Chapter 2 #2
Cassie keeps going, her voice sharper now.
“I know things, Sky. I know that when you answered this phone, you sounded like someone reached down your throat and squeezed. I know you make excuses for that man. And I am aware that you stopped coming out with me because he doesn’t like my attitude, which is frankly offensive because it’s one of my finest fucking assets. ”
“I didn’t stop coming out because of him.”
“Bullshit.”
I don’t tell her the truth.
That ever since that day behind Sanders Street, when Liam’s hands were on me and Connor’s voice whispered in my ear and the three of them closed in from every direction, I can’t be around crowds anymore.
That something broke open in me that day and never fully sealed back shut.
That being pressed in by too many people now sends my pulse into a place I can’t talk myself down from.
That it has nothing to do with Damien and everything to do with what those three assholes did to me in that alley while Cassie shook on the other end of a phone, calling the only person who ever came running.
I don’t tell her any of that.
I never have.
“You know what I think?” she says. “I think you got so used to surviving that you forgot you’re allowed to live.
And instead of figuring that out, you’re sitting there in the dark like a good girl while that asshole scrubs off whatever cheap perfume he’s been buried in before he slides into bed next to you.
And you’ll say nothing. Because that’s what you do now.
You say nothing, you take it, and you call it a life. ”
My jaw tightens so hard that my back teeth ache. “Fuck off, Cass.”
She laughs. Short and sharp. “There she is.” Cassie’s voice softens by a fraction. “There’s my girl.”
I stand from the couch because sitting still is impossible.
“I am happy,” I say, forcing the words out too quickly.
Cassie goes quiet again. I hate it when she does that.
“No, you’re not, Sky,” she says.
I move to the window, staring at my reflection in the dark glass. Tired eyes. Hair loose around my shoulders. A woman wearing someone else’s life as if it might fit better if she holds still long enough.
“You don’t get to decide that, Cass.”
“No. I don’t.” Her voice wavers, just enough to permit the emotion beneath to show.
Just enough to remind me that behind all the gum, the sharp mouth, and the sarcasm she wears like a second skin, she loves me in a way that has never once asked for anything in return.
“But I am familiar with what you look like when you’re alive, Sky. I was there.”
“Don’t.”
“I was there when you were with him. When he loved you like you had never been loved before in your life. Like you were the only thing in the room worth looking at.”
“Cassie.”
“I was in that hallway at school. A seventeen-year-old boy who had never looked at anyone the way he looked at you. Not once. Not even close.”
“Stop.” My voice comes out louder than I intend.
Everything inside me goes still.
The apartment falls quiet around me.
Even the movie is more distant now, voices bleeding through from somewhere far away, muffled by the rush of blood in my ears and the weight of seven years pressing down on my chest all at once.
Cassie’s voice drops. Softer now. The version of her she lets out only when it matters.
“I was there too, Sky. Do you remember? I remember every single part of it.” She pauses, and I can hear her breathing change as she chooses her words carefully.
“You had a voice then. You had this light that came off you when he was around, even if you were oblivious to it, but I could see it from across the room. You argued back. You laughed. You were so fucking alive it was almost annoying.” Another pause.
Heavier this time. “With that asshole, you’ve got nothing.
You’ve gone quiet in a way that scares me. ”
My hand presses flat against my stomach. “I said stop.”
“No. You built yourself a nice little cage there, and let some asshole with good sheets and a credit card convince you it was a home.”
“You are ignorant, Cass.”
“I know Zane Rivera would burn the whole world down before letting anyone make you feel small. I could see how much he loved you before everything turned to shit. I was there for that, too.”
Something splits open inside my chest. “He also destroyed me.”
“I am aware of that.”
“Then don’t make him sound like some tragic hero.”
“I’m not.” Her voice is flat. “He was a fucking idiot with a hero complex and the emotional communication skills of a brick hurled through a window.”
A laugh breaks out of me, then it’s just as quickly gone.
Cassie hears it anyway. “Exactly. A romantic nightmare. Ten out of ten for cheekbones and that jaw, minus forty points for decision-making. But he was your idiot. And you have never once in your life looked at Damien the way you looked at him. Not even close. And you know it.”
“Cass.” My throat burns. “You don’t get it.”
“Then explain it.”
I turn my gaze toward the bedroom.
The door sits half open, the dark just beyond it. There is nothing to explain. That’s the problem.
Damien is simple in the way things are when they don’t ask too much of you.
Yeah, he doesn’t rip me apart with a single glance. He doesn’t make my pulse trip over itself just by walking into a room. He doesn’t know every scar beneath my skin, nor the exact shape of the girl I was before the world turned cruel and left its marks.
“Damien is… stable,” I say.
Cassie makes a gagging sound. “That word should never be used as a romantic endorsement.”
“He has a life.”
“So does a houseplant.”
“He cares about me.”
Her voice drops, stripping back. “Does he? Or does he care that you make him look less empty when people come over?”
“Fuck you.”
“I love you too.”
“I mean it, Cass.”
“So do I.” Her voice rises. “Sky, I have watched you disappear. I have watched you fold yourself smaller and smaller until you fit whatever shape that apartment demands of you. You used to take up space like you had every right to it. You used to say exactly what you thought the second you thought it, and God help anyone who didn’t like it.
” Her voice cracks at the edges. “I miss the girl who would rather chew glass than let a man make her feel so small.
My eyes sting in a way I absolutely refuse to acknowledge. “I’m not small.”
“Then stop living like you are.”
The words bury themselves in my chest—brutal, true, and unwelcome in the particular way only the truest things ever are.
A sound comes from the bedroom. Damien coughs, the slow drag of a man half-awake.
My pulse jumps before I can stop it.
“I have to go,” I say, the words coming out too quickly.
“Sky, wait—”
I hang up, the screen going dark in my palm. The apartment folds back into silence.
“What was that about?” His voice cuts through the room, and I turn too fast.
Damien stands in the bedroom doorway, wearing nothing but black boxer briefs, hair messy, eyes narrowed against the light.