Chapter Twenty-One
Skylar
The first thing I register is the emptiness.
Not the silence or the cold sheets. It’s the smell of him. It clings to my pillow, my skin, the fucking air.
He’s gone.
I stare at the ceiling, eyes tracking the cracks that crawl through the plaster.
My chest is tight. My throat is tighter, but I don’t cry. Just sit with it… the hollow space where he should be.
He left before the sun came up. Before I could ask if any of it meant something.
Maybe that’s the answer right there. It doesn’t.
My thighs still ache, every throb a reminder of how he fucked me. How much I wanted him, how much I needed it, thinking it would fill something.
Instead, it’s simply carved me out.
I pull the blanket in under my chin, not for the warmth, but for the cover as the shame creeps in.
All that’s left now is the dent in the mattress and the sting between my legs.
A memory I never asked for.
But a night I’ll never forget.
And the kind of silence that makes you realize how alone you really are in this world.
I shower fast. Cold water hits my skin, sharp enough to make me gasp, but it doesn’t do shit to wash him off. He’s still there. In the bruises on my hips. In the ache, I can’t scrub away, no matter how hard I try.
Zane Rivera is everywhere.
Under my skin. In my blood. And I fucking hate that I care. Hate that a part of me hoped he’d still be there when I woke up.
The apartment seems too quiet when I step out.
It’s too still, like it’s waiting for me to break.
I towel off, throw on a pair of jeans and a hoodie, and tie my hair up in a messy knot.
It doesn’t matter how I appear. No one sees past the front I put on, anyway. That tough-girl mask I wear like armor. If I look untouchable, they won’t see how cracked I really am underneath.
I grab my bag and head down the stairs, and that’s when I see him.
Zane.
He’s bent over an engine, sleeves shoved up to his elbows, grease staining his forearms. His jaw’s clenched tight, teeth grinding around whatever tension he won’t say out loud. With a wrench in one hand, he’s focused on the machine in front of him.
He doesn’t look up.
Doesn’t say a fucking word.
My chest squeezes, something sharp pressing beneath my ribs. I shift my weight, suddenly unsure what to do with my hands, or even how to stand without looking as if I’m falling apart.
The moment he looks up and sees me there, I do what any idiot girl with a broken heart does.
I smile.
Just a tiny one.
I lift my hand, fingers twitching in a pathetic little wave.
Zane gives me a single nod. Nothing more.
And it fucking burns.
I glance away before the sting behind my eyes turns into something worse. My throat’s tight, raw from everything I never said last night. The way I came apart while he was inside me.
I force myself to keep moving, one step in front of the other, so he can’t tell I’m breaking apart.
Rainer’s by the tool cabinet. He’s rough around the edges, but I like him. I always have. There’s a kindness buried beneath the gruff exterior. And I’m glad Zane has someone watching out for him, even if he pretends he doesn’t need it.
“Morning,” I say as I pass him, forcing my voice steady.
He looks up, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Well, hey there, Skylar,” he says. “You look like trouble.”
“Always,” I say with a smirk, though my stomach’s still knotted.
I push open the door, the morning air biting as it hits my face.
I don’t stop walking or glance back. Because if I do, I might catch one last glance of Zane not giving a shit.
And I’m not sure I can handle that today.
The world doesn’t slow down.
Engines rumble, brakes squeal, someone yells across the street. Laughter from a group of guys floats past me.
None of it lands. It’s all background noise to the chaos in my head.
Every step I take pulls another memory to the surface.
The way his hands gripped my waist. The sound of his voice, curling around my name, while he was buried inside me. The heat of his breath on my skin. The way I came apart for him.
And then the cold bed this morning.
That fucking ache in my chest when it dawned on me that even though I gave him my virginity, it meant nothing to him. That perhaps I was only a warm body he used to burn off whatever demons were clawing at him last night.
Maybe that’s all I ever was to him.
By the time I push through the school gates, I’m already spiraling.
My chest feels too tight, throat raw, stomach twisting.
I don’t paste on a smile. My face tells the truth today. I’m storm clouds and cracked bones and not in the mood to play nice. Let them fucking stare, whisper. I’ve got nothing left to give.
Cassie’s waiting by the lockers, holding two coffees and bouncing on her toes.
She waves one when she sees me coming. “Morning, Sunshine.”
I grunt and take the cup from her hand. The heat seeps into my fingers, but it doesn’t reach the cold sitting under my ribs.
“Wow,” she mutters, watching me. “Someone’s in a mood.”
Then I hear them.
“Hey, Skylar,” Liam calls out, that sleezy voice makes me sick. “Still got that pretty little moan? Thought maybe you’d saved a few for me.”
