Reece pushes off the wall and steps into my space.
“Do you always listen to other people’s conversations?”he drawls, eyes glittering with something dark and unholy.
“You always bet on girls like we’re scratch-and-win cards?”I snap back.
He shrugs, all smug.“People bet on sure things.”
My laugh is sharp enough to slice open his ego.“I’m not a fucking thing to bet on, Reece.”
“No,” he says, eyes locked on mine.“Oh, but you are a challenge.”
My smile is all teeth.“Then I hope you like losing, you fucking asshole.”
I slam my shoulder into his chest, knocking him back hard enough to make a point.He stumbles—only half a step—but it’s enough.I don’t wait for him to find his balance, don’t wait for the comeback already loading behind that smug mouth of his.
I turn, shove through the hallway as if I’ve got steel in my spine, not jelly for legs.
My boots hit the floor too loud, too fast, my pulse racing ahead of me as I charge toward the bathroom as if it’s a finish line.I twist the handle, shove the door open, and slam it shut behind me.Lock it with fingers that won’t stop shaking.
Now it’s just me and the mirror and the girl I don’t want to be.
Flushed cheeks.Red-rimmed eyes that don’t dare spill.Lips pressed tight to hold in the scream clawing its way up my throat.I grip the sink so hard my knuckles blanch, breathe through my nose, trying to hold the fury in.
I will not cry.Not for him.Not here.Let them fuck themselves on their own egos.I’m done being the thing they pass between them like a dare.
A soft knock breaks the silence.
One tap.After that, I hear Lola’s voice.
“Sam, are you in there?You’ve been gone for a while.”
I don’t answer.Simply twist the lock and pull the door open.
Lola’s eyes skate over my face, before shifting to the way I’m gripping the doorframe.She doesn’t speak right away, but her brows pinch together and her mouth pulls into a line she’s biting down hard on.
“Did one of those bitches say something to you?”
“No,” I mutter.“Let’s go.”
The second I step onto the porch, the cold air hits.It slaps the heat from my cheeks and makes everything inside me ache sharper.The night hums… music spilling out the front door behind us, voices raised in laughter that feels miles away from where I’m standing.The stars hang carelessly overhead, scattered like they don’t give a shit about anything happening down here.
I keep walking.Fast.Focused.Trying not to fall apart.
Lola’s boots scrape the gravel behind me.“Are you sure you’re, okay?”she asks, racing to catch up.“I think Liz is about to lose it.She’s barely said a word since we got into the car.I think we should take her to the Sugar Spoon.She doesn’t want to go home yet.”
I nod once, not trusting my voice.
Because going home… That sounds worse than staying out.Going home means quiet.Means being alone with my thoughts and letting everything he said replay itself again and again until it buries me.
Ice cream at midnight with Liz and Lola doesn’t fix what happened.But perhaps it’s enough to halt the bleeding.For the time being.
The car door slams behind me, loud enough to rattle something loose in my chest.Liz starts the engine.Lola leans out the window and flips the house off without a word, her expression set in stone.
As we pull away, the glow of the porch lights disappears in the side mirror.The road ahead stretches out, lined with houses that blur past in silence.
The sound of Reece’s voice claws at the back of my mind, twisting deeper with every mile.I can still hear the smug tilt of it, the way he said it as if I was a game he planned to win.The humiliation clings, now impossible to shake.
I turn my face to the window; forehead nearly pressed to the glass.Something shifted tonight.I sense it in my bones.In the hollow behind my ribs.Reece Wilson crossed a line, and I won’t forget it.
