Chapter 16
AMELIA
These days, I stood on the edge of haunt and hunger.
Some girls woke to birthdays and sunlight. I woke to the taste of old grief in my mouth. My emotional scars had never really left my bones, just reshaped themselves.
Even here, hundreds of miles from the wreckage, I breathed its ghosts in every morning.
It was supposed to be a trip for healing. That was what Sabrina said when she planned the itinerary. Like maybe she could mend what was broken if she staged enough group outings and forced enough laughter into the cracks.
But you couldn’t outrun trauma. You couldn’t bleach out the stains in your head.
I stood on the weathered pier. Sunlight cut through the sky, burning stripes across my ankles, and the ocean below heaved and rolled. Endless, hungry, blue-green, and alive. I pressed against the railing and tried to let the wind scrape the chaos out of my mind.
Beside me, nobody noticed the way my pulse tripped and staggered. Not Alex, who leaned in with casual confidence, forearms braced on the peeling wood, eyes the color of new denim and always searching for something to win.
“You’d think a view like that would get old,” he said. His voice was too smooth, too practiced. “But honestly? I wish I could wake up to this every day.”
I watched the line of boats tossing on the current. There was a beauty to it, I guessed. The kind that made you ache a little, because you knew it wouldn’t last. “Yeah,” I murmured. “It’s…nice.”
Nice. The word echoed inside my head, hollow as driftwood.
Alex grinned like he’d just reeled in a prize catch. “You ever think about moving closer to the water? Finding a house with a view like this?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know.” All I could think was: water meant wildness, drowning, a roar in the throat, and blackness behind the eyes. But I couldn’t say that. Not out here, surrounded by laughter and sunburn and the pretense of normal.
A gull shrieked overhead. It was a violent noise. And somewhere behind us, Sabrina’s laugh spiraled up, shoving its way into my ears.
Shane herded everyone with a practiced wave. “Okay, if we don’t check out those shops before lunch, my wife’s going to go into withdrawal.” He shot Sabrina a fond look. “And we don’t want to see that.”
Sabrina pinched his side, grinning wide. “You’re just hoping I buy something you can show off later.”
Sydney trailed behind them, face half-shadowed by dark sunglasses, barely saying a word. I wondered if, underneath it all, she hated every second of this social circus as much as I did.
Caiden didn’t say anything at all. Just stalked along at the edge, hands in his pockets, gaze nailed to the ground like he was waiting for it to collapse and swallow him whole.
Our eyes locked for a heartbeat, then he looked away. My chest tightened. I remembered his words.
I don’t fuck victims.
My heart sank a little more. I shouldn’t have stopped him. But I’m also glad I stopped him before we did something we both might regret.
We moved together, a messy little parade. The planks of the boardwalk rattled under us, rickety and old, reminding me of all the things that gave out when you needed them most.
Somewhere in the glitter of sun and movement, Alex’s hand skimmed the small of my back. Not a touch I hated. Not a touch I clung to, either. I flinched a little, unsure if my body still belonged to me at all.
The first store we hit stank of incense and sunscreen. Trinkets stacked in baskets, cheap jewelry tangled on felt stands, everything loud and bright and trying too hard.
Sabrina made a beeline for a rack of swimsuits. “Oh my god, you have to try this one.” She shoved a hanger at me, turquoise and strappy, more daring than anything I owned. “You’d look amazing.”
Blood rushed hot into my cheeks. I tried to say no, tried and failed. I let her drag me to the changing room, hands fumbling with the fabric, skin prickling with anxiety.
My reflection in the mirror was a stranger. Pale, brittle, wary. I didn’t know where I started or ended.
I came out, trying not to shiver. The suit clung to my body, amplifying the parts I wanted to hide, making secrets out of skin and bone.
Sabrina whooped. “I told you! Show-stopper.”
Alex whistled low, barely hiding the flash of interest in his eyes. “Wow. You’re making it hard to remember what I was going to say.” His words dangled between flirty and real.
I swallowed, waiting for something else. Something that cut a little deeper.
My gaze dragged to Caiden, automatic. He stood near the window, back turned, arms flexed with tension. Refusing to look. Refusing to let me in.
A cold disappointment pooled in my stomach. I hated how it hurt, that stupid ache behind my ribs. I should’ve been relieved he wasn’t staring. I should have laughed it off.
But of course I couldn’t, because every inch of me was twisted up with him, with the memory of his mouth on mine, the way he kissed like it was a fight. The way I kept letting him.
He’d spent years breaking me down, splintering my self-worth, making every hallway feel like a trap. I still felt his hands on my shoulders, pinning, bruising. I still heard those words—loser, worm, freak—like a second heartbeat under my own.
But Colorado changed everything. Left us raw and exposed, struggling in the dark together, needing each other to survive.
Since then, every touch from him felt different. Still dangerous. Still wrong. But also something else, something hot and bright that scared the shit out of me.
I hated him.
But I wanted him, too.
And that wanting felt like rot, like a secret infection eating its way out.
I tugged at the strap, nerves and shame crawling up my spine. “It feels…tight,” I said, barely above a whisper.
Sabrina grinned wider. “That’s the point, babe. You look incredible. Shane, agree with me!”
Shane, cleaning up after a curious toddler who’d knocked over a hat display, just laughed. “I don’t know if I should comment, I might get in trouble at home.”
Sabrina rolled her eyes. “Coward.”
Sydney’s mouth curved into a tiny smile. “You do look good, Amelia.”
But none of it mattered. Not really. My eyes kept skittering to Caiden, hungry for something, approval? Loathing? Anything that felt real. He just picked at a bracelet from the counter, knuckles white, eyes everywhere but on me.
Push and pull, always. Wanting, resenting, dying for him to look, and then hating myself for needing it.
Alex tried to catch my attention again, still playing the part. “If you were mine, I’d never let you out of my sight.” He said it like a joke, but there was a challenge in it. The words pressed, testing, prodding.
I had no idea how to answer. My skin felt too tight.
The rest of the store was a blur. Trinkets, cheap beach towels, tie-dye shirts. I made small talk and let Sabrina boss me around, trying to laugh at the right times.
But inside, I was trapped in that old, familiar storm. Spinning between memories of cruelty and the painfully sweet sting of Caiden’s mouth.
Next shop. Beachy jewelry, all glitter and shell. Sydney drifted through silently, barely a ripple in the air. Shane and Sabrina kept up the banter; Alex tried to make me laugh about shark-tooth anklets.
But the whole time, I was watching Caiden out of the corner of my eye. Maybe he felt it. Maybe he didn’t care.
At the third shop, