Chapter 41
Millie
The music’s playing, people are moving, my brother’s saying something I can’t hear, and Creed’s mouth is on another girl.
Noah’s hand falls away, leaving me cold, hollow, and so fucking numb, because Creed’s mouth is on another girl.
My brother turns away, eyes tracking Noah as he charges at Creed, whose mouth is on another girl, and my heart’s breaking into a million little pieces.
I turn on my heel, pushing through the crowd on weak legs. The air is too thick to inhale as I burst out of the packed common room, rushing down the corridor. I run past the elevator and take the stairs two at a time, my vision blurring, hand sliding along the railing to keep myself upright.
His hand was on her throat.
By the time I reach the second floor, my chest burns. I fumble with my keys, dropping them twice before I can get the door open, and burst into my room, gulping down air like there’s none in the whole building but here.
Tears prickle my eyes as I tear the cardigan off and reach for the buttons on the denim dress, but my fingers are trembling so badly I can’t undo a single one.
He kissed her. He fucking kissed her.
My throat tightens, and I press my palm against my sternum, holding myself together. God, I don’t want to feel like I’m being shredded alive.
I don’t want to cry, but the tears spill over just as heavy, familiar footsteps thud outside my door. I know it’s my brother even before he rips the door open. He enters, eyebrows drawn, jaw squared up like his shoulders, and I barely have time to wipe my cheeks.
“What the fuck is going on between you and Creed?” he demands, coming closer.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me.” He takes a step forward, the move forcing my chin up so I can hold his gaze. “That wasn’t nothing.”
“He just—”
“I saw what he fucking did. I’m not blind. He beat that guy up for touching you, then saw you curling into Noah and he stuck his tongue straight down Flora’s throat.” His lip curls in disgust. “He fucking hates Flora.”
I shudder at the reminder of Creed’s mouth on that girl and Hyde grabs my shoulders, forcing me down onto my bed.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re playing at, Millie,” he says, his voice scraping low and tortured. “But you need to stop.”
I wrap my arms around me, feeling exposed in that stupid dress. Vulnerable without my oversized wool shield.
“I’m not playing at anything.”
“Then why the hell does Creed look ready to kill anyone who looks twice at you?” he fires back, raking a hand through his hair. “Why are my friends throwing punches at each other?”
“I don’t know, I—”
“Stop lying!” he booms in my face.
I flinch, hugging myself harder, shoulders curling inward. Hyde’s never raised his voice at me. For years, he’d barely talk to me at all, then after my overdose, he was coddling and coaxing.
This is the first time he yelled at me.
“I know about you and Noah,” he continues. “He wasn’t supposed to touch you, but he did. I saw you kissing, and I didn’t say shit, but fuck—!”
He breaks off, turning away sharply. His shoulders square, his hands flexing open and closed at his sides as if holding back the urge to punch something.
“One wasn’t enough for you, Millie? You had to fuck around with my best friend as well?”
Words die in my mouth and the tears burning my eyes dry out. I thought he came here to comfort me, to fold me into his arms and tell me everything would be okay. That he’s here for me and not going anywhere.
But Hyde’s protectiveness isn’t aimed at me...
He turns back around, crouching before me. His long fingers curl into my comforter on both sides of my thighs, gripping the fabric tight.
“He’s my best friend,” he says, his voice level now, but loaded with heavy emotions. “Do you understand what that means? He’s not some random guy from class, sis. He’s my best friend. The first person who chose me.”
“What do you—?”
He jerks upright before I can finish, drags a hand through his hair again, and resumes pacing the short stretch between my desk and the wall.
“I spent two years of my life standing alone in hospital corridors while everyone cried over you,” he says. “I watched Mom and Dad pour everything into keeping you alive.”
“That wasn’t my fault,” I whisper.
“I know that! I know it wasn’t your fault, but I was there too!” His voice cracks, chest rising and falling as he takes a few sharp breaths, getting a hold of himself. “I was fucking there, Millie, and no one cared.”
God, we remember things so differently.
“Hyde—”
“Don’t,” he clips, moving to lean against my wardrobe, eyes jumping between me and the floor. “Just listen, Millie, okay? I tried to understand. You were sick. You were dying. Of course they focused on you.”
He laughs, but it’s the most devastating, hollow sound and my throat burns with unshed tears. I want to say something, but I can’t think of a single word that will help here.
