Chapter 19 Alex
Alex
The front door snaps shut behind us.
Annie.
A roar fills my head, waves surging through an angry sea.
Far away, a voice fights to be heard.
Don’t lash out. Act rationally. Stay fucking calm.
But the waves are louder. A stormfront edging closer. I can’t stop it, can’t keep it at bay. One man against a storm is nothing but a piece of driftwood.
Dead in the water, doomed before it ever reaches the shore.
My hands curl into fists.
Fury surges through my veins, my only friend.
I whip around, locking on her tearstained face as she sags against the door. “What. The. Fuck.”
She cowers, a frightened hermit crab who lost her shell. “I just…had a moment.”
“A moment?” I stiffen and vibrate all at once, my words weapons. Thunderclaps. “Yeah, I’m aware of your fucking moment. You paraded it onstage for an audience. Dangled it in front of me like a carrot on a stick. Were you trying to make me jealous?”
Her eyes lift, confused. Like she’s realizing we’re talking about two different moments. “Chase?”
“Don’t say his fucking name.” Holy hell, I sound demonic.
“That was nothing. That was just—”
“Now you’re gaslighting me. Beautiful.” I drag my hands through my hair, spin, then pivot back, inching closer. “Do you think I’m an idiot? What aren’t you saying?”
“There’s nothing to be said.” She swipes a piece of hair out of her eyes and moves away from the door, her chin glued to her chest.
Avoiding eye contact.
Because she’s lying.
I follow, tight on her heels. “We’re not done here.”
“I’m tired, Alex. I just had a breakdown at a karaoke bar, for God’s sake.”
“Could be the guilt.”
She whirls around, teeth clenched tight. “There’s nothing to feel guilty about. He’s just my brother’s friend.”
“He called you Annie,” I seethe. “A pet name. Do you realize how fucked that is?”
She falters for a beat, the statement registering, taking her off guard. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“No? I saw the way he was looking at you. I was watching him all night.”
“I have no control over the way someone looks at me. If I did, I’d be a hell of a lot happier in this relationship.”
Her words hit hard. Stop me in my tracks. “You’re not happy?”
Some people might say that should be obvious based on her forty-eight hour departure last week. Her request for a “break.” But that was just a bump in the road. It’s always been us, Alex and Annalise, best friends from day one. High school sweethearts.
Soulmates.
I was there when she fell off her bike in second grade, scraping her knee so bad she swore she’d never ride again. I sat beside her on the sidewalk, pressing my Captain America Band-Aid over the cut and promising I’d hold on to the seat until she felt confident again.
She was back on her bike by the next afternoon.
I was there in seventh grade when she got braces and refused to smile for an entire month. I made it my mission to change that, cracking the dumbest jokes I could think of until she finally caved. The first time she really smiled, she smacked my arm and called me an idiot.
But she kept smiling after that.
I was there the night of our junior prom, when her dress zipper broke ten minutes before we were supposed to leave.
She was near tears, convinced the night was ruined, but I found a safety pin in my mom’s office and fixed it.
I told her she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. She laughed and called me a liar.
I wasn’t.
I was also there when she needed driving lessons.
When she stalled at that stop sign and I lost it.
I screamed until she cried, and she jerked the wheel and sent us spinning into a tree.
She shattered the fender. I cracked my head.
Blood everywhere. She begged me not to hate her, and I didn’t.
I forgave her. I stayed. Unlike my shitty parents, who ditched me to sip wine on some sun-drenched piazza in Rome and never looked back.
When everything else in my life fell apart, I stayed. If that couldn’t break us, nothing will. I can’t lose her now.
Her eyes shimmer with frustration, with pain. “Alex…”
I shake my head. “You can’t mean that.” My voice is quieter, almost desperate. “Not after everything.”
This is just a phase. A temporary snag in the long-term plan.
What do they call it? The “Seven Year Itch”? That’s all this is. It’s fucking psychology. We’re literally in our seventh year of dating.
“Annalise, come on. We’ll get through this. We always do.”
“I just…I don’t know if love is supposed to feel like this,” she says, breath shuddering.
The room skews, my stomach hollowing out. “Like what?”
Her gaze flicks to the floor. “Like drowning.”
The waves roll back in.
There’s a sharp snap in my brain, like an electrical current. I can’t stop it. Can’t fight it. The beast inside me claws its way up, hungry, restless, desperate to prove something.
Heart pounding, I advance on her. My eyes skim down her body, her full breasts, curvy hips, long, toned legs. She’s a work of art.
She’s my work of art.
My arms fly out and yank her to me by the hips. A breath leaves her in a sudden whoosh when our chests collide. I grip her cheeks, pressing our foreheads together. “You said I could have you tonight.”
Annalise tenses in my arms. “That was before.”
“Before the karaoke foreplay with another guy?” I roughly tug her head back by the hair until her eyes meet with mine. “If you want to play dirty, I’m all in.”
She presses her hands to my chest, not a shove, but far from intimate. “Alex, please. I don’t want it like this.”
“You don’t seem to want it at all.” I pull her closer. “How long has it been? A month? Two?”
“Things have been messy between us.”
“That’ll only make it hotter.”
“Alex—”
I scoop her up, hauling her into my arms. Her legs curl around my waist, arms looping behind my neck. Carrying her into the bedroom, I toss her on the mattress and crawl over her until she’s splayed out beneath me. Heart to heart. Breath to breath.
Colorful hair fans out across the pillow, her skin milky-white like whipped cream. Plump cherry lips quiver with emotion.
Her eyes squeeze shut. Cheeks flush with color. A whimper escapes her throat.
She doesn’t want you.
She’s repulsed by you.
She fucking hates you.
That goddamn voice.
It only makes me angrier. More determined to prove it wrong.
“Look at me.” I grip her wrists, pinning them to the pillow. “Look at me, Annalise.”
Her lids flutter open.
And I’m sickened by what I see.
Emptiness. Hopeless resignation.
Proof.
The voice laughs with spite.
I kiss her.
Our mouths crash together in a desperate, frenzied clash of teeth and tongues. My hands move with menace, shoving her dress up her thighs, fingers fumbling with her underwear. Tears spill down her temples, but she doesn’t fight me.
She just deflates.
“Tell me you want this.”
Her legs fall open like surrender. A small nod.
“Say it,” I demand.
Another nod. “I do. I want you.”
I tug off her underwear, shove down my zipper, grip her wrists harder. Bruising, needy, begging for something. A spark. A reckoning. Anything.
Look at me.
Look at me.
Look at me.
She does.
And as I sink inside her, watching her face, the sadness in her eyes, I feel it.
She doesn’t want you.
She’s repulsed by you.
She fucking hates you.
The voice is still there. Still mocking me.
This time, I don’t think it’s lying.