Chapter 13
Octavia
The drive to campus unfolds in a silence so dense it starts to feel like another passenger in the car.
The radio is on, but neither of us acknowledges it.
Some song hums quietly through the speakers, too low to drown out anything, too present to ignore.
I keep my phone in my hand the whole time, checking it every few seconds like that alone might make Cheyenne or Maria appear sooner, or somehow shorten the distance between here and wherever I wish I was instead of trapped in my own car with him.
Spokehaven University spreads out in front of us piece by piece as we get closer.
Brick buildings. Wide lawns. Students cutting across walkways with coffee cups and backpacks carrying the kind of normal Monday energy that makes my skin itch.
Everything outside the windshield looks painfully ordinary, which only makes the inside of the car feel worse.
My stomach hasn’t settled since he handed me his schedule.
He hadn’t said anything when he passed it over.
Just held the paper out, waited, and let me discover for myself that we share Creative Arts first period.
Of all the classes on campus, it had to be that one.
My elective. My quiet class. The one space that felt like mine because no one in my life had ever managed to touch it.
Now he is in that too.
Tugging at the sleeve of my sweatshirt, I stare harder at my phone, trying not to think about how close his body is, how familiar the silence between us has already become, how much I hate that it does not feel like the silence of strangers.
He breaks first.
“Last night was a mistake.”
The words are calm when he says them, controlled in that deliberate way he slips into when he wants to strip all feeling out of something before he speaks it aloud.
I turn toward him before I can stop myself.
He is watching the windshield, not me, one hand on the wheel, his face unreadable beneath the brim of that cap.
My jaw tightens instantly. Looking away feels safer than looking at him, so that is what I do.
“I’m glad we can agree on that.”
The answer comes out colder than I mean it to, but once it is there, I let it stay.
He taps his thumb once against the steering wheel, then stops. “The alcohol made me do things I wouldn’t have done sober.”
That lands harder than the first part.
Not because I believe him entirely. Because some part of me had not wanted that to be the reason.
Some part of me had been stupid enough to let last night sit in my chest like it meant more than a drunken unraveling between two damaged people who had no business touching each other in the first place.
“I get it,” I say, cutting him off before he can soften it further. “You feel guilty. Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.”
The sentence sounds ugly the second it leaves my mouth, but I don’t take it back. He says he would not have done it sober. All I hear is the quiet confirmation that I was convenient.
His shoulders shift slightly against the seat.
“The scar on your cheek-” he says after a beat.
That does it.
“Stop.” The word snaps out of me before I can temper it. I turn toward him fully now, anger finally beating humiliation to the front. “Stop doing that. Stop speaking like none of it happened. Stop pretending you can pick and choose which parts of last night count.”
Letting out a short humorless scoff, he glances at me...really glances at me, and there is something in his face that looks almost offended by the accusation.
“Nothing important happened last night,” he says.
His voice is still low, but the edge is there now.
“What exactly do you want me to say, Octavia? That I needed it? That I let myself get carried away? You were at the wrong place at the wrong time and I was drunk enough to feed into biology. Don’t get angry at me because you decided there was something decent in that. ”
The words slice cleanly.
For a second I cannot breathe around them. Then I laugh, because if I do not laugh, I might let him hear how badly that hurt.
“I should have stayed with Kadin,” I say. “I should have left you there and let the cops find you.”
“Maybe you should have,” he shoots back immediately.
There is no hesitation in it. That somehow makes the next thing worse.
“But we both know he would’ve needed hours to get out of you what I got in seconds.”
The whole car seems to constrict around us.
My head turns slowly toward him. He keeps his eyes on the grounds outside when he says the next part, but I know it is meant for me and me alone.
“I didn’t hear you gasping his name last night.”
The cruelty of it shocks me into silence for one beat, maybe two. Then something vicious rises up to meet it.
“So that’s your game?” I ask, my voice quieter now, which makes it far more dangerous.
“You lure in women who are already fucked up enough to mistake damage for depth, you flash that Medusa tattoo like it means you understand something about being used? You pretend you know what it is to be somebody’s little object?
Somebody’s currency. Somebody’s body before you even know what that means. ”
He turns toward me so fast the movement is almost violent.
“You saw it?”
The question cuts straight through my anger, not because of the words themselves, but because of the way he says them. His voice is lower now. Rougher. There is no mocking in it. Just something raw and unexpectedly exposed.
“And you still think you’re the only one who...” He stops himself, jaw tightening so hard I can see the muscle move.
When he speaks again, his tone is sharper, but not emptier. “I don’t paint my body with lies. I paint it with reminders.”
That settles between us with a weight I can’t immediately throw back.
I should leave it there. I know I should.
Instead, I ask the question that has been scraping at me since Lacey held up that folded hundred-dollar bill in the yard.
“Is that why you paid her?”
He doesn’t answer.
“Lacey,” I snap.
Now he does look at me.
The expression on his face changes in a way that makes my chest tighten. Not guilt. Not embarrassment. Something closer to revulsion turned inward.
“I didn’t want to touch her,” he says quietly. “And I didn’t want her touching me.”
There is no performance in it now. No game. The words come out tired, far too immediate to be rehearsed.
That is when it finally lands.
Not all at once. More like a door slowly giving way.
I am not the only one in this car who understands what it means to have your body become the site of somebody else’s hunger, or control, or violence.
