Page 17 of Biker Boo

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Chapter 5

Royal

October 28 “Porcelain”

You only see the porcelain.

Not the cracks, not the smoke behind the smile.

Not the boy who clawed out of church basements

with poems instead of prayers.

You called me sweet.

But I’ve been rotting sugar on a rusty blade

since the day they marked me saved.

I would bleed out behind this mask

if it meant you never had to cry again.

Iwait until the light in Becki’s trailer flickers off.

Not that she’s sleeping.

I know she ain’t.Becki don’t sleep easy, not when her world’s unraveling.

Not when I’m pulling at the threads.

But it’s not me, she’s heartbroken over.Legend’s found someone else to warm his bed.

I’ve always been the quiet one.The shadow.The slow burn nobody sees until they’re scorched clean through.

Legend?He’s the storm.The firework.The king she crowned in her fantasies.

But I’m the one who’s been watching her for years.

Who’s bled for her without her knowing.

Tonight, I bleed again.

I slide the mask on, black and white, cracked like bone, and pull my hood low.Yeah, I was wearing Legend’s hoodie before.Snagged it from the clubhouse to throw her off my scent.

The weight in my chest tightens as I cross the trailer steps and test the door.

Unlocked.

Becki trusts the dark too much.

Inside, it smells like her.Pumpkin spice and desperation.

It guts me.

She's curled on the couch in a tangle of blankets, one leg bare, throat exposed like an offering.There’s no TV playing tonight, no slasher flicks.Just her breath, too fast for sleep, and the thump-thump of her heart I swear I can hear across the room.

She knows.

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