Chapter 6 Haven #3
He groans into our kiss, so I sink my nails deeper. Cool air hisses over my lips as he gasps, then warms as he groans again. For just a second, his grip on my throat loosens. His thumb traces the bruise he’s made, and for one awful second, the tenderness hurts worse than the choking did.
When he pulls back to look at me, there’s a dark look in his eyes that promises so much more pain…and even more pleasure.
His phone explodes with noise.
We both jerk at the sound, turning to look at the phone lying forgotten a foot away.
His mom has the worst timing in the entire fucking universe.
“Leave it,” Kai mumbles against my mouth, his fingers working in and out of me again.
I shift away from his touch, pull my hands out from under his clothes. He grabs my wrist, sucking his blood off my fingers, but I pull it free.
“Answer it, Kai.”
He rears back, eyes glittering fiercely. “You fucking kidding me right now?”
I just stare up at him, silent.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” He rushes to his feet, snatching the phone off the ground as he heads into the kitchen area.
The ringtone cuts off like he declined the call, but then he answers with a curt, “What?”
I roll onto my stomach, still breathing hard as I watch him move around the kitchen, his back to me. His shoulders are tense, his free hand clenched at his side.
I can’t hear what his mom is saying.
“No,” Kai snaps. Then, after a pause, even louder, “I said no. I got midterms next week.”
Kai’s hand goes to his hair, tugging hard. He paces, face going slacker and slacker.
“I don’t care what he wants. I’m not—“
His whole body goes rigid as he cuts off. Then he laughs. The sound is so ugly and bitter it makes my stomach churn.
“You really expect me to believe that?”
He listens for another few seconds, then hangs up without saying goodbye.
For a long moment, he just stands there, staring at his phone’s screen. Then he shoves it in his pocket and looks up.
His face is blank. Eyes dark. Mouth a thin line.
“What did she want?” I ask.
“Something she can’t have.”
I push up from the floor, frowning as I move closer. “Come on, Kai. What did she say?”
He won’t look at me, even when I go to stand right in front of him. “Forget it.” His lips twitch into a pathetic attempt at a smile. “Where were we?”
He grabs my waist, pulling me against him, but I plant my hands on his chest and push.
“Don’t.”
He frowns, gaze sullen as he finally makes eye contact. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t try to fuck me so you don’t have to talk to me.”
His jaw tightens. “That’s rich, coming from you,” he mutters.
My voice sounds too shrill compared to his, even while my heart gives a guilty jump. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Forget it.”
“No, say it. What do you mean?”
He shakes his head, stepping back. “I need to get out of here.”
“Are you serious right now?”
“Kruger invited me for a drink.” He’s already moving toward the door, phone out to order an Uber. “I’m gonna go.”
The air leaves my lungs like I’ve been punched. “You’re seriously going to leave right now?”
“I need to think, Haven.”
“About what?”
He doesn’t answer. Just shoves a hand in his pocket and taps on his phone, not looking at me.
“Kai. Talk to me. Please.” My voice cracks, and I fucking hate how desperate I sound.
How utterly pathetic.
He pauses at the door, hand on the knob. For a second, I think he’s going to turn around. Going to explain. Going to let me inside the fortress in his mind where he hides when life is too ugly and messy for him to handle.
“You can come with me if you want,” he says, still not looking at me.
It’s not an invitation. It’s an obligation. A half-assed offer he’s making so he can tell himself he tried.
“Yeah, because it’s so fucking obvious you want me there,” I say sourly.
His shoulders tense.
“Just go, Kai. Get drunk with your friends so you can think.”
The door slams shut behind him.
Silence rushes in to fill the space where he was, pressing against my eardrums until they ache.
I stand there like an idiot, staring at the door, waiting for it to open again.
Waiting for him to come back and say he’s sorry, that he didn’t mean it, that he won’t abandon me somewhere that used to be so fucking perfect five minutes ago.
He doesn’t.
Why would he?
He has Kruger. Friends. Options.
He has places to go and people waiting when he gets there.
I’ve had no one and nothing for fucking years—
The first tear catches me off guard, even though the pressure behind my eyes has been building for minutes.
It slides down my cheek before I can reach it, hot and wet and infuriating. I swipe at my face so hard my cheek grinds against the bone beneath, but more tears follow.
More always follow.
My vision blurs until the door is nothing but a smear.
“Fuck this.” My voice comes out cracked and pathetic. “Fuck you.”
But the tears don’t listen. They never fucking listen. They just keep coming, faster and harder, and suddenly I’m not crying anymore.
I’m sobbing—ugly, gasping, heaving sobs that rack my whole body and steal my breath and make me sound like a dying animal.
“No! You don’t get to do this to me!” I scream at the empty room, at the door, at the mental snapshot of Kai as he left. “Not again!”
The words dissolve into another sob. And God, I hate him all over again, bright and hot and vicious as the day I sent that angry letter.
