Page 63 of From the Wreckage
The TV blurs. My head hangs heavy in my hands, breath dragging through my chest like broken glass.
The sound of my phone buzzing on the table cuts through the haze, sharp and insistent. I glance over, expecting nothing worth answering... But her name lights the screen.
My chest seizes. My thumb hovers before I swipe it open.
Angel: Can’t sleep. Thinking about you.
A rough laugh escapes me, torn from somewhere deep, jagged around the edges. My pulse hammers, guilt and want tangling until I can’t tell them apart.
She should be the last person I answer. But she’s always the first.
Me: Angel, you’re going to ruin me.
The dots appear instantly, taunting me.
Angel: Maybe I already have.
Christ. My hand fists my hair, torn between throwing the phone across the room and clutching it like a lifeline.
Me: You have no idea what you’re doing to me.
Angel: Then show me. Tomorrow? Please?
My lungs lock. The ghosts of Matt, Bryan, and Cole sneer in the background of my head, their laughter echoing as they taunt me.You don’t get another shot, Ev. You don’t deserve one.
But then there’s her. Sweet, reckless Brielle, tugging me out of the wreckage without even knowing it.
I type before I can stop myself.
Me: Yeah. Tomorrow. Anytime you want.
I toss the phone aside, lean back on the couch, and stare at the ceiling.
Guilt still gnaws at me, but Brielle is a life raft, saving me from drowning.
The cold beer sweats against my palm, untouched. The game flickers across the TV, bright helmets colliding, announcers shouting out plays. I should be watching. Instead, all I see is her smile.
My chest feels tight, too full of things I can’t talk about. Every time I think about Matt, Bryan, and Cole—about what I did and all I’ve lost—I feel like I’m already damned. And yet Brielle looks at me like I’m worth something. Like I’m a man she can trust.
I rake a hand down my face, exhaling hard. She doesn’t know. She can’t. If she ever saw the blood on my hands, the wreckage I carry, she’d run. Hell, I wouldn’t blame her for it.
But the truth is, if she asked me to come to her right now, I would. No hesitation. No second thoughts.
I’d burn in my own guilt, in my own ruin, just to feel her in my arms again.
I close my eyes, gripping the neck of the bottle until my knuckles ache.
God help me, she’s going to destroy me.
CHAPTER 43
Brielle
I setmy phone down on the nightstand, the glow of Everett’s last message still burning behind my eyelids.
“Yeah. Tomorrow. Anytime you want.”
Tomorrow.One word that carries the weight of everything I shouldn’t want and everything I can’t seem to stop needing.
