Page 142 of Long Live the King

Over my dead fucking body.

My skin crawled just having to grab her waist. Having to feel her nails in my back. It was all wrong.

I pick up my discarded shirt, jacket, and tie and head back towards the door without a look in Lyra’s direction.

“Babe.” She whines from behind me.

“Not interested.” I snap, slamming the door closed behind me.

Once outside, I pause, suddenly world weary. The weight of what I just did hits me and takes me out at the knees.

Sitting on the front steps of the RCA main building, I pull out a cigarette and light it, watching the end burn against the black of the night.

I take a drag and try not to think about Bellamy’s face. I rub my hand over my eyes hoping it’ll help erase the memories, but all I can see is the haunted, betrayed look stamped on her lovely face.

The truth is, being with me isn't safe for her. I’d unknowingly put her in danger by dragging her into my life and around my father. The moment he’d threatened her, I’d known I needed to find a way to keep her far away from him and by extension, me.

I almost hadn’t been able to go through with it when I’d seen her standing in the library. She’d been so breathtakingly beautiful, it’d stopped me in my tracks. A happy, earnest, loving smile on her face as she saw me.

Me.

How I’d gotten so lucky as to have her smiles directed at me , I didn’t know. I’d wanted to lock her away somewhere and keep her to myself.

But keeping her safe was the priority. If that meant losing her in the process, that was a deal with the Devil that I’d gladly make.

It’d only taken one look in Lyra’s direction to have her follow me into the classroom, desperate as always. She’d tried jumping me, kissing me, but the thought of touching anyone else had my stomach roiling.

She wasn’t Bellamy and I didn’t want anybody else.

I’d trapped Lyra’s upper arms against her sides so she could only grab my waist. I’d bent over her, using my size to make it look like I was holding her caged beneath me in an intimate moment.

Bellamy had walked in on us then. Lyra, only too happy to be the victor by supposedly having stolen me back, had jumped in with petty commentary that had been the final nail in the coffin of selling this act.

I take drag after drag, burning the cigarette down to ashes as I relive those moments.

I always thought that when the time came, I’d easily give Bellamy up. Our journey would have run its course and we’d go our separate ways without a backwards glance.

Now, as I pondered how I was expected to go about life as if there wasn't a gaping hole in my chest where a certain vital organ used to be, I realized the truth of the statement that sometimes it takes losing something to make you realize how much you really cared for it.

???

35.

Bellamy

A week passes without a word between us.

I see him every day.

He’s everywhere.

In my classes, sitting a couple tables away in the cafeteria, settling under a tree next to ours on the lawn.

It’s impossible to avoid the king of RCA when he doesn’t want you to and I swear I think he’s keeping an eye on me.

I feel his gaze burning into my back or the side of my face throughout the day. I never look, never give him the satisfaction of giving in and checking if it is him, no matter how much I’m dying to. But I know it’s him. He’s undressed me with that same look hundreds of times before.

I ignore his direct gaze but sometimes I steal a quick glance when I know he’s not looking. He always looks the same; stoic, a frown on his face, a cold detachment emanating from him that distances him from the rest of the crowd.

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