I managed to suck in a hard breath, and without saying another word to the guys, I let shadows converge around me before stumbling out of them in my home library. My knees gave out as the shock continued to pelt me, and I leaned my back against the foot of the couch. Trying to regain control of my pounding heart, I finally pulled the broken frame away from my chest. A painful huff tore through my lips when I saw it was the photo of her and I from the zoo with our face paint and animal ears.
That day had been amazing. It was a day when she took a hammer to the weak points in my wall and began to chisel away at it. It was a day when she’d finally given herself a chance toexplore the physical intimacy she’d been craving but lacking. It was a day when I felt I may have something real right beside me.
But now that space was empty.
“It’s fine,” I mumbled to myself, even as I pulled the picture in close to my chest. “This is fine. This is for the best.”
I was always going to break things off with Serenity. Our “relationship” was always going to come to an end. I hadn’t intended to end it like this, but the outcome was always going to be what it was—her walking out the door.
Now she knew the truth. She knew my intentions as I’d spent these months with her. She knew the monster I’d tried telling her that I was.
Everything could go back to normal now. I could play around and hate humans while she could move on with her life, finding someone better than both me and Bradley. It was fine.
So why couldn’t I stop whispering, “What have I done?”
Diary Entry 201
Dear Twila,
It was all a lie.
He said I was a joke. Useless.
It’s over, Twila. It’s really over.
I think this is the worst joke of them all.
Chapter 26
Serenity
I’D HIT MANY DARK MOMENTS in life, and each had a different sort of lasting impact on me.
There was the time when Mom suddenly left Dad’s house and a new lady took her place. Everyone acted like it was totally normal for Mom to be gone, like that was how it should’ve always been, even though I needed her. Especially when the new lady began to yell at me, slap me, and act cold when we were alone but smile and act like I was a liar when Dad was near. It was the first time I’d experienced true loneliness, and that feeling followed me forevermore like a constant shadow.
Then there was the time I learnedwhymy Mom left. I learned what my dad had done. High school sweethearts and a family together meant nothing to him when he could secretly screw his assistant over his desk at work. Mom broke after that and was never the same. None of us were. Mom fled the pain by moving to Japan, which had been a long-forgotten dream of hers. She found a new life with a new man named Kaito, and while I was thrilled that she’d gotten her happily ever after, I wished I could’ve been a part of it, too. But I got left behind. So the lonely shadow grew bigger on my back.
The years of bullying from my peers made the weight of the shadow heavier, and eventually, I lost track of where the shadow ended and I began. When I thought I’d found someoneto confide in and be myself around, he turned into a knife of his own. The judgment Bradley threw my way, the small comments about my weight or looks, the lack of belief in me and my dreams all drove that blade of isolation deeper into my chest.
Somehow, the loneliness and I had combined until it no longer followed me, but rather, it took up residence inside of me, feeding off of all the other dark emotions plaguing me—self-doubt, self-hatred, worthlessness,hopelessness.
The pain woven through me stabbed slowly at my heart, driving the blade in deeper with every jab from my dad and Scarlett, every joke from my peers, every blow from my partner. Each added to the previous wound and made the cut grow bigger and bigger until there was nowhere for that blade to go anymore. With the latest blow, the blade went clean through me. A hole had formed in the center of my chest, and now itbled.
After hearing Dante’s truth, I became a husk of a body who was trying to find its lost soul. Crimson only I could see and feel dribbled down my front from the gaping hole in my chest, making it harder to walk, harder to breathe, harder to feel.
For the first time in my life, I’d found a place I belonged. I’d found someone who liked and accepted me with all of my quirks and flaws, someone who introduced me to a world better than the one I’d always lived in. I’d found someone who offered room for me to thrive while figuring out how to accept who I was. I’d found someone who surrounded himself with real people instead of the fake assholes who just liked making others feel bad about themselves. I’d found someone who wanted me to love myself the way they did.
But it had all been a lie.
Because I was a joke.
And I was stupid enough to believe that I could be someone special to him.
I thought I was his star.
Turned out, I was just a rock that he’d found in the mud. He’d brushed me off and cleaned my rough edges while whispering promises of being something more, only to toss me back over his shoulder into an even darker pit of muck and tar.
“Serenity!”
