’s dorm, at the bottom of the stairwell.

She’s going to have to use that printer in her room to reprint what I ruined, so it might take her a minute to come out yelling at me.

Maya happened to be walking by, she said when she spotted me out here.Yeah, bitch, I bet you were.

She chews her bottom lip, staring up at me with big blue eyes.

I think about how she tried to blackmail me at Grim.

The messages she’s been sending me, begging me to take her back. Telling me she never had any photos, which I figured as much since she’s done nothing with them. Warning me that Chase is unhinged, and freaking her out, and his mom is going to die.

As if any of that is my fucking problem.

I think about her dropping Remi as she rakes her eyes over my body now, arching a brow, like she’s trying to tease me or some shit.

But most of all, I think about the dorm fire Chase all but admitted he started.

I run my tongue over my lip ring as I stare at her, and say, “Sorry it’s taken so long to get back to you, Maya, but I’ve been a little busy.”

She glances at the dorm building at my back, narrowing her eyes. “Yeah,” she says, “with that bitch.”

I smile at that, tilting my head as I look over her tight sweater and high-waisted jeans. She has her hands by her sides, and I notice she presses her palms to the wall, arching her a back a little so her tits are closer to me.

“Yeah,that bitch,”I say softly, repeating her words as my eyes find hers again.

She shakes her head. “I don’t get it, Cort, but I know you’ll get tired of her eventually. I know you feel bad and?—”

“You don’t know shit about what I feel, Maya,” I interrupt her, keeping my voice pleasant.

She furrows her brows, standing up a little straighter. Starting to look uncomfortable for the first time. But I don’t move my hands, planted on either side of her head.

“But there are some things I don’t know about you, either,” I tell her quietly, stepping even closer.

She presses back against the wall, biting her lip. “Like what?” she asks, her voice soft. Her hair is cut to her shoulders now, and Mom informed me she had to block her number because she wouldn’t stop blowing upherphone.

Saying something that my mom felt the need to tell me that. Considering she’s a cunt, too.

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