Page 3 of Only When We Fall

But I’m starting to like the girl I might become.

Kai

Student Bar, Friday Night

It’s strange how quickly this place already feels like home. None of it feels new anymore, yet I’ve only been here a week. It’s like Uni life cracked open just enough for me to slip right in.

Exactly what I needed.

I’m perched at the edge of the bar, drink in hand, half-listening to Seb try (and fail) to charm the bartender. I’m not even that into the music, but I like the noise. The way it fills your ears and leaves no space for thoughts to creep in.

I glance around the room casually. And then I see her. My drink pauses mid-air.

She’s got the same dark hair. A grey hoodie under a leather jacket. She’s facing away from me, talking to someone, laughing, and for a second, my stomach tightens like a punch.

Emmie?

My heart stutters before my brain catches up.Nah. Not her. This girl’s shorter. The voice is wrong. The way she laughs is louder.Not Emmie.

I let out a breath and take another sip, like that flicker of hope, or whatever it was, didn’t just knock me sideways.

It keeps happening.

A flash of her in a crowd. Someone who walks the same way. A laugh that sounds a little too familiar. I don’t even know what I’m expecting. Like she’d just show up here, walk past me, say,Hey Kai, remember me? The girl you bet on. The girl you fucked over. The girl you broke.

I think about her more than I mean to. It’s probably guilt. They say it can eat you alive. But late at night, when everything is quiet, and there’s nothing else to distract me, in she creeps. Usually, it’s her face that taunts me, the one when she finally walked away for the very last time. Her pain-filled eyes torture me right down to my soul. But I guess it’s what I deserve.

I was an idiot. An immature, stupid kid trying too hard to be what everyone else wanted me to be. And in the end, I hurt the one person that didn’t deserve it.

Seb smacks me on the shoulder. “Oi, Banks. You alive in there?”

“Yeah,” I say, blinking out of it. “Just spaced out.”

He grins. “Come on, tragic poet. Let’s find you someone to write sonnets about.”

I laugh, but it’s half-hearted. I should be over her by now. But sometimes, just for a second, it feels like I’m still searching for her in every room I walk into. Even after I’ve moved miles away to start a new life.

Seb hands me another drink I don’t remember asking for, and we melt into the crowd like it’s second nature.

I laugh at the right moments. Shove the lads around in that chest-thumping way we do. I flirt with some second-year girl who tells me I’ve got “mischief eyes” and a smirk I should be fined for. I give herthegrin. The one I use to get away with everything. And it works. It always does.

To anyone watching, I probably look like I’m having the time of my life.

Inside, I’m exhausted.

But it’s easier this way. Be loud. Be sharp. Be the guy everyone expects. I’ve done it for so long that it feels like muscle memory.

The girl, Theresa? Tanya? Something with a T, leans in closer. Her hand brushes my arm, her perfume way too sweet and clinging. I could stop this now. I should. But I don’t.

I kiss her.

Because I can. Because Ishould. Because it’s been weeks, and I have to fucking move on.

But the second her lips touch mine, everything in me recoils. She’s not Emmie. She doesn’t kiss soft and unsure. She doesn’t smell like vanilla and summer and ink-stained paperbacks. She doesn’t pull back just enough to whisper something sarcastic under her breath before kissing me again.

I open my eyes halfway through, like that’ll help. It doesn’t. I see her face, but it’sEmmie’sface in my head. Her laugh. Her eyes judging. Searching.Hurting.

I break the kiss too fast, mumbling something about needing air. She looks confused, maybe a bit insulted, but I don’t care.

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