Fuuuuck. He’d just come, right there, from grinding up on me.
Panting, he suddenly released his grip on my ass—wait a fucking minute, when had he started touching my ass?—and rubbed his palm over the head of my trapped erection.
I. Fucking. Came. Just like that. In my pants like a fucking teenager.
Collapsing into him, letting the wall take our combined weight, I lowered my head and breathed into the crook of his neck, my mind blissfully empty for the seconds it took me to come down from my high.
All too soon, though, reality caught up with us.
2
AVA
Death.
One word. Five letters. And it was the only guaranteed thing in life. No one thought about it, especially not at my age. Youth made us feel we were invincible, but in reality, we were still fucking fragile.
No one liked talking about death at this age. It always seemed like it was something so far away when, in reality, death was the only thing we knew for sure would happen to us. It might meet us here in a week, in five years, or perhaps fifty, but sooner or later, it would come for us.
And even though death had come for someone else, it still took a part of me.
I felt like a fraud as I sat wearing black amidst my sorority sisters.Should I even be here?
There was a knot in my throat that had refused to leave me since the moment they announced her death.
It should have been me.
I closed my eyes as if that would stop my errant thoughts. The fear, anxiety, and despair I had felt before were nothing compared to the feelings that now accompanied me.
Death had taunted me, and yet I still lived.
Everyone knew my relationship with Livy wasn’t the best, but I would never wish harm on anyone.
The pastor said a few more words, and then Ivy took the stage. Ever since I met Ivy, she had always been poised and collected. She knew what she wanted and always dressed the part to get it. Today, Ivy looked utterly wrecked. Her eyes were bloodshot, and no amount of eye drops would get rid of them.
It was hard to look at her because I couldn’t help but see how much she resembled Olivia. My eyes slid to the casket.
It was sleek, black, and polished.
Beautiful.
Just like she had been.
And all that was left of her was bones and skin in a casket no one was allowed to see. My sisters said that Ivy and Olivia’s father was the one who identified her. Even though Ivy and her mother wanted to do the same, he wouldn’t let them. Her body had been cut and marred so severely that the morticians couldn’t put her back together.
Death brought so many people together while making every single one feel utterly alone.
That was precisely how I felt. I knew Micah and Grayson were somewhere around here, as was most of the school. I wondered if they felt as guilty as I did because, as I stood up with the rest of my sorority sisters, all I could think about was that text message sent to Gray.
We were each handed a pink rose since pink used to be Livy’s favorite color. We marched in a single line and put it on her casket.
I felt like a fraud as I walked behind my sisters.
Happy Halloween.
It was the reason I was staying away from Micah and Grayson. Everyone knew how Livy felt about Grayson. She nevermade it a secret that she thought they would end up together—school royalty, the both of them, and because of that I knew we couldn’t be seen together. It made me feel cheap…like an imposter, even if Grayson never returned her affections. The fact that she was gone and I was here left an imprint in the pit of my stomach I couldn’t shake away. Micah was just collateral at this point. In the last few weeks, he and Grayson had gotten close. It would be selfish of me to want to comfort him and leave Grayson alone.
All too soon, I was next in line to offer my condolences. The rose in my hand started to slip out because of how clammy my hands felt.
