The entire way to Conway’s, I ransacked through every memory of the summer before Mia arrived. Regardless if it happened or not, it was a time before Mia. If it happened, Mia wouldn’t care. This wouldn’t bother her. We’d been through worse.
But there was no way I fucked her.
Was there?
Did I?
Bria got into my head, and I couldn’t piece that bloody summer together—couldn’t hear myself anymore. I’d been pissed or fucked up on pills half the time, then the other half spent in confinement. My pace quickened, and sweat rolled down my hairline. My eyes darted to every clock I’d walked passed.
Time—measured in the number of steps from my soul to hers, the number of words I’d have to get out before she had a chance to part her lips, and the seconds spent in silence that followed. She was too bloody far.
Five minutes.
I rounded the corner and collided with her.
“Ollie,” Mia breathed out and pulled away from me. Her hypnotizing eyes examined mine and drove around my features as her hands grabbed hold of my hoodie.
Oxygen rushed down my throat, and the fresh air filled my lungs. I could breathe. “I think I fucked Bria,” I blurted into the unnecessary space between us.
Mia’s brows raised and her muscles twitched in my hold. “You think?”
“She came in my room when I was sleeping, jumped my john, got her shit on my sweats … ” I shook my head, “She said we used to fuck.” Mia’s eyes widened, and nothing had been coming out right. “I think I need Conway.” I grabbed her hand and started for the doctor’s door.
“Whoa,” Mia yanked my arm, pulling me backward until my eyes were back on her. “You need to slow down,” her hand landed on my chest, and my eyes blinked rapidly, “Let’s go talk.”
“Dammit, Mia. Don’t you see? I’m going mad!”
Five.
Four.
Three …
Her fingers dipped beneath my hoodie, and her warm palm covered my chest and expanded throughout the rest of my body. Hitting me like a drag of nicotine, my muscles relaxed instantly. Amazing, really, my reaction to her. With closed eyes, my head dropped back, and I let out a steady breath against her subtle touch.
“I’m with you,” she said a notch above a whisper, and I could have sworn she was a sorceress because this was nothing short of magic. Pure fucking magic. The heaviness lifted, and I pulled my head back to face her as my heart matched the beat of the subtle pulse in her fingers.
“Mia,” I said in a gathered breath. “We need to talk. I can’t hold everything in any longer. At any moment, I’ll explode.”
It hadn’t taken long for Bria to poison our room. The rubbish smell. The thoughts. The cries still echoing from inside my brain to the concrete walls. I stripped the bed, bundled the sheets, and threw them right outside the door.
“Is all this really necessary?” Mia asked with her arms crossed. The heat of her stare followed my every move.
Yes, love. “I still feel her on my skin. I feel everything,” I turned to her, “You. You were everywhere. Now she is.” Refocusing on the task before me, I picked up the same pillow Bria laid her head across, “I hate it, Mia. I don’t like the way she makes me feel.”
The sound of the door closed, and I whipped my head back around to see Mia had left.
I pulled open the door and ran down the hall to catch up with her. “Where are you going?”
She turned to face me. Her brown hair fanned around her face, and a smile spread across her tender lips. “We need a little spring cleaning anyway. Come on,” she twirled back around. “Lucky for you, I know where the cleaning supplies are.”
An hour was spent drowning in bleach and the dirty confessions of my past. I told Mia about my time in the closet, the things I’d seen, losing my virginity, Oscar—everything. She took her anger out on the floors until I resumed the explanation of what happened with Bria.
Oscar had turned me into him, and for years I treated women like cattle. “You’re just as much a victim as they were,” she reminded me with a towel over her shoulder.
Another hour passed, and we propped the door open to air out the strong stench, the worries of my past blowing out into the hall along with it. Our deep conversation turned light, and smiles broke on both our faces. We joked, I tickled her, she used her towel like a whip on my arse, and Mia’s giggles didn’t let up while cleaning out my desk, going through every drawer and scrap paper I’d written across. She laughed lightly to herself as I pulled a new sheet over the mattress. “You’re high,” I said through a laugh and shook my head.
“On life,” she corrected, pointing at me with the spray bottle in one hand and my notebook in the other. A few people slowed as they crossed our room, sneaking a peek to see what we were up to. “This is too good to sit in a desk drawer,” she said, fingering through my notes. “Like, so good.” Her eyes peered up at me, and I sat over the mattress with a wide grin. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