Rage burns through the heartbreak so fast it leaves me dizzy.
“You don’t get to make me need you and then just fucking—just fucking l-l-leave—“
I grab an empty beer bottle and hurl it at the wall with everything I have.
The explosion of glass is so satisfying that I’m reaching for another bottle before the first one’s finished falling.
I shriek Kai’s name like a banshee as it shatters, and then I’m grabbing the pizza box and flinging it at the TV, grabbing the textbooks and hurling them across the room, their pages fluttering like panicked birds.
Piaget can go fuck himself.
Midterms can go fuck themselves.
Bastian, Kai and his mother, Kruger, Melissa, and everyone else who has someone when I have no one—they can all go fuck themselves.
I rip my notes to shreds, first with my hands, then with my teeth, and I’m still screaming, still crying, snot and tears streaming down my face as I destroy everything I can reach, ignoring the warning ache in my foot, ignoring the way I’m suffocating, as if Kai’s squeezing, squeezing, because I need to break more, break everything, destroy every piece of this fake fucking bullshit I pretended was real—
Hair flies into my face. My fingers catch on the butterfly necklace as I claw the strands out of my eyes.
I freeze, choking back a strangled sound that’s half cough, half sob.
The chain is delicate and warm against my throat, the butterfly’s little silver wings digging into my fingers as I grip it tight.
Three years he kept this, even though he hated me the entire time for leaving.
That’s a long time to hate someone.
No wonder leaving comes so easy.
I rip it off.
The chain bites into my neck before it snaps, and I cock my arm back to throw it into the wreckage with everything else—but my body won’t move. I’m standing there shaking, the broken necklace clutched in my shaking fist, but I can’t do it.
I can’t fucking do it.
“Pathetic, Miss H,” I hiss, spittle flying out of my mouth. “Utterly fucking pathetic.”
My knees give out.
I sink to the floor in the middle of the destruction, defeated.
Even my tears have stopped—now that I’ve burned through the rage, there’s nothing left to fuel them. I’ve got nothing left. Just the bile-bitter knowledge that I did this to myself.
Every step I took led me here, to this exact moment.
To this shell of a room.
To this shell of a life.
I should be used to this by now. Everyone leaves, eventually. Because they have better things to do than watch Haven Lee self-destruct, or because I make them leave.
My fingers twitch around the pendant.
Everyone leaves.
Everyone except—
My eyes drift to my tote bag, still slumped against the sofa.
I shouldn’t.
I know I shouldn’t like I know the sun rises in the east because that’s what Kai taught me, and that my best friend will never forgive me for the mommy comment, and I’m going to fail my midterms and end up back in Ashwood Crossing—or, even worse, Riverside—with nothing to show for everything it cost me to get here.
But I’m crawling toward the bag even as that knowledge burns, not even registering the sting as my knees crunch over broken glass.
I dig through the tote with shaking fingers until I find the phone in its bubble wrap cocoon, and I turn it on with hands that won’t stop trembling.
The lock screen glows to life—Lookout Point at sunset, golden and peaceful and so fucking mocking I want to throw this phone too.
I don’t.
I open VibeFeed, heart hammering in my throat, and go straight to Bastian’s DMs.
Unlike me, he hasn’t deleted his messages.
@inherentvice
He can’t give you what you need.
Not like I can.
@inherentvice
He thinks he’s saving you. And you’re too busy pretending to be a good girl to correct him, aren’t you?
How long can you keep up the act, sweet girl?
@inherentvice
I’ve been patient.
But even I have limits.
@bssweetgirl
message deleted
@inherentvice
I saw that.
I can’t decide if that last message is a taunt or a threat. I can’t decide if he’s a taunt or a threat. But right now, surrounded by shattered glass and the taste of Kai still on my tongue, I don’t fucking care.
I need someone.
Anyone.
Even him.
My thumbs are moving before my brain can catch up, typing out words I know I shouldn’t send, words that are going to blow up my life.
@bssweetgirl
You were right.
About everything.
I hit send before I can pussy out.
The message delivers with a soft whoosh.
I stare at the screen, waiting for the dots to appear. Waiting for him to see it. To respond. To punish me or save me or do whatever the fuck it is Bastian Rooke does when you show him your throat.
Nothing.
The phone bleeps.
BATTERY LOW
But I can’t find the will to stand up and go plug it into the charger. If it dies, I won’t have to see if Bastian replies or not. Won’t have to answer if Kai tries to call.
I won’t have to deal with any of it, not right now, not when I feel this fucking pathetic.
I set the phone down on the floor beside me, pull my knees to my chest, and press my forehead against them. The butterfly pendant digs into my palm, its broken chain dangling between my fingers.
The worst part isn’t that I sent the message.
Or how quiet my head gets the second I stop fighting Bastian.
It’s the hope…the sickening, gutting hope that he’ll reply at all.
My phone bleeps again.
SHUTTING DOWN
I stare at it and will it to die faster.