Page 13 of Crave

Though Ollie was far from a gentleman.

But in love, or whatever counterfeit version I’d convinced myself I had with Ollie, there’s no recourse. No remedy. Just humiliation.

I dropped back onto the bed; the frame creaking beneath me. “I didn’t apply for pupillage for you.”

“Oh, fuck off, Tris.” Ollie’s laugh was sharp, but not cruel. Tired, maybe. “That wasn’t for me. You wanted an excuse to prolong your father’s plan for you. I was the neat little excuse you could wave in his face. You know that. I know that.”

He was right. But I was training to be a lawyer. Meant to argue against evidence even when it was clear-cut. “If you believed that, why move in? Why stay?”

He looked around at the wreckage of his things, lips twisting. “It’s a nice place. At least when you haven’t… fucked every surface.” His grimace was genuine, almost sad. “Come on, Tris. It was fun. Could still be fun if you’d let it. But it would never last. Not once you landed your pupillage. Us? Exclusivity and marriage? You never wanted it.”

I clenched my jaw. “You don’t get to say what I wanted.”

“Don’t I?” He snapped his gaze to mine, sharp as glass. “I’ve seen you when I’m inside you. You close your eyes, and you’re gone. Somewhere else. With someone else. You think I don’t notice?”

I froze, throat tight.

Ollie huffed a laugh, but it was brittle. “So I took what I wanted too. A little fantasy of my own. Can you really blame me?”

I wanted to argue. Spit venom. Deny it. But my silence betrayed me. Because he was right again. Even before the alley. Even before the stranger. Ollie had never been enough. I’d never wanted him the way I should have, the way I convinced myself I did. And the worst part was knowing I’d used him as much as he’d used me.

“Why not just tell me?” I shoved damp hair back from my face, still raw with fury. “Why make me follow you, watch you, like some fucking spectacle, with half the gang standing there?”

“You dragging your co-dependents into this isn’t my fault.” Ollie perched on my desk, folding his arms, the picture of casual contempt. He looked knackered. Probably from being up all night fucking someone else. Lucky bastard. “Honestly? I didn’t expect you to follow me. But when you did, I wasn’t even surprised. It’s your way out, Tris. Same as mine. You get to play the wounded party, dump it all on me. But deep down? You wanted this over. You needed it.”

“That’s bollocks.” The words came out harsher than I intended, because what cut wasn’t the accusation. It was the truth I didn’t want to hear.

“Is it?” Ollie’s smile barely curved, faint, almost weary. “You’ll let your little housemates fuss over you, soak up their sympathy, and come out of this blameless. Free of me without ever having to admit you never wanted me. You can pin late pupillage on me too. Poor Tristan, giving up the family legacy to slum it with me, only to be cast aside halfway through. Makes for a good story.” He narrowed his eyes, softer but more cutting for it. “But the reality? It was never about me. It was about you, finally making a choice of your own.”

I looked away.

Ollie tried to get back into my line of sight. “I didn’t tell you because this is where it had to end. I didn’t want to have to talk to you about how I felt. That I was merely your excuse. Maybe I was waving a flag. A bloody cry for help. I couldn’t just walk out, could I? Not from this.” He gestured to the room. “You. The Mayfair golden boy. Future paved in gold. I’d be mad to walk away from you, wouldn’t I? So maybe that was me—blinking once for a rescue. Either way, here we are. The ending we both wanted, even if you won’t admit it.”

I pushed up, fury burning straight through the exhaustion in my bones. Not because he was dumping me. Not even because he’d always wanted to. But because he used me. What I was, what I was destined to be, as the excuse. And it cut deep, right into the part of me that despised it. Hating how my life had been mapped out before I could even choose. And loathing at how blind I’d been to my own ignorance.

Before I could think better of it, I seized one of Oliver’s bags, half-zipped and sagging on the floor, hauled it to the sash window, and shoved it open. Cold night air poured in, the iron fire escape groaning under the rush.

Oliver lurched away from the desk as I tipped his uni books, his tablet, everything he was working towards in his stupid Economics degree, spilling down into the yard. They hit the alley below with a scatter and thud echoing up the walls.

“For fuck’s sake, Tris!”

“You want to play at being top dog?” I reached for another of his books, sending it tumbling after. The fire escape clanged, rattling like a warning bell. “Then go fetch.”

From below came a sudden whoop, then Benji’s unmistakable warble: “It’s raining men!” He danced in the alley, Zara and Henry hovering behind him, Henry no doubt chalking up the charges we’d wrack up for fly tipping in a communal area. Fuck it. It was worth it.

Oliver caught my wrist. “Christ, you’re mental.”

“Am I?” I wrenched free and fisted his collar, dragging him in and crushing my mouth to his. Teeth, bruises, bitterness. He melted fast, like I knew he would, sliding his hands around my waist to plant his greedy palms on my bare arse, hungry for one last fuck to glue us together.

If there was one thing we’d ever been good at, it was that.

But there was nothing left in me for him now. Nothing at all. I tore back, laughter spilling out. “You’re right, Ollie. It’s gone. All of it. Out of the window.”

He tilted his head. “One last break-up fuck?”

I shoved him hard towards the door. “Fuck off, Oliver.”

For a heartbeat, relief soared through my chest. Not freedom, not yet, but the faintest taste of it. Because whatever I’d found in that alley, however filthy, however wrong, it had shown me what Oliver never was. What he could never be.