Chapter 2 #3
He is attractive, with a face that photographs well.
Strong jaw, broad chest, the body of a man who spends enough time in the gym to make sure people notice.
He knows it, too. Carries it the way men do when they’ve spent their whole lives watching rooms rearrange themselves around them.
The quiet certainty of someone who has never once wondered whether they were worth looking at.
That is why women chase him. And it’s why I should have known better.
He looks half asleep and already irritated about it, eyes scanning the room until they find me.
“Nothing,” I say.
Damien leans one shoulder against the doorframe. His gaze drops over me slowly. The robe. My bare legs. My hand still curled around the phone, as if I forgot I was holding it.
“It didn’t sound like nothing.”
“It was Cassie.”
Something shifts on his face. A tightening around the mouth, quick and controlled, gone almost before it lands. “Of course it was.”
I lift my chin, old instinct kicking in. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means whenever there’s drama, she’s involved in it.”
“She’s my friend.”
He lets out a small sound. “She’s a bad influence.”
I grip the phone tighter. The old me would have burned him to the ground for that. Would have taken that sentence apart word by word and handed it back to him in pieces before he’d even finished saying it.
But instead, I say nothing.
I watch him walk to the kitchen. He pulls a glass from the cupboard, fills it with water, drinks half of it standing at the bench, then sets it down on the counter.
“What did she want?” he asks.
I wrap my arms around myself. “Nothing.”
His eyes sharpen. “Skylar.”
That tone. My name pressed flat into a warning. One word, and somehow it makes me perceive that I’ve already done something wrong.
“She was checking in.”
“At midnight.”
“Yes.”
He studies me for a long moment. His eyes are bloodshot, and his hair is still messy from sleep. There’s a faint scratch near his collarbone, the kind fingernails leave when someone pulls you closer rather than pushing you away. My stomach turns at the thought.
I drag my gaze to the window before he catches me looking and sees that I’ve already clocked it and decided, as I always do, to say absolutely nothing.
The sky is clear tonight. Stars are scattered across the dark glass.
I move before I can think. Cross the room. Take his hand.
“Come on,” I say.
He frowns down at our joined hands. “Where?”
“The roof.”
His brows pull together. “The roof?”
“Yes.”
“It’s late.”
“So?”
“So why the fuck would we go to the roof?”
I swallow as my hand tightens around his. “I want to see the stars.”
For one brief, delicate, foolish instant, I allowed myself to be within those words and sense what underlies them.
The memory. Tin roof beneath my shoes, moonlight spilling silver over rooftops, and a hand, rough with calluses, reaching in the dark for mine. The way the town looked small from up there. The way everything that had ever hurt me looked far away and manageable.
Damien stares at me. “The stars?”
My face heats up. “Forget it.”
“No, I’m just trying to understand.” He pulls his hand free, turns back to the bench, picks up the glass, and empties the rest of the water into the sink as if the conversation is already over.
“You woke me up because Cassie had one of her meltdowns, and now you want to go stare at the sky?” He sets the glass down.
“If you want to look at the stars, look out the fucking window.” He exhales.
“I’m exhausted, Skylar. Some of us had a long night. ”
He doesn’t wait for an answer. He just turns and walks back into the bedroom, scratching the back of his neck, his shoulders rolling as if I were an inconvenience he could simply sleep off. The bedroom door clicks shut behind him.
I walk back to the couch. My legs are unsteady beneath me, but I make them move anyway. One step. Then another. The way I have always made myself move, because stopping isn’t something you can afford.
I sink onto the cushions and pull my knees to my chest. My phone lights up in my hand.
Cassie: I’m sorry, Sky. I just worry about you.
My eyes burn. I press my lips together, stare at those words, and tell myself I’m fine. I have been through worse than this and have come out the other side.
The first tear falls anyway.
I wipe it away quickly, furious with myself. But another soon follows. Then another. A sound escapes my throat before I can stop it.
I weep for the boy with oil-stained hands, who, with a glance across the workshop, made me feel seen. Who climbed a tin roof in the dark and reached his hand down for mine as if it were the most natural thing he’d ever done.
I cry for the girl I was before the cracks grew too big to hide. Who said exactly what she thought, meant every word, and never once made herself small for anyone.
I cry because Cassie is right. I am here, on this couch, in this apartment, in this life I built like a cage and convinced myself was a home because its bars were prettier than the ones I grew up in.
I thought I had gotten out.
I thought surviving was the same as living.
I press my face into my knees and cry for all I have lost, letting the night take it.