“Blair,” Killian said, his voice breathless, like he’d been running after me. I wasn’t sure what I felt as I looked at him. Relief, that it wasn’t Austin. And at the same time, disappointment that it wasn’t Austin. That didn’t make sense, did it?
It was like I’d half expected Austin to come running after me, like he would suddenly have the words I needed to hear. I didn’t know what those words would be, only that maybe he could find them. Maybe he could tell me it wasn’t what it looked like. Maybe he could make it smaller. Less sharp. Less real. But I think we both knew he didn’t have those words for me.
“Hi,” I said. My voice sounded slower than I was used to hearing it. There was a slur there. I noticed it immediately. It felt foreign, like it didn’t quite belong to me anymore.
“Are you okay?” Killian asked, then stopped himself, shaking his head. “What happened? I saw you run out of the party. Austin was following you. He looked pissed. After you left, he got into a fight with some guy.”
“Did he?” I said. The distance in my own voice surprised me. It sounded like I was talking about someone I barely knew. Like I was reciting facts instead of reacting to them. And somehow, none of it surprised me at all. Killian frowned, clearly thrown off by my tone. He studied me for a moment, his eyes moving between my face and the plastic bottle in my hand.
“Thought you didn’t drink,” he muttered. The way he said it made it clear he wasn’t asking.
“Things change, I guess,” I shrugged. Part of me wished he’d leave me alone, let me sink quietly into my thoughts. Butanother part of me knew that being alone right now probably wasn’t a good idea, even if I couldn’t articulate why.
My head felt strange, like it wasn’t held together as tightly as it usually was. Looser. Lighter. The thoughts inside me no longer moved in straight lines. They shifted and scattered, like sand in the wind instead of a well-controlled train. I wasn’t dumb. I knew what the feeling was. I was starting to feel the effects of the alcohol I’d forced into my body. It had been so long since I’d been drunk that I’d almost forgotten why teenagers were so drawn to it in the first place.
“Are you okay, Blair?” Killian asked again, moving toward me slowly. He watched me like he was worried I might bolt if he got too close.
“I don’t know,” I said quietly, realizing I was genuinely trying to find the answer. I mean, clearly I wasn’t.
Austin had said the one thing I never expected him to say. All those times I’d worried about him being an addict. All the moments I’d searched for reasons to walk away, because I knew those reasons had to exist somewhere. I had been wrong. But I had also been right. He wasn’t an addict. He was the person who made people addicts. And wasn’t that worse? Wasn’t that infinitely worse? He knew what he was doing. I knew he knew. Not just to the people who got addicted, but to the people who loved them. To the families. To the friends. To the collateral damage that never showed up in his hands, but still counted. If pills ruined people’s lives, then what did that make the people who ruined lives for money? And Austin didn’t even need the money. So what did he do it for?
“What happened?” Killian asked, and I startled, having almost forgotten he was there at all. He sat down on the swing beside me, the chains creaking softly as he settled in. He let out abreath through his nose and began to sway gently, like this was something he did all the time. Like this was normal.
“I don’t know,” I repeated, though my mind felt fuzzier now than I thought was possible.
“Well…” Killian hesitated, like he was choosing his words carefully. “Did you and Austin break up?”
“I…” My mouth opened, but nothing came out.
“Let me guess,” he said with a sad little laugh. “You don’t know.”
“Can someone be a liar if they didn’t actually lie to you?” I blurted, the question tumbling out before I could stop it. Killian blinked, clearly caught off guard. Probably because it was the first coherent sentence I’d managed since he found me.
“Uh,” he said slowly. “I mean… I don’t know. I guess if someone doesn’t tell you something you should know, something they know would matter to you, then yeah. I guess that still counts.”
“What if they tried to tell you?” I sighed, the thought pulling at something deep and uncomfortable.
I remembered all the times Austin had circled around the truth. The half-statements. The pauses. The looks like he was bracing himself. He had tried to tell me, hadn’t he? Not once. Not twice. More than that. But I hadn’t wanted to hear it. How stupid. How naive. I’d convinced myself the only thing that would matter was if he used drugs. That as long as he didn’t, I could handle anything else. I hadn’t even considered the possibility that he was the one selling them. Had I been blind to all the evidence? Meeting him at the drug house. The way he knew Holden. The look on his face when he saw Holden standing in my living room, like he’d walked straight into something he hadn’t planned for.
Had I really been blind? Or had I just not been looking on purpose? Hiding my eyes the way a child hides under the blankets, convinced that if you can’t see the monster, it can’t see you either. Too scared to ruin the one thing that felt good. The one thing that felt safe. I had called it fate, the way I was brought to Austin. And maybe it was. But what kind of fate did this turn out to be? This wasn’t the fate I believed in. This wasn’t the fate I loved. Fate would know better than to bring me this kind of pain. Fate would know better than to make me fall for the same kind of person who had already ruined my life. Who had ruined Holden’s. Wouldn’t she?
“If it was important,” Killian said quietly, answering a question I hadn’t spoken out loud, “he would’ve found a way to tell you.” I didn’t respond. I lifted the bottle and took another drink instead. The vodka’s bitterness barely registered anymore. With every swallow, my body protested less, like it was slowly giving up. “You shouldn’t be with someone who makes you feel like this,” Killian continued. I stared at the ground beneath my feet, the gravel blurring slightly. “Your boyfriend shouldn’t make you want to drink an entire bottle of vodka alone in some park.”
“Well, I’m not alone,” I muttered, gesturing vaguely. “You’re here.”
“Yeah,” Killian said, not unkindly. “Because I followed you. Which… he didn’t.” The words settled heavier than I expected.
“I guess,” I said, my voice thin. My phone buzzed in my hand. I looked down, unsurprised by the name glowing on the screen.
Austin. My lips turned down instinctively as I stared at it. I remembered how that name used to make my chest light up. How something as small as a notification from him could shift my entire mood. He had felt like an adventure. Like boarding a plane to somewhere warm and bright. All anticipation andnerves and thrill wrapped up in one person. And somehow, impossibly, he had also felt like home. The sharp edge of betrayal softened, melting into something murkier. Confusion. Doubt. Grief for something that hadn’t even finished breaking yet. I had always sworn I’d run the other way from anyone involved in the thing that had nearly killed Holden. And I had run. I’d run straight into the night, into empty streets, with a bottle of alcohol clenched in my hand. So why was I still looking back?
“Blair.” Killian’s voice pulled me back into focus. I looked at him, startled by the intensity in his expression. The urgency in his eyes made my stomach tighten. “You’re… like an angel, Blair,” he said slowly. “You’re so beautiful. So pure. So good.”
I didn’t respond. I just stared at him. His words washed over me like a language I didn’t understand. They didn’t land. They didn’t mean anything. They felt detached from reality, like lines being recited instead of thoughts being spoken. My eyelids felt heavy. The alcohol was moving through my bloodstream, dulling my edges, pulling me downward into something slow and hazy.
“You shouldn’t be with someone like that,” Killian continued. “He’s not good for you. He’s… a bad guy.” He hesitated, watching my face. “You should be with someone good. Someone who sees how fragile you are. Someone who knows how to treat you right. Someone like—”
“Someone like you?” The words slipped out before I could stop them. The alcohol said them for me. That was what he meant, wasn’t it?
