Prologue
“I’m not so sure what’s more terrifying,
the violent storm inside my head
or thesilence.”
—Oliver Masters
Ollie
I HAD BEEN AN ARSEHOLE.
And I’d known it at the time.
You would think knowing would have made things easier.
But it hadn’t.
It had made leaving her worse.
“Ollie’s back,” a familiar voice called out. I turned my head to see them both standing there—Jake and Mia. My eyes connected with hers, and though I wasn’t ready for it, everything I feared had become my verifiable truth. I’d once loved her, and it hadn’t been long ago when she was my everything. I remembered the way she’d made me feel, but now those feelings were replaced with something else.
Betrayal? No. Anger? No.
Something worse.
Nothing.
She looked at me, my little explosion of hope, eyes filled with belief. Only I didn’t have it in me. Instead, I turned and walked away.
It was easier, Mia.
I walked back to my dorm, and it was her footfalls echoing through the corridor. I should have known she wouldn’t have given up so easily, but I wasn’t ready to face her. Not yet. Not until I could give her the answers I knew she needed.
I’d warned her this would happen, and now that it had happened, I saw everything so clearly. How could I ever love a girl that had been corrupted by my brother?
Her hand grabbed my arm and spun me around. Before our eyes met, I knew it was her. I would always know her touch. Every inch of her had seared into my soul like a permanent tattoo—because we once belonged. Though I was gone, the pills could never erase the imprints her hands had left behind on my skin; the places she had touched.
I hoped for a connection like I felt in the mess hall from day one—instead, nothing. I flashed her a smile. It was probably worse than anything else I could have done, but again, I didn’t have it in me.
Dammit, Mia.
“I don’t know what to say,” I deadpanned, unwilling to look her directly in the eyes, but only because I was scared.Fuck,was I scared. I didn’t want to feel anything. Because what if I did? Feelings made things more complicated. It was easier not to care, and that was what my body wanted me to do. So, I looked past her as if she were a fading shade of my past.
“Say anything,” she pleaded, taking my hand in hers. It was all I ever wanted before—her touch. All I wanted at this moment, though, was the silence.
Pulling away, I looked into her golden-brown eyes. I remembered it was all I’d used to search for in every room I’d entered. It was all I’d hoped to see when I woke up in the morning, praying for the golden-brown days over the dark-brown days.
I had to push her away because I would only disappoint. It was for her own good.
“You fucked my brother. I should have never allowed it to go on as long as it did,” I reminded her, which was all true. She screwed my brother, and even though our love couldn’t be tainted before, now it was. Tainted, because now my immune heart and soul lived in a world of the impervious.
“Allowed what to go on?” she asked. Despite her chin pointed up, challenging me, tears shook in the corner of her eyes, and her lovely lips trembled.
I breathed in.
I breathed out.
