couldn’t stand the sound of his name, let alone the sight of his face.
I’m glad he’s dead. And if I’m being honest, I’m glad Amber’s dead too, but it doesn’t change the root of my pain.
Nothing can change the past. Nothing can take away the guilt.
I feel empty and hollowed out as I walk back to the kitchen table. The chills refuse to leave me.
Just as the nightmares don’t. But I had those even before my mother died. They were my constant companion, just like the bruises back then.
The night terrors got worse after she was gone, but the bruises eventually faded.
Staring at the cup of tea, I reflect on Sebastian. I remember how being around him, being kissed by him, took so much of the pain away. Even just thinking about him helped.
But I’ll never be okay. It’s only a pipe dream. Sebastian may pull me away, pull me closer to him and into his world, but it’s only temporary. He’s proven that too many times for me to put much faith in him at all.
I grab the cup and dump it in the sink, watching as the dark liquid swirls down the drain.
I don’t want to sleep. My mother waits for me there.
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Never before seen chapter
Chloe
Five years ago, and two days after the kiss
Don’t think about it. That’s what I was thinking about when the spill happened. I was thinking not to think about the funeral. My neighbor says it’s like the white elephant. If you tell yourself not to think about it, it’s all you’ll think about. Yet, I find myself thinking about my mother’s funeral regardless. If I’m consciously telling myself not to think about it or trying to focus on my English homework… all I can see is the field and the mound of fresh dirt. It’s all I can smell. That dirt.
With my books gripped tight to my chest, three of them, the three classes I just finished and the three books I planned to stow away in my locker, I realized I shouldn’t remember the smell of dirt. It should have been of cheap perfume and cologne and cigars and cigarettes and whiskey even. Because that’s what the men and women my mother grew up with and the men she called friends always smelled like.
But they weren’t there.
Don’t think about it. I told myself and then tripped over my own two feet. Clumsy girl.
Rubbing my left arm where a pink groove rests from the aftermath of the books hurling from my arm, I sit there on the ground, noting how my right knee hurts more than anything and staring at the back of my history text book as the black letters blur.
Don’t cry.
It’s just a fall. It’s just books.
Everyone around me keeps walking, talking moving on with their life and I should be grateful for that. Don’t notice me. Please. No one notice that I’m still falling apart. All I have to do is make it till Friday. Till the last day and then I can hide away.
One book lifts with shaky hands and my exhale is unsteady.
Don’t you dare cry. Don’t you cry over a trip in the hallway.
With a quick sniff I manage to get onto my knees but I drop the first book.
Don’t cry. Don’t smell the dirt. Don’t think about the fact that no one was there who should have been. There should have been more people there. They didn’t help her. They could have at least come.
Maybe it’s the shame--
“Hey,” the sudden masculine voice disrupts my thoughts. Sebastian.
He smells like the woods and fresh water, like a creek in the middle of a summer forest. Fresh but alluring. I wish he’d been there. I wish I could smell him all the time, and not the dirt that makes me think of the burial and loneliness.
Maybe I imagined his tone. I thought it was careful, gentle, kind even, but a look of annoyance stares back at me on his handsome face as the pile of books clunk together. There’s a deep groove in the center of his forehead and I can’t look at it, so my gaze travels down the simple white tee and worn jeans he’s wearing as the heat rises in my cheeks.
At least I don’t want to cry anymore.
“It’s just books,” he says and again, there’s a kindness there, something he can’t deny. No matter how much his dark gaze tries to lock with mine. It’s intimidating. He’s intimidating, the intensity that crackles inside of me, burning to look back at him nearly smothers me.
“I know,” I whisper and have to clear my throat. He stands straight before I can, but I follow suit and finally look him in the eye.
“I just tripped.” The statement is bland as I hold out my arms, wanting to take the books from him and thank him. The words are stuck though, every word is held captive as our surroundings blur and everything turns to white noise.
He licks his lower lip and seems to want to say something, but nothing comes. Just the two of us, standing two feet apart in a crowded hallway.
Don’t think about the kiss. Don’t think about his lips or the way he tastes or how I swear my pillow smells a little like him when I can’t fall asleep.
Most importantly, don’t think about how just one more kiss would make so much pain disappear.
The bell rings, loud and annoyingly. It won’t be ignored and the moment is lost as is the racing of my heart. It turns sore, falling back to where it is supposed to be.
“You’re okay,” Sebastian tells me; he doesn’t ask but still I answer, “Yeah. I’m okay.”
Don’t think about the kiss.
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Thank you so much for reading my romances. I’m just a stay at home mom and avid reader turned author and I couldn’t be happier.
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