Her eyes drift to mine.
She looks fucking broken.
“Come on. You like this song,” he says, his big hand clamping around her wrist as he yanks her from the counter. Toward the dance floor. Oceans away from me.
Her heels skid across the linoleum as she attempts to find her balance, shuffling behind him while sending me a painful look of apology as she retreats.
My hand grips the beer so hard I nearly crack the bottle. I shove it at my lips, swallowing the whole thing, the alcohol fizzing in my chest like a short-circuiting grenade.
I push away from the counter.
“It was nice meeting you—” Jaclyn’s voice fades out.
Needing a better distraction, I join my bandmates as they form a loose circle around the corner, talking music, the sound of the live band filling the room with staticky noise.
“Yo,” Rock greets me, shaggy dark hair covering his eyes. “Didn’t want to pry you away from Goldilocks. Tell me you got her Snap.”
“Yeah,” I lie.
Tag studies me, his attention split between his sister and whatever dead thing is lingering in my eyes. I know he sees it. They’re probably shaped like two sad broken-heart emojis.
“I warned her, you know,” he mutters, low enough so only I can hear him. He folds his arms and nods at the dance floor. “Told her this wouldn’t end well.”
“Alex?”
“You. All of it.”
My pulse runs away from me. “It doesn’t matter. It’ll end how it’s supposed to.”
“Yeah.” He huffs. “With everybody ruined.”
Muscles drawn tight, I watch Annie from a few feet away. The smile is gone, and her eyes are rimmed red. If Alex notices, he doesn’t care. She’s in his arms.Pressed against his chest.
Wholly his.
“I never meant to cause problems,” I say. “And I know you don’t like me, so—”
A gruff laugh cuts me off. “That’s what’s so fucked about this. Idolike you. Doesn’t make any fuckin’ sense, but if I could rewrite the story, it would be you over there dancing with her, putting the smile back on her face. Because that’s what you do. You make her smile. And it’s not that fake-ass bullshit she whips out when she wants us to think she’s doing just fine. It’s real. Something I haven’t seen in a long time.”
His words sink in slowly, knocking the wind out of me.
“Annalise has always been good at pretending,” Tag adds, sipping his beer. “But not with you. And if I can see that, I know he can see it too.”
My eyes glaze, the bar spinning in and out of focus.
As if summoned, Alex looks up at me.
We stare at each other, two enemies at war, and I watch as his lips draw into a sneer as if he knows something I don’t. Like he has some dirty little secret up his sleeve.
Whiskey taints my blood with vitriol.
The way he holds her is too severe, his arm a wrench around her shoulders, fingers white-knuckling her biceps. She has no choice but to sink into him. Submit. The image has my teeth scraping together, hot tension simmering beneath my skin.
The hopelessness curdles into anger.
Anger that after all these years, I’m still not happy. No matter how much I run or how deeply I try to disappear, nothing ever changes.
People leave. Love turns sour.
