“You don’t get to fucking talk about her,” I snarl.“Ever.”
He wipes the blood under his nostril with the back of his hand, smearing it across his skin, still grinning through it because he never fucking learns.
“Help me up, Bells,” he mutters, hand reaching out.
Lola stays still.
“What is wrong with you?”she snaps, eyes blazing.“You open your mouth and somehow make everything worse.You don’t get to joke about her, Jace.You don’t get to fucking talk about her at all like that.”
Lola turns away.
Noah’s voice cuts in next.“You’ll never fucking learn, will you, Jace?One day someone will not stop at one punch.”
I’m already gone.
My feet hit the floor forcefully as I move, heart pounding, lungs burning.I don’t care about the looks or the whispers flickering to life behind me.All I see is her face when she pulled her hand away from mine.She looked hurt, disappointed, as if I’d just confirmed every fear she ever had about me.
Chapter 24
Sam
Idon’tlookbackbecauseif I do, I’ll completely fall apart.Not just crack—I’ll shatter into a thousand jagged, bleeding pieces of some stupid girl who thought she mattered to him.
My boots hit the tile with quick, desperate smacks.Loud in my ears, loud enough to drown out the sound of my heart breaking.
The looks on Aubrey and Lola’s faces when they heard what Jace said.The sick twist in my gut when it landed.
Bonus if he fingered me on the school grounds.
I stumble into the bathroom, fingers scrambling for the first stall door.I slam it shut, lock it quickly, and drop onto the cold toilet seat before my knees give out.
It feels like my ribs are being pried open with a crowbar.Every breath has to fight through the pain.I squeeze my eyes shut, but the words are carved into the backs of my eyelids.Over and over.Each one a knife.Each one proof I was nothing more than a fucking game.A bet.
My nails dig into my thighs.I want to scream.Rip the door off the hinges.Punch a hole through every mirror out there until I don’t have to see her anymore.That girl.The idiot who let him touch her.Who let him make her feel wanted, needed and fucking special.
And the whole time he was thinking about a damn bet?
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes so hard I see stars, but it doesn’t stop the tears or the way my shoulders shake.And it sure as hell doesn’t stop the heat burning through my skin from the inside out.
He touched me.Crawled into my head.Into my heart.Into my fucking pussy.First time I’ve ever had sex with someone, and it didn’t mean a damn thing to him.Now I’m just some pathetic goddamn punchline.
I should’ve known.Hell, the warning signs weren’t subtle.They were neon-lit and screaming, and I still walked right into it with open arms and no helmet.
I let him in anyway.
Now I’m locked in a bathroom stall, mascara streaming down my face, chest torn wide open, while he stands out there, smug and golden, wearing that perfect fucking smirk.
Damn him for making it look easy.
And damn me for giving him the knife.
I gag, swallowing it before the sob can claw its way up my throat.God, I’m such a fucking idiot.
There’s still this traitorous part of me that wants to believe him.That Jace made it up and Reece didn’t sell me out for two hundred bucks and a high five.
But the words are there, hanging in the air, and I can’t swallow them down.
Hoping it was all a lie doesn’t change the truth I heard with my own ears—that night, at that party, those words he said to Jace.It doesn’t erase what just happened in the hallway.It doesn’t soothe the burning in my chest or stop the shame from crawling under my skin.
