I hurry to the sink and splash my face and shirt with water. Then I catch a glimpse at myself in the mirror, at my bedraggled hair clinging to my skin, at my lopsided glasses that somehow stayed on my face, at the water that makes my shirt see-through.
Screw this. Screw Quill. Screw everything. I’m going home.
12
Piper
Present Day
“Uh... Quill?”
He freezes at the door, his hand on the handle.His back is turned to me, but I’d know his scent anywhere. The spicy warmth of it. It wafted through my nightmares and woke me.
Time seems to come to a standstill as he remains at the door, so quiet and unmoving that I wonder if he’s even breathing.
At last, he utters, in a deep, guttural voice, “I’m not who you think I am.”
I lick my dry lips. “Okay.”
I’m sitting up by now, my hands clenched nervously in my lap. I should be calling the cops. I should be having him arrested. He entered my house. He’s been watching me sleep. Fucking creep.
But all I can think, with every thread of me, is:
Please. Don’t go.
He edges slowly away from the door and faces me. At least, I think he does. I can’t see his eyes behind the white mask.
Fuck. Did I just speak out loud?
“Don’t go.”
This time, there’s no doubt about it. I said those words. What the fuck is wrong with me?
Somehow, time slows down even more as I look up at him. I can’t believe I’m asking my parents’ murderer to stay.
No, begging.
Quill Nelson fries my brain cells.
Common sense goes out the window as I wait with baited breath. Is he going to listen? Is he going to stay? Is he going to call me a whore again?
Call me a whore. Call me anything. Just stay. Please stay.
When I lost Quill, I lost everything. He was my first, but he was also my only. He was the memory of my silent protector. It took only one kiss in the beginning of senior year to block out the entirety of high school. My memory has always been convenient.
And now, I’m struggling through the worst thing that’s ever happened, and I know he’s responsible. Just like he was responsible for the second worst thing that happened to me.
But who else am I supposed to turn to for comfort?
So I look up at him, waiting.
“Turn around,” he says gruffly.
“Turn around?” I echo dumbly.
“I don’t want to see your face.”
Every word he speaks is like an icepick to my heart. But every breath in a room with him is pure oxygen to my body.
