Not fucking enough.
It’s just numbing the edges. Smoothing out the jagged parts without killing the blade inside my chest.
She’s still there—behind my eyes, under my skin. That soft fucking laugh. That quiet little tilt of her head when he spoke to her.
Torres.
Torres.
Torres.
I taste the name like rust. Like blood off the back of my teeth.
And I hate that he made her smile.
Burke’s saying something about some girl back home. Jordan’s making blowjob jokes that would’ve been funny an hour ago.
I don’t fucking care.
I’m nursing this bottle like it’s medicine. Sitting in the dirt like a fucking ghost, letting their laughter echo around me while mine dies in my throat.
Smoke curls up from the fire. Ash lands on my sleeve. I watch it burn a tiny hole into the fabric. Still not as scorched as I feel inside.
Someone throws a rock.
It hits the side of the tent and gets a round of hollers.
“Shit, Dax, you hear that one?”
“Yo, he’s fucked up.”
“Drunk Kingston’s a dangerous Kingston.”
I take another swig. Don’t even bother responding.
I am dangerous and not because of what I’ve done out there in the sand.
Not because of what I’ve seen but because of what I feel.
For her.
That reckless, choking, all-consuming thing that curdles in my gut when I see her with someone else.
That thing that makes me want to put my fist through a wall and then tear my own fucking heart out because it’s hers.
She doesn’t know.
She doesn’t fucking know what she does to me.
“Yo, Torres!” someone calls. He’s laughing across the fire, leaned back with his arms behind his head like he hasn’t ruined my entire fucking night. “Monroe gonna patch you up next time, huh?”
“Shit, better hope she kisses it better!” More laughter and he just grins. Like a smug son of a bitch.
Like he’s already tasted her mouth and claimed her laugh and made her forget me entirely.
My hand clenches around the bottle neck.
I swear to God, if he touches her—if he even tries—I’ll bury him in the sand and blame the fucking war.
