Chapter 18
eighteen
CASS
He doesn’t look away.
I watch him process the words—you stayed—and a change washes over his face.
His eyes, usually so quick to dart away when the moment gets too heavy, go soft with wonder, like I’ve just told him a secret he’s been desperate to hear his entire life.
He holds my gaze, then nods, slow and certain, like he’s making a vow.
And my battered, cynical heart offers up a spark of hope.
It’s the kind of hope that feels like feedback, starting as a whisper, a barely-there hum you could ignore, but with the potential to build into a shriek that could blow out everything if you’re not careful. The smart thing would be to cut the signal before it gets loud enough to hurt.
But I don’t.
I slide closer to him on the bed, closing the space until our knees touch.
His confession is still ringing in my ears. The way his voice cracked when he told me about Mia—how he’d just stood there, silent and grinning, while his teammates tore her apart—and the way he let me hear the self-loathing in every syllable when he called himself a coward.
But it’s the second story that hits harder. The casual cruelty of being dismissed as nothing but a weirdo who fixes electronics. The reduction of his intricate, beautiful world into something shameful. The way he’d looked at me when he said it, bracing for me to laugh too.
It’s my story in a different key.
We’re the same kind of fucked up.
And it’s this realization that’s as sobering as ice water over my head.
The boy who runs isn’t afraid of me. He’s afraid I’ll be just like everyone else.
He thinks I’ll see the real, nerdy, passionate core of him and find it pathetic.
This entire time, I’d been refusing to make it real because he might reject my messy reality, but he’s been terrified of me rejecting him.
He isn’t the one looking for the exit.
He’s been expecting me to show him the door.
But I didn’t, and he stayed.
No, more than that. He stayed after I cried on the street, mascara running in black rivers, voice breaking as I screamed at him and Joel. He didn’t recoil. He wrapped his arms around me, held me through my rage, followed me here, and sat through my vodka-soaked spiral.
Without judgment.
Without trying to fix me.
Without using it as a way to get in my pants.
He just stayed.
And that begs the question: What if I let him all the way in and he stays? What if tomorrow morning I wake up next to someone who knows the mess and doesn’t flinch? What if this is the guy who finally breaks the pattern, who sees the fraud and doesn’t care because he’s one too?
This broken, beautiful boy thinks he’s unlovable?
Like I’m some kind of fucking prize myself.
“Stay,” I murmur.
I lean in and kiss him—soft at first, tentative, a question.
His breath catches, and for one terrifying second, I think he’s going to pull away, going to prove this hope was the same stupid mistake I always make.
Then he yields. His mouth opens under mine, his hands come up to cup my face, and we’re finally real.
He’s not running. He’s here.
Mess and all, this is real.
I break the kiss and pull back just enough to meet his wide, terrified eyes. My hands shake as I reach for the hem of my t-shirt, but I don’t look away from his face. I need to see him. I need to watch for the moment it changes—the cooling, the retreat, the moment want turns to disgust.
I pull the shirt over my head and toss it to the floor.
His gaze drops to my chest, then snaps back up like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to look. The flush spreading across his cheeks is so damn cute, so I stand and take off my skirt, letting the fabric fall to the ground and kicking it aside.
I stand before him in nothing but my plain black bra and panties.
The cheap, Target kind, not lacy seduction gear.
His eyes trace my body with a raw hunger that makes my skin feel like it’s on fire. His gaze lingers on the constellation tattoo above my hipbone I got drunk one night in Camden. He swallows hard, and when his eyes meet mine again, they’re dark with want.
So far, so good. He’s not running, and he’s not disgusted.
I reach behind my back. My fingers fumble on the cheap hooks—they always stick—then I unhook my bra and let it fall. The cool air hits my bare skin, my nipples tightening into hard points, and then I drop my panties to the floor.
I’m completely naked before him.
Completely exposed.
Vulnerable.
Hopeful.
I’ve had sex before. Three guys. But this—standing here, letting him see all of me, including every flaw, scar, and imperfection—feels different. I performed for those other guys, putting on the show they wanted, and counted down the clock until they discovered the real me and rejected it.
But this?
This is offering the real, messy disaster and waiting to see if it’s enough.
“This is for you,” I say, my voice unsteady. “All of it. If you want it.”
He doesn’t speak. He just stares at me like I’m something holy or like he’s won a game show prize. It’s an honest, overwhelming want mixed with awe, and I know he’s feeling just as nervous as me, waiting for the moment I sneer at him or someone jumps out of the closet and shouts, “Fooled you!”
I get back on the bed, straddling his lap, pressing my bare skin against the rough denim of his jeans and the soft cotton of his shirt. The contrast between his clothed body and my nakedness should make me feel more vulnerable, but it makes me feel powerful.
“All the shit you hate about yourself? All the stuff people make fun of?” I lean in, my mouth finding his again, deeper this time, my tongue sliding against his. My hands go to his belt buckle, fingers working the leather free. “That’s the good part, Ben. The best part.”
I unbutton his jeans, deliberately brushing against the rigid length straining against his boxers. He’s so hard it must hurt, and when I touch him, he lets out a choked sound, half gasp, half groan, and his hips jerk involuntarily.
I did that. I made him feel that.
My hand slips inside his boxers, fingers wrapping around the hot steel of him. A low groan is ripped from his throat as his hands come up to my waist, gripping me, pulling me closer. His fingers dig into my skin, anchoring him to me, like he might wake up or I might float away.
