Chapter Two #2
Rhys’ face twists with confusion but his eyes speak outrage.
There it is. The arrogant asshole who thought he could break into my room and have me bending to his every whim.
I can’t quite wrap my head around what he wanted.
For me to shove my boot into his balls and choke him to the point of passing out?
In Rhys’ terms, pain is pleasure and he doesn’t deserve either.
“Why not?”
“Hmmm, let me think,” I tap a finger on my chin. “Because whatever this is,” I wave my hand over the whole of him, “you’re not finding an easy way out of it. And because my hatred is too rewarding for you.”
Rhys stares at me so intensely, I have to force myself not to look away.
My skin prickles beneath his scrutiny, a shudder fighting its way to roll through my spine.
Hold your ground, Harper. This man has ignored you for weeks, not even bothering to check if you’re safe.
At the very least, I thought what I had with Rhys would have sparked some small consideration.
I’d already lost Clay, and Rhys couldn’t even give me that.
“Do you want me to beg for it? Grovel at your feet, would that make you happy?” Rhys grits out. His anger is stirring, the entitled side of him that can’t be denied rising to the surface. Good, I’ve been waiting for this fight.
“Give me a break. You don’t care about my happiness.
You just want me to alleviate whatever bullshit you can’t handle feeling.
But I’m not going to save you this time.
Work it out for yourself.” I push to my feet and open the door, gesturing it’s his time to leave.
Rhys may not have been the one to drive Clay from campus, but he gave him the means to do so.
In my mind, Rhys is as equally guilty for taking him from me.
For leaving me utterly exposed and alone.
“I’m not leaving,” Rhys states, yanking his hoodie over his head and proceeds to get beneath my covers, curled up like a wounded dog with no fight or life left in him.
“Well, you aren’t staying. I’m going to the bathroom, you need to be gone when I get back.
” Grabbing my wash bag, I walk the length of the hallway and close the door to give myself a moment to process what the fuck is happening.
Pressing my forehead against the wood, I wonder if he will go but even without the steady breathing washing over my phone’s mic, I know his stubborn streak will win out.
Rhys has no intention of going anywhere.
I should be screaming or punching his miserable face for the recent taunts I’ve had to endure.
For disappearing while I had to be on high alert for whoever targeted us.
For showing up and thinking he can control the narrative again.
So why am I hiding in the bathroom, trying to settle the thrashing of my stupid, fragile heart?
Pushing away from the door, I wash my face, patting cool water on my neck.
My hair is faded now, brunette roots showing amongst the dusty pink.
My eyes appear just as drab, lifeless green like a woodland desecrated by winter.
Rhys wants punishment. The man who gets off on pain, who will enjoy my efforts far too much.
I need to make him suffer in other ways, to pay for the part of me that’s still breaking.
Pushing off the basin, I march back to my room, disregarding the multiple bodies who have gathered in the hallways, trying to get a peek through the crack in my door.
Word spreads quickly around here. I’m quick to enter and shut out those who drift closer, curious to see if the King of Campus really is among us.
There’s nothing king-like about the broken man in my bed.
“Fine. Here’s your punishment,” I grind out.
Rhys sits up as I jab a finger in his bare chest. “You’re going to attend every class on your timetable.
In the ones we share, you’ll be my proactive and contributing lab partner.
You’ll write your own notes, complete your own assignments, join me for study sessions in the library like every other student.
No more bullying freshman, no more self-entitlement.
And…” I swallow, collecting myself, “and you’ll find a way to have Clay’s scholarship reinstated. ”
“What is any of that going to prove?” Rhys’s face twists with pure disgust, which was my intention. Punishments aren’t meant to be pleasurable. I roll my eyes, slapping my hands on my jeans.
“That you can be a decent human being?! That you’re not going to run away because of something an internet troll said. I really thought you had thicker skin than that.”
The air shifts before I’ve finished. Fury radiates from him in a wave so sharp it feels like a cut, all coiled restraint snapping loose.
He moves suddenly, violently dragging me into his orbit.
My breath catches as I’m hauled forward, forced onto his lap, straddling him before I can shove back.
The blanket between us does nothing to dull the heat of his grip, his hands clamping my face so hard I can feel the tremor in his fingers.
His pale eyes are wild, glassed with a depth of agony that strikes me harder than his strength does. The sheer intensity pouring off him roots me to the spot, my pulse hammering as his chest rises like he’s holding back the roar of something feral.
“I ran away because of what you said. Those words came from you.” The truth tears out of him like they’ve been festering, raw and violent. My dorm light hums above us, the only sound against the ragged drag of his breath. His grip trembles against my jaw, not loosening, not steady either.
