Page 68 of The Girl I Once Loved

A lapse in judgment has me gripping onto his neck tighter, loving how his long wild hair brushes up against the back of my hands.

“You let it grow out again,” I hear myself whisper as if my heart has decided it needs a turn to do the talking now.

“Hmm.”

It takes three heartbeats for me to ask, “Why?”

His shoulders sag, and I hear him take in a deep breath, as if he’s trying to summon up the courage to tell me the truth.

“You know why.”

My eyelids close on their own accord as I hear the truth in his confession, making the pang in my heart hurt that much more. Not happy with the turmoil he’s induced with those three little words, he kills me with his next ones.

Noah lifts my chin with his knuckles, gently coaxing me to look him in the eye.

“I’ve missed you.”

It’s in this instant that I gain the strength to pull away, turn my back, and leave the room.

Because if I had stayed, I’d have to admit to him how much I missed him too.

How I’ll probably never stop.

Chapter Sixteen

Noah

Even though the rain is pouring down hard when I leave the house to sprint over to my loft, it does very little to cool my feverish skin. Once I get inside, I race over to my bathroom and turn the shower on, in the hopes that it will have better success in cooling me down.

But as my head falls under its cold sprays, my palms spread out against the tile to keep me tethered, it doesn’t stop my mind from wandering back to Sky.

All I can ever think about is Sky.

There was a moment there as we were dancing together with our parents, where her cold façade broke, revealing the face of the girl I fell in love with. The girl who still has her name carved into my chest, the one who branded me hers, unsuitable for any other.

There she was, in all her spectacular glory…happy.

Truly and irrevocably happy.

But the instant we started dancing together, that happiness evaporated like a puff of smoke. She looked up at me with such torment in her silver gaze, such anguish, that it took my very breath away.

I’ve seen that pain in the mirror every day since she left me. I have lived and breathed that misery for so long, that when I saw that it lived inside her too, something in me just snapped, needing to erase all of her pain away.

So I held her close. I let myself pretend that she was mine, and I alone had the power to erase such suffering from within her.

And before I knew what I was doing, I told her the one truth that should have never left my lips. Selfishly, and with no regard for her pain.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, I told Sky that I missed her.

“You fucking idiot,” I curse at myself, turning off the water since it’s doing nothing to ease the knots in my stomach.

I step out of the shower and wrap a towel around my midriff, catching my reflection in the mirror. My hands grip the edges of the sink as I take a good hard look at myself, scornful accusation staring back at me.

What the fuck are you doing?

Why can’t I just leave her the fuck alone?

Do I care so little for my sanity? Am I so eager to have my fucking heart broken again?

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