Silence stretches. Then softer, cautious: “What happened?”
I grip the wheel with my free hand, knuckles white. The words are heavy, stuck in my throat. I want to tell him everything. About the accountant. About Victor’s rage. About the bottle and the blood and the drops that kept me moving long after my body should’ve quit. About Chloe, most of all. Her smile, her perfume filling my car, the way I kissed her even though I knew I shouldn’t. Even though I warned my best friend not to do the same thing I just did.
I swallow hard. “I fucked up, Jamie.”
He sighs, tired, but I hear the concern under it. “What else is new?”
“No.” My voice cracks, raw. “I mean it this time. I really fucked up. And it’s not just me anymore.”
I don’t say her name. I can’t. If I do, it’ll make it too real. But her ghost is here anyway, sitting in the passenger seat, humming to the radio, looking at me like I’m something I’m not.
Jamie doesn’t push. He just waits.
The dawn creeps at the edges of the sky, gray light bleeding into the horizon. My pulse hammers, my head throbs, my whole body screams for rest. But I grip the phone tighter and force the words out, because if I don’t say them now, I never will.
“I kissed her,” I whisper, the confession tearing out of me.
11
Chloe
It’sridiculoushowmuchI’ve smiled today.
From the moment I woke up, my face has had this stupid ache in my cheeks, like I’ve been holding back laughter or a secret no one else deserves to know. I keep replaying last night in my head—the rain, the quiet of his car, the way Miles looked at me like I was something dangerous and fascinating all at once. That kiss. God, that kiss.
Every time I close my eyes, I feel it again—his hand tangled in my hair, the heat of his breath, the taste of him when he said my name like he didn’t know what he was doing but couldn’t stop.
I try to tell myself to stop thinking about it, that it was just one moment, an accident maybe, a spark that shouldn’t have happened. But my body doesn’t listen. My pulse races every time someone walks past me wearing gray, or when I smell something faintly like smoke and leather.
Classes drag. I barely register anything the professors say. I doodle his name in the corner of my notebook like I’m twelve. I hate it. I hate that I can’t focus, that my mind keeps going back to the way he looked under that streetlight when he told me to walk inside.
By noon, Bella waves at me across the cafeteria, and I half-heartedly wave back, pretending to eat my salad while scrolling my phone. Nothing new. No messages from my father’s lawyer—thank God. No messages from him either.
Not that I expected any.
Miles Thatcher doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who texts after he kisses you in the rain.
But still… a part of me hoped.
He’d said he would, right? Everything is kind of a blur to be honest.
I have to stop myself before I end up turned on all fucking day.
The hours blur together. It’s almost four when I finally step out of my last class, juggling my bag, my notes, and the gnawing mix of nerves and anticipation twisting inside me. The air outside is heavy, humid from last night’s rain, the pavement slick and shining like glass.
And then I see Miles. He’s leaning against the side of the gym building, hat pulled low, hood up, cigarette between his fingers. He’s with a few other guys—tall, broad, the kind of swagger that screams hockey team. But my eyes find him instantly.
For a second, I freeze.
Then I make myself walk over.
He doesn’t see me at first, too busy talking, smoke curling around his mouth like a secret. When he finally glances my way, something in his expression shifts. Not surprise exactly—something colder. Distant.
“Hey,” I say softly.
He exhales smoke, flicks the cigarette to the side, and nods at the guys. They drift off without a word, giving us space.
Now it’s just him and me.