“That day at the coffee shop. You cut me open, pressed hope into my veins like a toxin. I started to believe it myself, that I could be more. Be better for you. Until I heard what you said. I’m a leech, draining the life from everyone around me because I have none of my own.
Survives on the weight of a name I didn’t earn. That’s what you said.”
My stomach twists. The wrath I was clinging onto slips away, a harsh reality coming to light.
As if I’ve been peering through blurred glasses which have just been cleared.
I’ve spent so long grieving what I almost had with both Clay and Rhys, what I lost so suddenly, I didn’t consider that I hurt him first. I was blinded by what Clay had shown me, enraged that he thought I could have had a part in it, and I hurt Rhys.
The heater kicks on at the far wall, rattling through the following silence, but it doesn’t warm the ice spreading through me.
His chest heaves beneath mine, every inhale clipped as if it’s requiring a valiant effort.
I catch the faint twitch in his jaw, the way his knee bounces once, betraying the restraint he’s holding onto with white-knuckled desperation.
“Rhys. I thought…I thought that you…” My throat scrapes, words catching as his fingers flex against my face, urging me to meet the full brunt of his rage.
“You assumed I went back on our agreement.” His stare doesn’t waver, locked on me with such desperation, it nearly knocks the wind from my lungs. “I don’t make promises, but I intended to keep that one. For you.”
I can’t quite catch the sob that escapes me, the entire world being ripped out from beneath us.
Even now, I still believe Rhys played a part in the events of that day.
He made the deal, he’s the reason Clay isn’t here.
In whatever way, he deserves to suffer for that, but I’m not faultless.
It was me who created the barrier between us, who threw the first shot that brought this all crashing down.
Where we could have come together, strong and united, we fell apart. I ripped us apart.
Apologies are due, but I need to be careful with Rhys. His ego isn’t so easily stroked, and his defenses are higher than ever.
“Yet here you are,” I whimper. Releasing my face, his hands drop to my neck, thumbs brushing my throat as our foreheads touch.
“Yet here I am, begging you to finally remove the blade and let me bleed out.”
My fingers shake as I peel myself from him to unhook the button on my jeans, fumbling to strip down to my underwear, because for the first time in weeks I can feel everything I’ve been stuffing down, and the pressure is too much to bear anymore.
Shifting my phone onto the bedside table, I clumsily climb beneath the sheets.
Rhys welcomes me in, his warmth seeping into places long since forgotten.
He doesn’t claim me with roughness. Instead, his thumbs trace tiny circles along my spine that are laced with regret, his forehead seeking out mine until the tremor in his hands slows and I can hear a new, quieter rhythm beneath the hammering of my pulse.
When he leans in, it’s gentle at first, lips barely grazing mine as though testing whether the world still exists.
I should put a stop to this, should continue denying myself of these pleasures that teeter the edge between heavenly and sinful.
Rhys is a flame that I can’t stop touching, testing how long it takes until I burn.
And because of me, that flame nearly went out.
I meet him halfway, turning the kiss into a hunger that is heavy with grief, as if every missed chance and stupid fight and ugly word is dissolving between our mouths.
I let myself sink into it, let the anger I’d clung to like armor fall away piece by piece.
There is something offensive and beautiful about two broken people finding the same patch of warmth.
I raise my hands up to his jaw and guide him back to me, press the pad of my thumb across the faint scar beside his ear until he inhales and relaxes.
For the first time since the gif, since the locker, since we became fractured from within, my walls start to crack. I lay my vulnerability bare for Rhys to do whatever he wants with it. That’s my apology. To forgive, to nurture or to break me in the same way I wronged him, that’s his choice now.
Breathless, we lay, simply clinging to each other and sharing the tiny space we’ve carved out for ourselves. A place without judgement, without the need to explain what this is. It just is.
Sleep doesn’t come. Addy arrives home late, the outline of her head bobbing to music in her headphones. If she notices the extra body or expensive cologne contaminating our shared space, she doesn’t make it obvious, flopping into bed and doom scrolling until she passes out.
Rhys’ lips trace my cheek, his nose following my jawline, his hands following a slow and sensual path across my body.
Eventually, when the heater clicks off and the first rays of morning start to bleed through the curtains, he shifts us, curling against my back with his chin tucked into the hollow of my shoulder.
His arm over my waist grows heavy, his breathing fanning my hair.
Held in his embrace, I can almost believe we might survive what we have done to each other, but we’re not the only ones who need to heal and this isn’t the only relationship I need to fix.