I am not the only one who learned too early that being wanted and being harmed can get twisted together until you stop knowing which one you are reacting to.
The realization does not soften the anger. It just ruins the simplicity of it.
“Then why let me?” I hear myself say before I can reel the question back. “Why let me touch you?”
His laugh is tired. “Why did you let me? Why did you ignore Kadin and throw yourself into something you knew would hurt you?”
My mouth opens, shuts. Outside the fogged windshield, campus spins like nothing detonated last night: students skirting puddles, backpacks bobbing, everything painfully normal. Inside the car, the silence is a crater.
“I let you touch me,” I whisper, the words falling apart on the way out, “because I needed you in that moment. I needed to know what it felt like to want touch.”
He says nothing. His knuckles rest on the gearshift, tendons taut. I stare at the dashboard. The scent of damp clothes and old coffee saturates the car. Every second drags.
“Letting you touch me was a mistake,” I say, my words flat. “You were there, and I was foolish.” I swallow once, twice. My pulse digs into my throat. “Drunk, your body will feed into anything. Just biology, right?” I snap, tossing his own phrase back at him like it burns my tongue.
Something flickers across his face. He doesn’t flinch this time, but his hand slides off the gearshift and settles on the console between us. His fingers flex, then reach for me across the small gap.
“And now,” he says quietly, voice low. “What do you need now?”
The question lands like a weight on my chest. The air turns thick. I keep my eyes on the windshield, but I don’t pull away when his hand closes over my knee. His touch is light, testing. The shift in him feels seismic.
“What do you need?” he repeats, thumb skimming up a centimeter, slow as fog creeping up glass.
My hand hovers in my lap uselessly. The memory of his mouth on my scars ignites in a rush, heat curling low, breath catching.
I force my voice to steady. “I needed you yesterday,” I say.
“And it was a mistake.” My throat tightens.
“I wanted to believe your touch meant something, and that was stupid. Drunk bodies...” I swallow. “They react. You said that.”
His thumb slides higher, pressing into the inner edge of my thigh, feeling the warmth through the cling of cotton.
The movement is barely a stroke, yet it traces fire up my spine.
I keep breathing, barely. My fingers drift down to his wrist, but instead of pushing him off I hold him there, anchoring the tremor shaking through me.
“And now?” His voice has dropped lower, roughened by something that has nothing to do with anger. “What do you need now?”
I stare at the fogging window, the blurred shapes of students weaving around puddles. Every muscle in my body is tight. The ghosts of last night’s kisses flicker across my skin.
“I need to know you didn’t lie,” I manage, so quiet I barely hear myself. “That it wasn’t just the alcohol.”
His hand tightens on my thigh. The car feels too small, too hot.
The heater rattles. Rain taps out a rhythm on the roof.
Slowly, he shifts his palm up along the inside seam of my leggings, pressing the fabric into the straining muscle.
He stays there, thumb nearly brushing the seam of my underwear beneath the thin material, as if he’s forcing me to acknowledge exactly what his touch does to me.
“I’m sober now,” he murmurs. “And you’re still shaking.”
“So am I,” I fire back. “So why am I not stopping you?”
His thumb presses harder, rolling over the fabric with precise pressure that grinds the thin barrier into my clit.
Heat detonates low in my stomach. He watches me carefully, eyes flicking between mine and the slight twitch of my hips.
The conflict on his face mirrors mine: hunger and restraint, guilt braided with something so relentless my knees press farther apart.
He doesn’t dig inside the waistband. He doesn’t shove the fabric aside.
He keeps me clothed, keeps the barrier in place, yet uses it like a fuse.
His palm cups me through the leggings, sliding up and down the damp seam, making sure I feel every ridge of his fingers as they stroke.
He drags the heel of his hand slowly, slow enough that the friction grows sticky and obscene.
My breath comes jagged. I realize I’m clutching his wrist, not to stop him but to keep him there, locked to me.
He leans over, mouth hovering near my ear. “This,” he says, voice barely more than a whisper. “How you are right now. It’s addicting.”
A tremor shudders through me. My thigh muscles clench. The wet fabric grows even slipperier beneath his hand.
“I’m no better than an addict, Octavia,” he whispers, breath hot against my temple. “And you keep handing me the needle.”
The words slam into me. My throat tightens. “Did you want this?” he asks, eyes burning. “Want me to feel you like this?”
My response is a tiny nod, choking on the truth of it.
My entire body is tuned to the rhythm of his thumb.
His hand cups me deeper, the fabric dragging against sensitive flesh in a wet, relentless grind.
Each pass gets more deliberate, as if he’s memorizing how my hips jerk, how my eyes flutter, how the slick sound filling the car belongs to me.
“Then we’re both going to have problems,” he says, voice soft and lethal.
His hand tears away suddenly, leaving a vacant burn between my legs.
He curls his fingers into a tight fist, knuckles white, fighting whatever war is raging in his chest. The loss makes a broken noise slip past my lips, one I bury as fast as it escapes.
He sees it anyway. That almost-undone expression flickers over his face, a crack in the armor, before he grabs the door handle.
He yanks the door open, cold air knifing in. “Don’t push me for answers again,” he mutters, the words razored low. Then he steps out and slams the door, leaving me in a car that still smells like him, thighs trembling from a touch he made me crave, knowing this is devouring us both.