There’s nothing about him that looks different, and yet it feels like every bit of himis. The man sitting next to me is not the same one that woke Tristen up earlier this week by stealing his blanket. Or when he snuck in on my side of the bed because Tristen had taken up too much room on his side the other day.
He’s not the same one that flirts with Blu and carried Lemon through the house.
“Wh-what do you mean?” I almost whisper, a thickness building in my throat.
“You don’t have to sit alone anymore, Em.” His shimmering eyes flip to mine and something inside my chest pinches so painfully that I curl up tighter around it.
But I’ve always been alone.
“Why?” I blurt out and it sounds almost like a sob.
He flashes me a soft smile, one that feels more weighed than happy, and glances away.
“Because your friends hear you.” His throat moves with a swallow, like that statement means more to him, and my brows pinch.
“But I didn’t say anything.”
His sight flicks to the wrist I still have pressed against my shin, the sting barely noticeable.
“You didn’t have to.”
A whole new wave of tears flood my eyes and my chest goes tight.
“I-I didn’t mean to,” I cry, and yank the neck of my hoodie up over my head until my vision goes black. “I didn’t mean to make him mad.”
“Who’s mad?” Hatley asks calmly, his voice a complete contrast to the turmoil simmering beneath my skin.
And again … he reminds me of Tristen.
I pull my arms through the sleeves and wrap them around my middle. The t-shirt I’m wearing underneath it bunches up and drags along the scrape on my wrist.
It makes it burn.
It should hurt.
“Tristen,” I answer wetly and press my thumb into the fresh wound. “He touched me, and I made him mad.I don’t want him to be mad at me, Hatley.”
I hear his breath catch. He tries to hide it behind his next slow, even one, but I can tell.
He’s disgusted by me, too.
“Pretty sure even if I said he wasn’t mad, you wouldn’t believe me, anyway. So, I’ll say it.” There’s a pause, like maybe he’s collecting his thoughts, because he’s right. I don’t believe him. I shouldn’t believe him. “I’mmad at you.” I freeze inside the darkness of my hoodie with wet lashes and a shooting pain in my abdomen as he continues. “For fucking with my friend and making him bleed, and then not letting me fuckin’ look at it.”
My joints lock and my heart races.
He hates me now, too.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur to the darkness that covers me like a weight, and suck back a breath. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Do you realize I’m talking aboutyou, fool?”
Everything inside me clenches up so tight that I dig my thumb into my wrist just to feel something other than the weight of his statement.
“You’remy friend,” he says vehemently, like it might mean something. “And I don’t like that you were treating my friend that way.”
He doesn’t mean it. He can’t mean it.
“I’m not your friend.”
