Her hair was illuminated by the streetlamp. The crowd yelling behind me felt as if it was in another life. Without thinking, I grabbed her upper arm and turned her toward me.
“Will you just stop? Please?”
Anger and tears were never a good sight to see, but those were the only two apparent on her face as she glared at me. She shook me off and crossed her arms across her chest, suddenly looking much smaller than she really was.
“Soph—”
“What the fuck was that, Noah?” Her voice was calm—too calm for my liking—and she avoided looking into my eyes, focusing on my throat instead.
I wanted to reach for her, to touch her, hug her and kiss her. I wanted to wipe his lips from hers, to wipe these tears streaming down her cheeks, but I knew if I even tried, she would scream.
“Who are you?” she suddenly asked, her brows pulled together. “The Noah I used to know would never do such a thing.”
She didn’t know the Noah she used to know kept all these feelings locked so deep inside, that all of them just started bursting out now.
I took a step forward and she took one back. I lifted my arm, trying to take a hold of hers, but she swatted me away, that crease between her eyebrows deepening.
“You don’t get to touch me. You don’t get to do anything anymore, Noah. We are not friends anymore.”
“The fuck we’re not.”
“You said you were done!” she bellowed. “You fucked things up, not me, and now you expect that an ‘I’m sorry’ is miraculously going to fix everything. Well, news flash—it won’t.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“Just leave it, Noah. Just let me live my life in peace, far away from you, and I’ll let you live yours.”
“Angel.”
“I don’t belong to you, Noah! I never belonged to you.” My eye started twitching at those words. “How many times did you say that you saw me as a sister, huh? Do you have any idea how much those words hurt? And now, what? You think that making me believe you have feelings for me is somehow going to let you waltz back into my life?”
“I’m not—”
“Just save it.” She started moving back, away from me. “I will never be yours. I never was yours. I was just a girl waiting for you to see her as more than a friend, but you never did. You don’t get to change your mind now. You don’t get to put some crazy caveman claim on me, just because you feel like that.”
“He kissed you!” I roared, needing to let it out. “He touched you.”
“I let him, you motherfucking idiot! I let him because I wanted to forget the sound of your voice. I wanted to forget that you ever existed!”
“Don’t say that,” I choked out.
“I loved it. If you hadn’t broken his nose, I would’ve let him take me to the woods to have his way with me.”
“Stop.”
“I would’ve let him erase the memory of you and everything we’ve done together from my head. You are nothing more than a painful memory. A reminder of a time lost.”
“Please, Sophie. Stop.”
“If I have to, I will let a thousand men touch me, to kiss me and fuck me, if it means that I will never see your face in my dreams again.”
I wanted to give her space. I would’ve given her everything that she ever wanted, but not this. Never this.
My body had a mind of its own. I stalked after her, letting my instincts take over.
Mine, mine, mine, was on repeat inside my head, making me want to murder every single person that ever looked at her. These animalistic urges were not something I was familiar with, but I’d be damned if I tried to stop it.
Bending down, I wrapped my arm around the backs of her legs, and lifted her up on my shoulder, ignoring the screech that erupted from her as soon as her body went into the air.