“Once you got better, I thought that was it, that everything would go back to normal.” His jaw tightens and he swallows hard. “But nothing changed, sis. I was still invisible.”
My tears spill over. I don’t wipe them away. I just sit there, staring at my brother as he lays his heart out, cracking open a part of himself I didn’t know existed.
“And then I came here and I met Creed.” He smiles, his voice softening.
“It was the first time since I was eleven that I was just Hyde. Not the brother of a miracle sister. Not the spare sibling no one fucking noticed. He chose me,” Hyde repeats.
“Every day. He didn’t look through me. Didn’t compare me to you.
He was there for me... until you showed up and he started looking at you like he couldn’t not look at you and it felt like being eleven again, watching everyone push past me to get to you. ”
“I’m not trying to take him from you,” I whisper, wiping my sniffles with the back of my hand. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
“I know. But you did and I can’t go back to feeling invisible. I won’t stand here and watch my one thing become yours too.”
He straightens slowly, adjusts his pullover, picks off invisible lint as if he’s putting himself back together piece by piece.
“Whatever you were doing with him, it ends now,” he adds. “Stay away from my friends, Millie.”
My lips fall open but he doesn’t wait for a reply. He walks out, leaving me alone with the weight of his confession. I fall sideways on my bed, my heart splintering with every breath.
I don’t know what hurts more. My brother looking at me as if I’m taking up his space, or Creed dragging another girl against him and kissing her in front of me.
I trusted him, even though after Evan I promised myself I’d never let anyone close enough to hurt me... but then Creed looked at me like I wasn’t fragile, touched me like I wasn’t broken and I dropped my guard.
Curling into a ball, I pull my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them. My stomach knots so tight I feel nauseous.
Creed made me feel solid, wanted, whole, and I fucking forgot how to be careful. Now, the image of his hand grasping Flora’s throat refuses to fade. His mouth moving against hers keeps flashing behind my eyelids and I press my face into the pillow as if I can force it out the back of my head.
A sob rips from my mouth, my tears falling harder.
My head won’t quit, flashing through every second I spent with Creed. It felt like war at first. We didn’t ease into each other. Every time we touched, it was an explosion of lust, heat, and desperation. I was losing myself in the way my mind quieted while our bodies clawed at each other...
I think Creed felt it too.
That’s why he’d pull me in so hard I forgot where I ended and he began. Then, when the moment passed, he shoved me away just as hard.
But lately... he stopped pushing me away.
He pulls me into his chest and keeps me there, his arm heavy over my waist, his fingers tracing idle patterns against my skin long after the heat between us fades.
We’ve started talking.
About nothing at first, then everything. His fights, my day, irrelevant things. Meaningful things. Dr. Quinn, his tattoos, Evan, Jeremiah...
Creed started peeling his layers back and showing me parts of him that aren’t sharp edges and clenched fists.
We lie there in the dark and he kisses my head when he thinks I’m asleep. He straightens my clothes after a breathless moment in an empty lecture hall, then kisses me slowly.
It’s not just bodies colliding anymore and for a while, it felt like something was building instead of detonating. I thought that meant there’d be more... until he wrapped his hand around another girl’s neck and pulled her in while pushing me away.
My head throbs with an incoming headache. Closing my eyes doesn’t stop the tears and choking on them doesn’t stop my chest tightening so hard it hurts.
Hyde thinks I’m trying to steal his friends the way I stole our parents. In his head, it’s still hospital rooms, hushed conversations, Mom crying in the corners, and people hovering near my bed.
He remembers being unseen.
How convenient that he doesn’t remember what happened after. The nights I sat outside his door because he wouldn’t let me in. Every time I lingered at the edge of his room, hoping he’d look up and choose me like he says Creed chose him.
He built a life that didn’t include me and I told myself I deserved it, because if I hadn’t been sick, if my illness hadn’t demanded so much, maybe he wouldn’t have learned how to live without me.
Evan didn’t break me or invent the voice that told me I was too much. He just pressed on the part that was already bruised.
I curl my fingers into the pillow and curse Dr. Quinn’s advice. My old pieces fit fine. The sketching. The talking. The stupid denim dress that made me feel pretty.
They fit so well I forgot why I got rid of them. They fit so fucking well I’m right back where I started... crying over boys I desperately want while they push me away.