Laughter follows.
His pack’s always around him.
Bryce Anders, who walks like he owns the place because his dad’s a hotshot lawyer who slips the cops enough cash to clean up his messes.
Connor Vale, another rich asshole who thinks money permits him to treat people like trash. They feed off each other’s filth.
I keep my eyes forward, steps steady. No reaction. No emotion. Just keep moving.
Cassie doesn’t.
“Go fuck yourself, Liam,” she snaps, her voice sharp through the hallway. “Actually, scratch that. I doubt your pathetic little cock could survive the trauma of your own hand.”
There’s a beat of silence.
Then the laughter starts.
Not from his boys. They’ve gone dead quiet, but from everyone else crowding the lockers.
Liam’s hands curl at his sides, his jaw grinding like he’s chewing on broken glass. But he’s not stupid enough to do anything. Not here. Not with this many witnesses.
He tries to recover, sneering through gritted teeth.
“Fuck off. No guy with standards would ever fuck you, Cassie. They’d have to be blind or desperate to touch you.”
She steps forward, smile stretching, all teeth and vengeance. “Good. I’d hate to contract your limp-dick disease. Pretty sure my pussy would dry up just hearing your voice.”
More laughter.
Liam’s face goes red, followed by that weird blotchy purple he gets when he’s close to losing his shit. He mutters something about sluts and stalks off, his crew trailing behind him.
Cassie watches him go, shoulders squared, breathing a little hard.
After a beat she turns to me.
“You okay?” I ask, hating that asshole even more for going after the one thing I know gets to her.
Cassie hides it well, all loud confidence and sharp comebacks, but I know the truth.
She hates how she looks, even though she has no reason to.
She’s pretty—fuck, she’s more than that—but she never sees it.
Her mouth quirks into that fake-ass grin she always pulls out when someone hits too close.
“I’m fucking fantastic. Nothing like emasculating an idiot in front of his own limp dick parade to make a girl’s morning.”
I don’t say anything. I walk beside her, letting the silence settle.
“Alright, what the fuck is going on with you?” she demands, stepping in front of me as if she’s about to stage an intervention. “You’ve been weird all morning. You didn’t even laugh at my perfect dick joke. That shit was gold. Pulitzer-worthy.”
I rub the back of my neck, let out a breath. “I lost my virginity last night.”
Cassie’s jaw hits the floor. “Shut the actual fuck up. Who?”
I don’t say a word.
Her eyes nearly burst out of her skull. “No. No. Don’t even play. Zane?”
I nod once.
“Fucking finally,” she exhales. “I knew it. I fucking knew it. The tension between the two of you could power a city. Was it… Wait, no, don’t tell me.
Actually, do. No, don’t. Shit.” She fans herself dramatically.
“Of course it was good. That boy has fuck-me energy for days. I’d be on my knees every night thanking the universe if I had a piece of that. ”
“Cass—”
She throws her coffee in the trash, eyes still bulging like I told her aliens landed in the quad.
“Nope. I can’t. I need a fucking minute to process this. You need to sit my ass down and walk me through every detail. I want timestamps. I want choreography. Hell, I want mood lighting and background music.”
She grabs my arm, dragging me toward the bench as if it’s a crime scene that needs investigating.
“Was it the roof? Oh, tell me it was the fucking roof. Wait, no… don’t tell me.
Actually, fuck it, tell me. How was it? Did he have that fuck-all-night stamina or the I’ll-ruin-you-in-ten-minutes kind?
Wait. Did he go down on you? Of course he fucking did.
That boy looks like he eats pussy for sport. And takes his damn time doing it.”
I open my mouth to speak but she steamrolls right over me.
“God, I knew he’d be good. It’s the quiet ones, you know. The ones with those hands. You know the ones.” She wiggles her fingers for emphasis. “Those are not the hands of a man who’s in a hurry. Those are the hands of a man who studies anatomy for fun.”
She beams at me, completely unbothered, practically vibrating with second-hand orgasms. “Bitch, spill every filthy word.”
I blush, which only makes her cackle harder.
“It was… incredible,” I admit, voice low. “But now it’s fucking weird.”
Cassie stops laughing instantly. “Weird how? Did he pull some freaky shit? Chains… Mirror above the bed. Leave nothing out.”
I shake my head. “No. It wasn’t like that. He was… God, he was fucking perfect. But after that, he left early.”
Her smile fades. “Wait. That’s it… he walked out? No smug post-sex smirk?”
“No. He left before I woke up this morning.”
