Page 11 of Broken Pieces
The kind of girl they write songs about but never survive.
Unless someone knows exactly where to press, and I do.
I don’t speed up.
There’s no need to.
She isn’t some quick fix, some easy thrill you chase down in the dark just to feel alive. She’s not a girl you rush. She’s the kind you earn, slowly, painfully, one step at a time, if she even lets you.
Even if I don’t deserve her. Even if getting close to her means I’m the one left bleeding.
She’s vibrating. Full of fury. All wound-up tension and sharp silence. Every part of her coiled so tight it looks like the next wrong breath might set her off.
And fuck, I want to be the one to do it.
When I get closer, each step cuts through the silence like a warning. I don’t hide the sound. Don’t soften my approach. I want her to hear me. To register it in her spine. Let it crawl under her skin and settle there, the way she’s been living under mine.
The air between us turns electric, humming with something that burns too close to want and too heavy to ignore. It’s still. Waiting. So thick I can almost chew through it, every breath laced with the weight of everything we’ve never said and all the fucked-up glances we’ve thrown when the days got too sharp.
It settles in my mouth, bitter and charged.
She doesn’t move.
Doesn’t flinch.
She stands there breathing harder, chest rising too fast, as if some part of her already senses it’s me behind her—already bracing for what’s coming.
I’m close now.
Close enough to thread my fingers through that wild, reckless knot in her hair and yank her head back to hear what kind of sound she makes. Close enough to press my chest to her spine and let my mouth brush her ear, whisper every filthy thing I’ve been biting back.
But I don’t.
I hold the space between us, keep it taut, keep it dangerous, to see if she’ll break first. To see if she’ll turn around and fucking dare me.
My smirk curls slowly as I drop my voice, low.
“You standing there waiting for a hero... or just someone to fuck your shit up?”
She whips around fast, eyes flashing. Her jaw’s set. That mouth, already half open.
“You wanna fuck off, cocky prick?”
Her tone slams into me, and all it does is make the heat coil lower in my gut.
I take another step.
I don’t touch her. Not yet. I let the weight of me settle too close, breathing too steady, grinning as if the ending is already written.
“Careful, trouble. You keep talking like that, I might think you want me to ruin you.”
She doesn’t blink. Doesn’t back off. She tips her chin higher instead, fire catching in her eyes like she’s daring me to do it.
Fuck, she’s perfect.
I laugh, and it’s real. Deep and rough, torn straight from somewhere buried under all the shit I’ve had to choke down.
A sound I haven’t heard from myself in years.