I move off his lap, sliding down until I’m kneeling between his legs on the worn carpet. My hands go to his jeans, tugging them down along with his boxers, freeing him. He springs free, hard and flushed and beautiful, and I wrap my hand around the base, feeling him twitch in my grip.
“Cass—” His voice is strangled. “You don’t have to—”
“She called you a junker?” I whisper. “Well, I want your junk…”
“That’s terrible—”
I cut him off by taking him into my mouth.
His reaction is immediate. As his hands tangle in my hair, he lets out a low, guttural sound, and I feel the vibration all the way to my core. It powers me, my tongue and lips learning the shape of him, and his breathing goes ragged when I take him deeper.
I want to give him pleasure so absolute it burns away all the shame, so complete it overwrites every cruel word. I want him to know that this—the real, nerdy, passionate core—is what I want, and I want him to accept me and want me just as much.
He’s already close. I can feel the tension coiling, the way his breath comes faster, the desperate grip in my hair. His hips start to move, shallow thrusts he can’t control, and I take him deeper, letting him chase the release.
But then I realize something.
This isn’t enough.
I need more. I need all of him.
“Ben,” I gasp, pulling away. My lips are wet and my breathing is ragged, like I’ve just come off stage after a two-hour set.
He looks down at me, his eyes dazed, unfocused. “Yeah?”
The sight of him so utterly wrecked sends a fresh wave of arousal through me. “I want you. Now.”
It’s half command, half plea.
“I—” He swallows hard, then a look of regret crosses his face. “I don’t have a condom…”
I shake my head, scrambling back onto his lap. “I’m on the pill. And I’m clean. Got tested last month.” I pause. “Are you?”
“I—” He stops, and a shadow of embarrassment crosses his face. Shame. “I’m clean. I’m… I’ve never…”
The words trail off, but I hear what he’s not saying.
“You’re a virgin?”
He nods, unable to meet my eyes. “I know that’s probably—”
“I’m glad it’s me,” I whisper, and then I kiss him, deep and slow, trying to pour every ounce of tenderness into it.
When I pull back, I see a wave of relief, mixed with disbelief, wash over his features.
Like he can’t quite believe I mean it. Like he’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop, for me to laugh and tell him it was all a joke, and the look makes me melt a little bit more and hope a little bit stronger.
He really thinks he’s unlovable. He really believes it.
I reach down between us, taking him in my hand again, and then I guide him to the wet heat between my legs. As I position him at my entrance, feeling the blunt pressure against me, I smile at him, reassuring him that I want this and I want him.
I begin to lower myself onto him.
The solid, throbbing heat in my hand falters.
I feel it happen. The thick, hard steel I’m holding softens with shocking speed, becoming a soft, limp weight. Like someone flipped a switch and cut the power. Then, a second later, his entire body goes rigid beneath me as he realizes what’s happening.
The sudden loss of his arousal is more violent than a blow. The heat in my veins turns to ice. I freeze, still poised above him, my breath catching as I look down. He’s soft. Completely soft. My naked body on top of him, the heat of my core, the evidence of how much I want him…
None of it’s enough.
“Ben?” I whisper.
His eyes are squeezed shut, his face twisted into a mask of pure, abject humiliation. A low, wounded sound escapes his lips. He opens his eyes but can’t look at me, and the shame radiating from him is so potent it makes my stomach clench.
“I’m sorry,” he chokes out. “I’m so sorry, I—I have to go.”
He scrambles out from under me before I can stop him, standing up from the bed. I’m suddenly cold, the air against my bare skin like ice. He’s on his feet, fumbling with his jeans, his back to me, like he can’t bear for me to see his face.
“Ben, wait—”
“I just—I need to—”
He can’t finish. He yanks his jeans up, not bothering with his belt, and grabs his shirt. He dresses quickly, then heads for the door and flees, his footsteps pounding down the hallway until they’re swallowed by silence. In his wake, the door swings shut with a quiet click.
I’m left sitting on the bed, naked and cold, my body still aching with unspent need. I pull my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them, making myself small. The position is defensive, fetal, the instinctive curl of something wounded.
The Revolving Door just slammed shut with brutal finality.
But it’s worse. Because he didn’t just choose to leave. He recoiled from me, the real me, right at my most vulnerable moment. I was offering him everything—naked, wanting—and his body said no. Clearly, whatever he liked about the packaging didn’t survive the unwrapping.
The Fanboy recoiled from my tears.
The Adrenaline Junkie was disgusted by my fear.
The Critic weaponized my vulnerability.
But this is worse.
Because Ben saw everything—the mess, the rage, the crying, the broken parts—and he stayed. He held me through the storm. He made me believe, for one shining, fragile moment, that maybe I was wrong, and that maybe the pattern could break.
Then his body called bullshit on the whole thing.
The hope I’d let myself feel dies in my chest, suffocated.
I’m like my amp. Everyone hears the tone, the warmth, the “character.” But underneath is the hum I can’t fix, because the problem’s in the transformer, in the core. You can swap every tube, clean every connection, pretend it’s just part of the sound.
But it’s just broken.
Like me.
I reach for the vodka bottle on the floor, my fingers closing around the neck. I drink a swig, and the burn scorches down my throat, liquid fire that at least makes me feel something other than this crushing rejection that I’m not sure I can get back up from.
I drink until the room starts to blur, until my thoughts go fuzzy, until the edges of the world soften into something bearable, until the silent black welcome of unconsciousness finally pulls me under like a mercy I don’t deserve.
The punk rock princess, finally at rock bottom.