She frowns. “Sky, it’s always been weird between you two. This whole forbidden tension, loaded glances, don’t-touch-me-but-fuck-me energy. But you’ve got to stop doing that thing.”
“What thing?”
“That thing where you shut down. You disappear. You act like you don’t give a shit, but you’re already halfway in love and spiraling.”
“I don’t do that,” I mutter.
“You do,” she says flatly. “You get scared and you fucking run. And he’s a guy. Which means he’s probably overthinking everything, twisting it around in his head until he doesn’t know if you regret it or if you’re about to tell him to fuck off.”
I cross my arms. “You sound way too invested.”
“Someone has to be,” she shoots back. “And also, bitch, you still haven’t told me any details.”
I blink. “I said it was incredible.”
“That tells me jack shit,” she scoffs. “Did he go down on you? Did he make you beg? How big is his cock? I need answers, Sky.”
“You talk too much,” I mutter.
“Lucky for you. Otherwise you’d still be locked in your own head, pretending you don’t want him when it’s written all over your fucking face.”
I groan. “Jesus, Cass.”
“Nope. Don’t Jesus me. I want filthy. I want to know if he made you see stars or cry his name into the mattress.”
I flip her off as I stand. “You’re disgusting.”
She grins. “And you’re deflecting.”
We fall into step; the hallway buzzing with the pre-class chaos.
Slamming lockers.
The sharp bark of laughter.
Someone throws a crumpled worksheet across the corridor and gets a chorus of oohs when it hits a teacher’s back.
Cass nudges me. “Tell me this? Was it rough?”
My throat works. “Yeah.”
“Good rough or holy-shit-he’s-gonna-ruin-me rough?”
I blink, heat coiling low. “Both, I guess.”
Cass whistles. “Damn. So why the fuck are you walking around here like your puppy got shot?”
I shrug, chewing the inside of my cheek.
“Because I let him touch me and then he vanished.”
She stops walking. Right in the middle of the hallway traffic.
People shove past, someone curses, but she doesn’t move. “Sky. You’ve been in love with that boy since the moment you saw him.”
I flinch.
She lowers her voice, eyes on mine. “And he’s been drowning in you the whole damn time. So whatever this is, it’s not done.”
I don’t answer.
She bumps her shoulder against mine, softer now.
“Come on. Let’s go fail math together.”
I bailed on the last period.
The walk home feels longer than usual, my chest heavy, my head loud with thoughts I don’t want to face.
The apartment is too quiet when I open the door.
The kind of silence that crawls under your skin and settles in your bones.
I drop my bag beside the couch and collapse onto the cushions. Pull my knees to my chest. My arms wrapped tight as if that’s going to hold me together.
The clock ticks.
The fridge hums.
Hours crawl by, slow and cruel.
I don’t eat or move. I sit there instead, chewing at the inside of my cheek until it stings.
Every minute that passes beats against me, a steady reminder that he’s downstairs in the workshop, choosing engines and pretending last night didn’t happen after the way I gave him all of me.
Cassie’s voice keeps circling through my skull, loud and relentless.
“Talk to him, Sky. Don’t do that thing where you shut down.”
Too late.
I’ve already sunk so far into the silence, I can’t remember what it feels like to be seen.
By the time the last bit of daylight bleeds out of the sky, I’ve had enough. The waiting is a weight pressing into my ribs.
I move to the internal window that looks down into the workshop. Push the curtain aside.
The glass is smudged, but I can still see him.
Zane, the only one left down there. Hair falling into his eyes. I watch the muscles as he wipes sweat from his neck.
I tell myself to stay upstairs. To leave him be. To pretend it doesn’t matter.
But I can’t.
My chest pulls too tight, thoughts crashing into each other, too loud to ignore. My pulse is a steady drum in my throat, and before I can stop myself, I’m moving.
One step.
Then another.
Down the stairs.
Toward him.
I move closer, each step loud in the quiet.
“You think I’m a fucking joke?”
That gets his eyes on me. He straightens.
“What?” he says.
I swallow hard. “You think I can easily forget what happened? That it meant nothing to me? I’m not some broken charity case you pitied enough to touch for one night before tossing aside.”
His mouth parts as if he’s about to speak, but no words come. He stands there, arms stiff at his sides.
The silence afterwards feels louder than the words.
And I hate how my chest burns, how my throat feels like it’s caving in.
Hate the tears in my eyes, the way my voice cracked at the end. I blink fast, furious with myself, because I am not that girl.
I don’t cry over boys. I don’t fall apart over someone who clearly doesn’t want me.
But, fuck, I wanted to matter to him.
Just once, I didn’t want to be the girl people walk away from when the high wears off.