As we head to the door, I let Everleigh’s chatter wash over me, eyes on my shoes and a faint smile tugging at my lips. She fills the silence with stories and nonsense, knowing I can’t bear the quiet when my heart aches.
The bell above the door jingles as we step inside. A few of the employees call out to us in welcome, but that's not what stops my feet from moving and my head jerking up.
It’s the sudden way Everleigh freezes, a low, dangerous growl rumbling up from deep inside her.
I follow her gaze, and whatever scraps of wholeness I had left crumble into dust.
Sitting at a table, laughing, is Alek.
Along with David and fucking Jerica.
Jerica and Alek are sitting together on one side, and David sits on the other.
I watch them, hollow inside, while they remain blissfully unaware of the invisible blood pooling at my feet.
Jerica bumps her shoulder into Alek’s, laughter spilling from her lips, and I catch the way his whole face lights up in response.
David must feel our eyes on him because his head jerks in our direction and locks onto me. Then he turns back to them and leans across, saying something. He must tell Alek that I'm here because his head lifts and veers our way.
Relief, regret, guilt, sadness...they all cross his face before it blanks.
"Let's go somewhere else," I murmur.
"No." Everleigh grabs my chin and turns my head until I'm looking at her. "You will not run. That's not what you do, baby cakes. My best friend does not run from little cuntmaggots." My lips twitch. "What we're going to do is go find a seat. If we pass by them, we're going to say hi like he's a complete stranger, not someone we've spent the last three years with. Then we're going to fucking eat because he is not fucking with my food. That bitch has nothing,absolutely fucking nothing, on you. Do you hear me?"
"I hear you," I whisper.
She locks her fingers through mine and begins pulling us in their direction. Alek stands with a smile, but I keep my eyes to a spot right over his shoulder, so that it looks like I'm peering straight through him.
We stop beside their table, and I fight to keep my breathing steady so that none of them knows how hard this is for me. My hand trembles in Everleigh’s, and she tightens hers around mine, letting me know that she’s there, that she’s got me.
“Well, isn’t this all nice and cozy?” Everleigh snarks.
“Ever,” Alek says wearily.
Part of me wants to laugh at the tremor of fear in his voice, but the emptiness inside me swallows everything else.
Everleigh turns to me when he says her name and lifts a brow. “Do you hear something, Vin? Sounds like a little cuntmaggot trying to speak to me.”
“Hey, you don’t have the right to call him names,” Jerica says, standing up in the booth.
“Oh, shit,” David mutters.
Alek tunes out everyone else, his gaze locked on me. I look right through him, slipping into a numbness so complete that nothing can touch me.
He reaches for me, fingertips grazing my cheek, and I jerk away as if his touch burns.
"Hayvin," he whispers, his voice fracturing like shattering glass.
I glance at Everleigh, and the look she gives Jerica and Alek could cut glass.
“Alek, get your little girlfriend. She opens her mouth to me again, and I’m going to inform everyone in this place what a stinky pussy she has,” Everleigh commands.
“Excuse me,” Jerica gasps.
“J, shut the hell up,” David mutters.
Everleigh widens her lips into a huge smile at Jerica. “Be a good little girl and listen to your brother.”
