Scrambling to sit up, her fingers fumble, shoving thephoto into her pocket like it will erase the last ten seconds. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing.” I let out a humorless laugh that makes my own ears burn. “Right.”
I step closer, because apparently I like pain.
“What else are you hiding, Sierra?”
“Don't.” She edges away, preferring the cold glass of the window pressed against her back than my getting any closer to her.
Message received.
Too bad I don’t give a shit.
“Don't what, Sierra?” I move closer, crowding her into the corner of the window seat. “Don't remind you how you threw us away? How you made me believe none of it was real?”
“You know why?—”
I slam my palms onto the window frame on either side of her, caging her in—the wood creaking in protest.
“No,” I bite out. My heart pounds so hard I feel it in my teeth. “I don’t. You never gave me a reason. You just pushed me away and let me think—” My voice catches, snagging on the raw edge I never quite managed to sand smooth. “Let me think I meant nothing.”
“It was better that way,” she whispers.
It’s a lie.
I hear it.
She hears it.
I hope ithurts.
“Easier,” she adds, like that’s supposed to make it better.
“Easier,” I repeat, sliding my hand up to her neck. Curling my fingers behind her nape, I tilt her face up to mine.
Her eyes glitter in the low light, the same icy blue as the mountain in late January when the weather turns and it’s almost too cold to snow.
Only, with her, there’s nothing cold in them. There never was. They’ve always seared.
She didn't just burn me—she leveled me.
I cover the ruin with grins and easy banter, but the truth is, her fire cauterized just enough to keep me standing. The rest of me still bleeds.
“You want to know what’s easy, Sierra?” I murmur, my eyes tracing over her plump bottom lip. “Demolishing this whole fucking section. Tearing down every memory until there’s nothing left but a clean slate.”
If I can’t have her, then fine—I’ll make sure she’s bleeding too. A matching set. His-and-hers trauma.
Petty? Absolutely. But petty’s easier to live with than heartbreak.
And at least I’ll know it was real.
“You can’t?—”
“Watch me.”
The kiss, when it hits, isn’t sweet. It isn’t careful.
It’s a collision.
