But I need to check on her. I should make sure she got home safe after acting a little weird at Ellis’ party. Something was off about her tonight, and I get the feeling Chloe wasn’t the only reason she was feeling it. I saw the way she kept looking at Logan like she was seeing him for the first time. And I’ll admit, I’m feeling a little pissed off, too. But not at Skyla. At Logan. The dude can’t take a hint, no matter how many times Skyla and I tell him that it’s our time now.
I miss the left I’m supposed to make and end up driving toward West instead. Bad habits die hard.
But then driving helps. And I should probably lose all of the anger I have toward Logan way before I ever set foot in Skyla’s bedroom.
The roads are empty except for the fog that rolls across the asphalt like a smoky old friend. Paragon has that end-of-the-world feeling tonight, like the island is just holding its breath waiting for something to happen. And I can’t shake the feeling that whatever is about to happen, it’s about to happen to me.
I glance over at West as I’m about to pass it, and I inch back at an odd sight.
Is that Logan’s truck?
I squint as I head that way. Sure enough, it sits behind the gym at West Paragon High, with its chrome bumper catching the moonlight.
Two shadows move beneath the massive mural of Cerberus. Golden hair spills over familiar shoulders as a girl is pushed against the wall, a guy’s hands twisted through those curls I know by heart. His mouth covers hers like he’s drowning, and she’s the air he needs to survive.
My foot hits the brake so hard that the truck lurches.
What the hell?
Skyla is my girlfriend.Mine. We’ve been together for months, and tonight she was supposed to, we were going to?—
The punch to my gut comes fast and brutal. Like someone reached inside my chest and twisted my heart into knots. I grip the steering wheel and watch my girlfriend disappear into another guy’s arms, watch her arch against the wall like she belongs there. Like she wants to be there.
Logan lifts her up, and she wraps her legs around his waist like they’ve done this before. Like I’m nothing. Like the promises we made, the plans we had, the way she looks at me, none of it matters.
Part of me wants to get out of the truck and run on over. Wants to remind them both that she’s with me. That I had her first, that I love her in ways Logan can’t even understand. That we’re destined to get married one day, just like the visions I’ve had foretold.
But the logical part of me knows better.
Instead, I gun the engine and peel out, tires squealing against the wet pavement.
Fine. If she wants to play games with Logan, she can have him. But this doesn’t change anything between us. It can’t. At least I don’t think it can.
It doesn’t change the fact that she still looks at me like I’m her whole world when she thinks no one is watching. She still finds excuses to touch my hand when she passes me in the hallway. She still gets that dreamy expression when I smile at her.
Logan might have stolen a moment under some stupid haunted mural, but I’ve got something deeper. Something that doesn’t need to hide in parking lots behind the school.
I head home through empty streets, past houses where normal people are sleeping and leading normal lives.
But nothing about Paragon is normal, and nothing about what I just saw makes sense.
Something is changing. I can feel it in the way the fog clings to everything, including my bones, in the way Skyla acted like a stranger wearing her face tonight, in the way my chest still feels like someone is tearing it apart from the inside.
I guess it just means I have to fight harder.
After all, she’s worth it.
11
Logan
The fog rolls off my skin like steam as I push through Barron and Emma’s front door.
The grandfather clock in the hallway chimes three in the morning, each note echoing through the silence like a confession. My lips still taste like Skyla, and every nerve in my body hums with the memory of her pressed against that brick wall.
Tonight was worth it. Every complicated second of it.
The kitchen light spills warm yellow across the hardwood, and I follow it like a beacon. Food. Need food. My body feels like I just ran a marathon and bench-pressed a truck afterward.
