Page 175 of Pay for Your Lies

“It’s torture not touching you.” I mutter, my words garbled by the booze. “But pain is the price we pay for love. Trish taught me that.”

“She did? When?”

“When she was here after Bellamy was hurt. She was right that it’s a price worth paying, but this is worse pain than losing you. Seeing you and loving you but not getting to keep you.”

She grabs the arm keeping her trapped against the wall and pushes me back. Once she’s free, I expect her to release me, but she doesn’t.

I look down at where her palm is wrapped around my wrist and see that she’s running tentative fingers across her fluffy pink hair tie. I never took it off.

“Maybe you should give this back,” she says softly, her head bent to look at it.

I pull my wrist out of her hold. “You’ll have to pry it off my cold, dead body.”

I stumble back and she puts a steadying hand on me to keep me from falling. I shouldn’t have gotten this drunk, but it was the easiest way to forget the pain.

“Can you do me a favor?”

She quirks an eyebrow at me. “What?”

I bring my wrist and the hair tie up to my nose and inhale. “It doesn’t smell like you anymore. Can you put some of your perfume on it?”

She gives me a searching gaze, her arms crossed as I see her debate whether or not to agree. Finally, she turns and walks back into her apartment and to her room.

She didn’t tell me to wait outside, so I assume I can go in after her and I do.

Her bed calls to me, the fluffy pillows and the promise of her scent wrapped around me too enticing to resist as I let myself fall onto her mattress with a groan.

She turns from her shelf with the bottle in hand and sees me splayed on her comforter.

“Don’t get too comfortable.”

“Mhmm.”

She sits next to me and grabs my wrist, spraying her floral perfume a couple of times on the hair tie before letting it drop to the mattress.

I bring it back up to my nose and inhale it sharply, overwhelmed by her scent. “Fuck yes.”

My eyes flutter close to combat the dizziness. I feel like I’m laying in a bed on a ship in the middle of rough, open waters and not one in a dorm room.

I have no concept of how long I stay like this before I pass out, the smell of roses and jasmine tickling my nose.

???

I fight against a pounding headache to open my eyes.

I’m met with a bedroom that isn’t mine and beautiful morning light that makes me want to never open my eyes again.

I’ve got the driest mouth I’ve ever had, like the last time I took a sip of water was two years ago, and very little memory of last night.

I remember going to the bar and coming to Thayer’s. I guess I passed out in her bed and she let me stay over. I look down to see that I’m only in my underwear and tucked under the covers.

She must have taken care of me in my state. Guilt lances through me that I was a burden to her last night. I’d come here driven by the need to see her and talk to her, and I’d probably made my situation worse instead.

I look over to my left and see that the bed is empty. The covers are thrown back and there’s an imprint of her head on the pillow, so she must have slept next to me last night before getting up early.

Grabbing my phone, I see that it’s ten thirty am.

Not that early then.

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