The water’s hot. Too hot. It scalds my shoulders, but I don’t turn it down. I need the sting. I need something sharper than the hollow ache inside me.
I tell myself I’m angry. Furious even. And I am. But that’s not what’s eating me alive. It’s him. The version of him I sawtoday. That empty smile. Those words. That leer. It didn’t feel like an act. It felt real.
Like the boy who loved me was gone, replaced by a cruel stranger.
I saw the fresh ink wrapping his arms, crawling down skin I used to know like a map. Some of the shapes I recognized — the kind only we could ever understand. For half a second I thought maybe… maybe they were all for me. But he never said a word. He let me think they could just as easily mean someone else.
And the laughter. His friends, loving the image of Xaden Bailey like that, like some heartless bastard. He didn’t deny it. Didn’t even look at me like it wasn’t true.
He let me picture it. So now I can’t stop picturing it.
Some faceless body under him. His hands gripping skin that isn’t mine. His voice, low and rough, spilling words I wasn’t brave enough to let him speak to me.
I haven’t even kissed anyone since him. Not once. Not when I had the chance. Not when I wanted to forget. Because I couldn’t. Because every part of me was — and is — still his. He was my first. My only. My first kiss, my first I love you, my first everything except the one thing I wasn’t ready for. And now all I can think is that he gave that part of himself to someone else. That while I was too scared, too hesitant, too slow, someone braver took what I couldn’t.
I press my palms to my face, trying to shove the images out of my head, but they come anyway — his mouth on someone else’s throat, his hands pinning someone else down, his body giving someone else what I saved all this time for. The thought makes me sick. It makes me feel small, cheap, like I was just the warm-up act for someone better.
And the worst part? He probably doesn’t think about me at all.
I slide down the shower wall, hot water hammering my skin, my sobs mixing with the spray.
I cry for the boy who promised to wait.
I cry for the man who didn’t.
And I cry because I know I’ll never stop loving him.
I’ll never stop wanting him, even after he’s already given himself away.
XADEN
I only move when I’m sure my legs won’t betray me and run after Cole. My chest feels raw, scraped out.
Then the coffee shop door swings open again. Mrs. Kirkland, our old math teacher, steps out. She’s still low-key terrifying, like she could assign detention with a glance, and if she saw what just happened with Cole, I’m done for.
“Xaden,” she says in her clipped voice.
“Good morning, ma’am,” I mutter.
“What is going on? Cole was clearly upset. As were you.” I’m cornered again. First by Cole’s fire, now by Mrs. Kirkland’s sharp-eyed stare.
My throat tightens. I swallow hard. I’ve always liked her. Maybe because math was something I understood easily. Numbers never judged, unlike people.
What a relief it would be to tell her the whole sad story that is my life. A relief, and an impossibility.
Mrs. Kirkland studies me for a long moment. Then her expression softens.
“Your father was one of the best men I ever knew. Very stubborn. Sometimes smart, sometimes… not so much. And loyal to a fault.” Her gaze doesn’t waver. “You’re all of that, Xaden, plus a dash of stupid. But you’re still young. You’ll get there.”
The kindness in her voice nearly undoes me.
“You look more like Sandra every year,” she adds. “You have her eyes, you know,” she goes on. “Oh, to be young again,” she suddenly sighs, startling me. “The way you looked at Cole Hudson in my class reminded me so much of how your mother looked at your father.”
A startled laugh breaks from my throat. The tears sting instantly.
Dad rarely talked about Mom, but I knew the gist of it: a daughter of ‘a good family’, she was supposed to marry someone from her world. Instead, she eloped with Dad and her family renounced her. She traded pearls and fancy dinners for a one-bedroom over the garage, and she never looked back. Most people expected her to wilt, but she didn’t. They didn’t have much but they were happy, right until the cancer took her when I was three.
I smile through my tears. The whole moment feels unreal: Mrs. Kirkland’s warmth and her memories of my parents.
