McCrae’s eyes narrow, but he still smiles, like he knows something the rest of us don’t. “Sure you don’t.”
Adalene and her friend Stetson start pelting Faith with questions, their bodies forming a circle as they animatedly catch up. Mateo faces Augustus fully, immersing them in conversation.
Feeling completely on the outside, I shift uncomfortably on my feet. No one speaks to me. I run a hand over my arm, trying to brush off the chill of insecurity.
“I am sorry, Valentina,” McCrae says, his voice closer now, and I tear my eyes off the group of friends I’ll never be a part of.
At least I have McCrae.
I face him fully, giving him a small, forgiving, smile. “I’m fine, don’t worry—” I freeze, a lump the size of a boulder forming in my throat as I inspect McCrae’s face. With a shaky finger, I wipe the corner of his mouth where his blonde mustache hairs meet the stubble of his beard.
“Clearly, you weren’t,” I whisper, dropping my hand, my fingers now covered in a light layer of white and red face paint.
“What—” he starts, his eyes dropping to my hand as if I’d burned him.
“I want to leave. Now.”
I don’t say goodbye, and no one stops me as I leave.
TWENTY-THREE
VALENTINA
October 31st, 2025
I starethrough my bedroom window, the glass shimmering as the darkness hugs the glittering moon, its rays fracturing around my enormous room in silky, pale ribbons. The light cream paint around the windowsill has started to peel and fray from every time I’ve opened the glass to let smoke out.
My skin’s drenched, my sheets sticky and transparent where they cling to me. There’s a bite in the air, a chill settling over the early morning outside, filling my room with a feeling of restlessness I can’t seem to shake.
Most people would want to bury themselves beneath the covers, brace from the chill of the outside world.But I welcome it.Ice and darkness are where I find my own likeness—impossible to withstand, impossible to fully explore.
I like the bite in the air—I feel alive even as the rage within me threatens to burn so brightly, I combust.
No one cared I was there. No one cared that I left—not even Faith.
I thought she might call after I disappeared, but hours later, and my phone’s remained as silent as the miles of land surrounding this prison.
For a little while, I allowed myself to see this ranch as a place I might be happy in—a place I could find solace and peace in, with people who made me feel like I mattered. Now, I remember the pure desperation I felt the first night I moved here—the hopelessness that settled over my bones like the weight of a brick tied around my ankle…
Santos was nowhere to be found when we returned, just another person indifferent to my existence, even if he likes to pretend otherwise when it suits him. I’m simply a means to an end,for everyone.
I sit up, a light flickering through the thick blanket of early morning darkness outside my window. Who would be out there at this time?
The mystery shooter?My fiery blood instantly chills.
Peeling the covers from my skin, I slink to the window, gulping in the cool air. I need to shut my window and go wake up McCrae before the person gets away.
As I pull the glass down, sealing the world out, I pause. The figure looks a lot like McCrae pushing his bike into the barn. That would explain the light.But at this time?
Driven by pure curiosity and not desperation—I refuse to be desperate, even when my very core pulses with the kind of ache I can never fully rid myself of—I decide to go out and see what he’s doing. At worst, he tells me to leave him alone. At best? Maybe he’ll finally let me have him, quenching this thirst of need to be wanted. Just for the night.
I’m not desperate.
I’m just curious. Really curious.
It’s what I repeat to myself as I skip the clothes, throwing only a button down shirt over my red panties, and tip toe outthe front door. I race toward the light, breathing so heavily, it fills my ear with a roar that seems impossible to think over. And think I don’t, because if I do, I’ll talk myself out of this.
A girl can only be rejected so many times. One more rejection today, and I may never recover.
