Darien stared at the rock. Then at me. He didn’t touch it. He didn’t look at the gift. He looked at me, his beautiful face twisting with revulsion. You’d think I’d handed him something radioactive. Something he couldn’t touch without blowing everything up again.
I turned away first and cut myself a piece of cake with shaking hands. His were balled into fists under the table.
I took a bite of the strawberry cake. The frosting clung to the roof of my mouth, sugar thick on my tongue. I chewed slowly, swallowing past the lump in my throat, but the sweetness lingered, stubborn and cloying. Even the cake was trying too hard to convince me everything was fine. Nothing had been fine since that kiss in the dark and everything that came after.
Across the table, his jaw clenched tight. His fingerstwitched like he didn’t know whether to grab the rock or throw it at my head.
My mom asked if I was having a good birthday, and I nodded.
Darien’s voice cut through the mood like a blade.
“Hope you made a good wish,” he said, bitter and cold. “Sometimes they come true. But sometimes they ruin your whole fucking life.”
Then he stood and walked out, leaving the rock where it was—an apology he never meant to give.
CHAPTER 11
DARE
The worst part wasn’t seeing the drawing—it was knowing he’d drawn it for me.
I wasn’t planningto go to the art show.
But Coach forced the whole team to show up. “Support the arts,” he said. “Show school spirit.” What he meant was:Stand around looking half-interested so the principal thinks we’re good kids and the school board keeps writing checks.
So I went, hands shoved in my pockets, headphones around my neck, music off. Pretending to be bored. Tryingnotto scan the crowd for him.
But I spotted him within minutes.
Truen Jameson had always had this way of drawing attention, even when he tried to disappear. At fifteen, he was beautiful in a way most boys weren’t, with his sharp cheekbones and full lips, a dark fringe of lashes, and those aquamarine eyes that could outshine half thegirls at school.
He stood near the back wall of the gym in that same oversized black hoodie he wore like armor, sun-bleached hair falling in his face, his arms crossed over his chest like he was trying to hold himself together. His chin was tucked as if he’d rather melt into the wood floor than be seen.
Hah. As if he could hide from me.
I lingered behind a group of seniors until he stepped away from his display, waiting until he disappeared into the crowd of parents and bored siblings and paint-smeared kids who couldn’t stop talking about their process. Then I moved in.
Framed with matte black, the drawing was pinned right in the center of a display board filled with still lives and watercolor flowers.
His was different.
A self-portrait, but not the smiling kind that teachers hang up for open house. This was charcoal and graphite, rough strokes and angry lines, no softness. His face but warped. Jawline too sharp, eyes too wide, pupils blown out like he was caught between fear and fury.
He’d drawn his hair falling into his face, which was realistic. But his collarbones jutted severely, like maybe he was starving. I didn’t know much about art, but I had to wonder if that was how he felt inside. Like maybe he wasn’t starving for food but for something you couldn’t put on a plate. Affection. Attention. Something I’d taken away.
One of his eyes was slightly off. He'd drawn it that way on purpose, something about the expression uneven and desperate. But it was the mouth that got me.
It wasn’t just closed. It was stitched shut. Not literally, notthread or string. Just…lines. Crosshatched, thick and frantic, as if he’d tried to erase it and failed. Or wanted to say something and couldn’t.
Beneath it was the title:
What You Left Me With.
And fuck me if that didn’t stab like a hot knife between the ribs.
I stared at it longer than I meant to. Long enough that I forgot to look casual. Long enough for it to feel like a confession. I stood there too long.
His silence roared in my head. The things he never said, the things I never let him say. I pictured him alone, sketching this broken version of himself, pouring betrayal and grief into every mark until the paper screamed louder than he ever did.
