Good night, Wes.
I end the conversation before it can go any further, because truthfully, I have no idea what the hell he and I are doing right now. I don’t know if this is good for either of us. I don’t even really know if Weston likes me, or if he’s just bored and I’m the only girl around. I’m easy access, and I’m giving in far too quickly.
I trust easily, I always have. I’ve got to stop falling in too deep and too fast because a boy is pretty and has the ability to make me giggle. My bar has been on the fucking floor.
I lock my phone and place it on the charger beside my bed, vowing not to wait for Weston’s response.Boundaries, Willow. A little casual flirting with the boy next door never hurt anyone, but that’s where it needs to end.
God, I can’t believe I put his finger in my mouth.
Though in all fairness, he started it.
When his tongue made contact with my skin, some kind of dormant spark reignited inside me. His mouth was the soft blow on cindering embers, warmth suddenly flaring in my being again. That familiar ache and gnaw of desire, what I’d been so sure I’d lost and never feel again.
I sigh deeply, pressing my head back against my pillows and closing my eyes as I slide my hand beneath the comforter and over my chest. Dipping into the band of my pajama shorts, I brush the tip of my finger through my slit.
“Weston,” I breathe, reminding myself who has me feeling this way.
Parker’s gone. I’ll never see him again. Weston.
I’m absolutely crossing a line, but if there is any place to push boundaries, I think my own mind is the most appropriate.
I think back on the way it felt when his tongue wrapped around my finger, and I make the same motion with it now over my clit. I replay his soft moan when I did the same to him, the way he tasted in my mouth, the flare in his eyes at my boldness. Like that spark of desire was ignited inside him too.
A small moan claws at my throat, and I curl my wrist, slipping inside myself, adding a second finger. Pushing in, I fill myself, coating my hand with my arousal.
It’s not my fault, Willow.
I can hardly feel a goddamn thing. You’re too?—
His words barrel through my mind a fraction of a second before Parker’s disappointed face flashes behind my closed lids. My hand flies out from between my legs, and I’m filled with disgust.
Rolling over with a groan, I curl my legs into a ball and pull a pillow to my chest as tears prick my eyes. Like every time I’ve attempted this in the past three months, I talk myself away from the tidal wave of hatred that crashes over me. Hatred for him. Hatred for myself. My body. I count my laughter for the day. I visualize the finished painting I’ve been working on.
I also think about Weston. The way he makes me feel. The comfort in his gaze.
I toss and turn most of the night, sick to my stomach yet choking on butterflies. When the sky finally begins to brighten my window as dawn rises, I give myself permission to check my messages. One notification blinks back at me. A response from Weston.
Weston:
You’re trouble.
Good night, Wills.
CHAPTER 15
WESTON
It’s 6:03 a.m., and the sky is just bright enough to see my way down the stairs to the cove. I have a yoga mat I found in the garage beneath my arm, and when my toes sink into the sand I’m grateful the tide remains low enough to lay the mat out on a flat, compact area closer to the water.
I pop earbuds in, setting my playlist to something called “Vibey Yoga” before stepping onto the center of my mat and beginning my breath work. I started practicing yoga while I was incarcerated, after the therapist I was seeing in jail recommended it as a way to split up my recreation time each day. I lifted a lot too, and we had a track around the courtyard I ran on. Moving my body was the only thing that quieted my brain, but my counselor urged me to focus on my mind equally. Find a way to balance the two.
I often find myself wrapped in spells of insomnia, my anxiety reaching a peak that doesn’t allow me to eat or rest or even breathe. I’ve been prescribed medication that I take on an as-needed basis when I’m having a particularly rough phase. I didn’t experience attacks growing up, though I’ve been told it might be because my body was in a constant state of adrenalineand fear I never recognized what it felt like to relax. That I’d spent my entire life anxious and thought it was a default setting.
After I moved in with Carter and Penelope, began processing my grief, and stopped living in constant fear, my nervous system regulated. My anxiety came in temporary waves, typically triggered by a resurfaced memory I’d been suppressing. Like my mom’s birthday or death date, or when I cross paths with someone who has the same name as my father. If I see someone who looks like him.
After I was arrested, the spells of anxiety became more frequent, sometimes even leading to full-blown panic attacks. That’s when I was prescribed medication.
It started Friday night, though I don’t know what the reason was this time around. I wasn’t triggered last week. At least, not any instance I can remember.
