Chapter 6
AVA
For the first time since Halloween, I felt alive.
My heart had yet to calm down, but this time it was from exhilaration rather than the anxiety that had been keeping me company since the beginning of the year.
What had just happened was fun, reckless—hell, it was fucking normal by college students’ standards.
Cruz and Micah had been the perfect distraction to the thoughts that had been plaguing me, but now, as we watched Micah leave the room, I knew it was just a temporary balm to the wound that kept festering.
A wound that started that night at the lake and had only worsened since the party.
Now that the high was gone, and the last tremors of my orgasm had subsided, I was back to the same spot I had been before Cruz and Micah had come.
As if sensing this, Cruz came to lie next to me.
“Your dad is worried about you,” he stated.
That was one of the things I liked about Cruz; he was direct and to the point. His life had been hard, and he didn’t use that past as a weapon to make others feel pity for him. He used his past as a fact, but he did his best to move on.
I was having trouble doing the same.
The past had a hold on me that I couldn’t let go of. It haunted my every waking moment, and even in my dreams.
“What did he say?”
I was almost too scared to ask.
“He just noticed that you’re withdrawing… He’s a good dad.” He added that last part softly.
My lower lip trembled.
“He’s the best.”
God.
My chest felt like it was caving in at that moment.
Everything was so messed up. My world started to turn upside down the day I got that first message, but only after the Halloween party did I allow myself to feel—to acknowledge just how much it had changed me.
I opened my mouth, but no words came out. Thinking them was one thing, but to voice aloud the ugly thoughts that had plagued me was another.
Did it make me a monster? Was I any better than the person behind this whole mess?
I could feel Cruz looking at me…waiting for me to break.
“How fucked up am I to be grateful it wasn’t me?” The hoarse words left my mouth before I could filter them.
Someone was dead because of me, and all I could do was feel fucking thankful, because it meant that I wouldn’t hurt my dad.
Livy hadn’t deserved that. In life, her hate for me was petty, but now that she was no longer here, it seemed petty on my behalf to continue to remember silly boy drama.
Cruz’s arms wrapped around me, and I couldn’t help but sob.
They were silent at first, like choking on air.
I tried desperately to breathe, but the feelings inside of me wouldn’t let me.
Then the noise pierced my ears. The arms around me became tighter, and the pressure let me know that it was real and I was still here.
It took a few seconds for me to realize that the noise was coming from me.
“Shhh, it’s okay, princess.”
Through the violent shakes of my body, those arms didn’t waver.
The release from earlier helped ease the tension that had gripped my body for the last few days, but this release was cathartic. I lay in that bed for what felt like hours. My wails subsided, and so did the shakes, until only small hiccups remained.
“How do I move on from this?” I asked Cruz.
“You don’t,” he replied instantly. “It will always be there. You will learn to live with it. Everyone makes their own choices, but we have to learn not to carry the crux of others’.
This life is a bitch, princess, but as long as we sink our claws into the little things that make us happy, we will be okay. ”
I took his words in, appreciating the fact that he didn’t try to coddle me.
“I love my dad, and I don’t want to see him hurt because of me, but I realize now that it’s going to end up happening anyway.”
Would things have been different if I had come home that night to tell my dad what had happened? Compared to staring death down in the face, everything else seemed minimal and mundane. No problem was bigger than death, but it was too late for that now, wasn’t it?
A few more seconds passed where Cruz just held me. He rubbed my back in slow circles. For someone who grew up alone, he was great at consoling others. Maybe he learned from all the things he wished people would do for him.
“About earlier,” he began to say tentatively.
I finally looked up at his words. His eyes were guarded, waiting to see what my reaction would be.
“It was liberating,” I admitted.
“Yeah?” He flashed me a cocky smile.
“You like Micah, don’t you?” I cocked my head to the side to see what he would say.
“You like him too,” he added.
I bit my lip. “I have for a while,” I admitted. “It was a lot easier to be his friend.”
Cruz used his two fingers to tilt my chin up.
“You two were alone for a while. I bet it was easier to hold on to that friendship as a security blanket.”
When he said it like that, I guess it made sense. Micah was always there, he understood me and my life at home. And I understood the struggles he had with his dad.
“Is that what I am?” Cruz asked, sounding more vulnerable than I had ever heard him before. “A security blanket for you guys to explore?”
He watched me as I gave him my answer. His shoulders tensed as he held in a breath. A few weeks back I would have been reeling from all of the emotions that came at me from all sides, but compared to death, nothing seemed as important anymore.
“I don’t think that works when I like you too,” I admitted. It had been the right thing to say because Cruz let out a relieved smile and then leaned down to kiss me. It wasn’t needy and urgent like earlier, just a soft peck on my lips.
He pulled back with a smile on his face.
“You know, when your dad told me to come and take care of you, I don’t think this is what he had in mind.”
His statement made me laugh.
After this morning, I felt lighter.
“Come on, princess, in the shower you go while I make you some dinner.”
I reached for my phone as I stood up and grimaced when I saw all the missed notifications. My stomach dropped when I noticed that Grayson had been calling and texting me nonstop—more than Cruz and Micah.
My first instinct was to text him back, but I knew Micah was with him, and I wanted to make it up to him in person. It wasn’t fair of me to keep punishing him because of someone else’s actions.
That was another what-if that I would have to live with. If I had been brave years earlier, Livy wouldn’t have cared what I did with my life. Perhaps Gray and I could have been friends.
Living in fear, trying to appease others, had gotten me nowhere thus far. As I put my phone down and headed for a hot shower, I vowed that I would live my life doing things that made me happy no matter the consequences.