17
SUTTON
Un-fucking-believable.
Parker really doesn’t have a clue.
Heat floods my cheeks and I’m not sure if it’s secondhand embarrassment or good old-fashioned irritation. Which is stupid. I knew he didn’t have a clue, but this is just… I can’t even with this guy.
He stares at me, eyes searching mine, and it’s a painful reminder that what we shared was so unremarkable—thatIwas so goddamn unremarkable—he still can’t remember me.
Or doesn’t want to.
I shove the thought away. Nothing good will come from it.
My hands shake and it’s another reminder that deep down, in the darkest part of my conscious, the part I avoid examining too closely, I still believed he might remember. That seeing me again—at the apartment, in class, on Greek Row—would spark some latent memory of the night we shared.
Wishful thinking, sis.
“Well?” he asks, voice gruff. His playful demeanor has vanished, and he appears as frustrated by this situation—by the fact that we can’t seem to stay out of each other’s way—as I am. A muscle feathers along his jaw, drawing attention to the angular lines of his face and the scruffy five o’clock shadow darkening his fair skin.
This would be so much easier if he were a troll.
As if sensing the shift in my attention, Parker reaches for me. He scrapes a calloused finger down the side of my face and desire crackles across my skin as he cups my chin.
Heat flares low in my belly, followed by deep-seated self-loathing.
How can his touch still ignite these feelings in me?
“Talk to me, Shorty.” His thumb brushes across my cheek and a shiver races down my spine. “What’s going on in that gorgeous head of yours?”
No sé.
What I do know is that staring into Parker’s eyes won’t help me figure it out. I square my shoulders and tip my head back, because no way am I going to let him get the best of me.
Not again.
Which means I need to put an end to this line of questioning. To squash whatever misguided curiosity has him intent on dredging up the past. On figuring me out.
“I don’t hate you, Parker.” I let a wide smile spread over my face and force a quiet laugh, although my heart is slamming against my ribcage and I think I’m going to throw up. “Hate implies I care about you, which I don’t.”
It’s a shitty thing to say. Bitchy, even.
But I can’t go there with him. Can’t make myself vulnerable by telling him the truth. Because if he blew me off again—or worse, laughed in my face—I’m not sure I could take it.
So there it is. Despite all the changes I’ve made—the dye job, the piercings, the clothes— despite how hard I’ve worked to project confidence, I’m still the same insecure girl I was two years ago, seeking external validation.
That’s what happens when you grow up standing in someone else’s shadow.
It fucking sucks.
I shove past Parker and clamber down the first staircase I see. I need to get out of this house. It was foolish to come here. To think, even for a second, that maybe he’d changed. That he wasn’t an arrogant, self-absorbed prick.
Now who’s the pendejo?
My footfalls are heavy on the stairs, but no one pays me a lick of attention. Not even the couple who press themselves against the wall as I fly past. When I reach the landing, I shove through the crowd to the living room, searching for Maddie and the others.
After the relative quiet of the second floor, the music is earsplitting, and maybe it’s my imagination, but the dancefloor seems even more crowded than when I left, making it impossible to locate my friends.
