Page 10 of Revolve
In the kitchen, Scarlett starts mixing drinks. “You gonna be okay?”
The look she gives me makes me feel fragile, and I hate that she sees me that way. Even more, I hate that I feel it too. It’s been over a year; I was prepared for this.
I was sixteen when Justin and I partnered. It was right after I won gold as a singles skater. Everyone around me—my parents, mycoaches, Team USA—was ecstatic with that win, but the medal felt like a noose. I’d hit the pinnacle of my solo career, and it didn’t make me enough. Instead, it felt like I’d come up against a concrete ceiling. That’s when Justin swooped in, and I reawakened. I would be enough for him because I was never enough for myself.
“I’ll be fine,” I say, trying to smile, but I’m not sure it’s convincing. Luckily, some girls from Iona House wave at us, and we’re pulled into a conversation. The music is loud, but it doesn’t drown out the flashbacks. Not when the cause of them is in the same room.
I can’t handle the burn spreading in my chest. “Scar, I’m the worst and I’m sorry but—”
“Let’s go,” she interrupts. “The music sucks and the drinks aren’t even good.”
When I’m about to tell her she can stay and that I hate to ruin the one night she has time to go out, she doesn’t let me. Scarlett requests an Uber, and we wait on the curb in silence. She never lets me apologize, doesn’t let me pay for the Uber, and not once does she release my hand from her unshakable grip.
FIVE
DYLAN
MORNING AFTERS AREhell. They’re even worse when I haven’t drunk at all and the backs of my eyes still pulse with a headache. Why am I being punished? I’ve given too many people the best night of their life to be treated like this. I lift my head to see the morning sun stamp a window-shaped shadow on my closet doors.
My memories of last night are scattered, but one hits me hard. Maybe it was her piercing green eyes, the red lips, or the tiny skirt that showed off the kind of thighs I’d happily let her suffocate me with, but the girl wasn’t what I expected. You spill a drink on someone at a party and you get afuck youand a middle finger.Notan irritated figure skater who takes your IOU without even giving you her name.
I check the time on my phone. It’s still earlier than I’d ever willingly wake up, but the warmth emanating from the other side of my bed kills the lingering haze.
What the fuck?
I rake my spotty memory for someone I might’ve brought home last night.Is it her?A fire flares in my stomach, but it dies quickly, because I remember after I found my car blocked in the driveway, Iwalked home. The rest of my lame night was spent watching anything other than hockey, and when I ordered a pizza, I vaguely remember asking the delivery guy if he wanted to watch a movie with me. He did.
Damn it, is it the pizza delivery guy?
My heart stills as I turn toward the body curled under the comforter. I cautiously lift one side, but when I catch sight of the idiot dead asleep beside me, I blow out a breath of relief.
“Why are you in my bed?” I rip the comforter off Kian, who’s still covered in paint. When he doesn’t stir, I push him hard enough that he rolls off the mattress to the floor with a heavy thud and a high-pitched scream.
He blinks at me from his place on the floor with disbelief, sprawling flat in defeat. At least he’s got boxers on, even if they are his Ken-themed ones.
“Good morning to you too,” Kian mutters. “Do you treat all your guests like this?”
“Myguestsare usually hotter than you and wake me up with a thank-you for the night before.”
He slaps a hand over his chest to feign offense. “I won’t whore myself out just because I needed a place to sleep last night.”
“Keep your whoring to yourself, Ishida,” I say. “What’s wrong with your room anyway?”
I imagine he’d have had to find someone having sex in there or something equally off-putting to deem my room an alternate safe space. We still have two free rooms in the house that belong to Aiden and Eli, but we haven’t bothered to give them to anyone else since the guys say they’ll visit. Or we’d like to believe they will.
I sit up against the headboard just as Kian sighs dramatically. “It was too far.”
He catches the pillow I throw at him and hugs it to his chest. He’s lucky I don’t have the energy for anything worse.
It’s hours later, and I’m tossing out the empty pizza box I left in the living room last night as Kian stumbles into the kitchen, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“What’s to eat?” he asks.
I hold up a bag of moldy bread, and Kian grimaces before grabbing a box of cereal. He cranks up the small antique radio he picked up at a garage sale last week, then sits on the counter, bowl in hand, watching me clean. Then my phone lights up.
Vik:Heads up. Results went out an hour ago.
Ohshit. Now, that’s one memory that hits me hard. The goddamntest. I thought I’d have more time. The clatter of my phone slipping from my hands and falling to the floor doesn’t register past the sharp ringing in my ears. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I pace the kitchen and pick my phone back up. I haven’t received a text or email from Kilner yet, and that terrifies me.
