Chapter 29 Alex
Alex
She crawls into bed beside me. The mattress shifts with the added weight, the covers moving with her as I face the opposite wall.
She thinks I’m asleep.
But I’m wide awake, simmering in anger and violence and loneliness. The loneliness hurts most. The anger gives it control. “You didn’t answer my calls.”
A beat of silence.
I hear her breathing, and those wispy little breaths sound like shame.
They speak to the violence.
Rolling over, I watch her chest rise and fall through the dancing shadows. A shred of moonlight seeps through the pinstripe curtains, highlighting wet splotches on her cheekbones.
My hands curl.
Shame it is.
“Anything you want to tell me?” My voice is low and dark, teetering the brink of mass destruction. “Clearly, you’ve been crying.”
She swipes at her face. “It was a tough practice.”
That mocking voice throws its head back with a laugh.
I catapult over to her side of the bed like a rabid dog breaking from its leash until I’m spitting right in her face. “Bull. Fucking. Shit.”
“Jesus!” The mattress squeaks as she jerks into a sitting position and scrambles against the headboard, our noses a lethal inch apart. “Alex, you’re scaring me.”
“Why are you wet?” I flick a strand of damp hair. “A late-night swim?”
“Yes. It was stifling in the garage.”
“Naturally.”
Her expression pinches with barely contained emotion. “Why are you acting like this?”
“Why did you ignore my calls all night?” I shoot back with venom. “You know I fucking hate this music shit. These practices. You spend more time with other men than me. I have a right to know where you are, what you’re doing.” I stab a finger to my chest. “You’re my goddamn girlfriend.”
She flinches at my words, though I haven’t shouted.
It’s the quiet rage that gets her. Always has.
Her arms fold over her stomach like a safeguard, as if I’m the blow she’s bracing for.
I’m not that guy—I’m not.
But maybe I’m not far off.
She opens her mouth, closes it. I watch her throat work through the silence, her eyes glassy.
“I didn’t mean to ignore you,” she finally says. “It wasn’t on purpose.”
That should cool me.
It doesn’t.
I run my tongue along the inside of my cheek, shaking my head.
“I was helping Chase through something. It wasn’t—”
“Chase.” I spit his name like a mouthful of blood. “Of course it was fucking Chase.”
Fuck him.
Fuck her.
Fuck this.
I can feel the way he looks at her. Like she’s a lifeline. And I can feel the way she softens when he’s around, like he’s someone worth saving.
But I’m the one who needs saving.
Me.
“Do you even see me?” she whispers brokenly.
I open my mouth, ready to snap back.
Nothing comes out.
Because I don’t.
Because I do.
Because I can’t tell the fucking difference anymore.
My shoulders sag, the weight of it all cracking through the surface. “You shut me out. You used to tell me everything.”
She blinks, and the edge in her gaze softens, just a notch. “You used to listen.”
A bitter laugh punches from my chest. “So this is on me?”
“It’s on both of us. You and me. But you don’t get to demand anything when you only show up with suspicion and control.”
For a moment, I just stare at her. She’s flushed, shaking, wearing pain like armor, and somehow she still looks like everything I want and everything I hate about myself.
My jaw ticks. I reach out to touch her cheek, but she flinches back. That tiny recoil cuts deeper than any of her words.
“Fuck, baby. I just…” I swallow hard, the anger starting to rot into something more sinister. Something uglier. “I don’t know how to be okay without you.”
It slips out before I can stop it. A confession dressed as an accusation.
And still, somehow, a plea.
She doesn’t respond. Just exhales shakily and inches down beside me, tugging the covers up to her chin. Quiet tears break free.
She’s not touching me, not holding me. Not close enough.
But she’s not gone either.
As I lie there, fists clenched around nothing, trying to forget the way her hair smells like chlorine, I hear two little words wrench through her sobs, tainting the air:
“I’m sorry.”
My mind reels. My chest fractures.
Then it hits me—there’s only one thing left to do.
By noon the next day, I’m perched at the edge of the bed.
A thorn in my heart.
A prayer on my lips.
And tucked between my hands, a final shot in the dark.