Page 60 of The Casualty of Us
“Ophelia!”
Oh, fuck.
I make it to the first landing, whipping around the corner to see the lobby waiting at the bottom of the next set of stairs right when a hand closes around my elbow. “Can you just stop it with the shit for like—”
“My shit?!” I bat his hand away with the book. “My shit?! Really?!”
“Yeah! Because you’ve gone full-on Machiavelli!”
“God,” I scoff, narrowing my eyes at him. “You probably didn’t even read the whole book—”
“I’m just trying to tell you—”
“Just looked up the CliffsNotes!”
“Fuck!”
I turn back and dart down the stairs before he can grab me again, but his curse has everyone in the lobby turning our way. All eyes come to watch our display with rapt attention andleave me trying to maintain my ignore everyone policy while still escaping. Knowing that if I can just leave everyone with as little information as possible, this story can be crafted and salvaged later. If he’ll just—
“Can you just—”
His fingers brush the back of my elbow, and I react out of instinct, whipping around and lifting the book at him in warning. Catching how his eyes blow wide before dropping to mine with something desperate in them that has my stomach plummeting.
Knowing I’m going to hate it and trying to make it stop even as he shouts, “I love you!”
“Fuck you!”
Our voices overlap each other, echoing around the library lobby to reverberate in my ears with the ringing there. Both of us standing there staring at each other in the wake of the storm and witnessing the damage caused firsthand. In the pain-laced twist of his face and how the hazel is cracked open now, torment there reaching out for the couple of tears that are rolling down my pinched face.
No will left in me to fight it or keep them at bay anymore because it’s all out there.
No take-backs.
“Hayes.”
The girly voice has me turning my head to see a blonde suddenly standing beside us, a dramatically uncomfortable look on her face as she shuffles her feet.
“Hayes.”
“Not fucking now, Josey.”
I look back at him with a vicious laugh, quickly using the back of my hand to dash the tears away. “No, please—”
“Ophelia—”
“Hayes—”
“Josey!” I snort her name, rounding us out and catching the way his jaw starts twitching again.
“O—”
I turn away before he can even get my name out this time, taking a single step past the blonde in question before she reaches out to set a hand on my arm. “I’m really sorry, Ophelia,”
“Take your hand off of me.”
“It just happened, ya know?”
I gasp. “I said, let go—”
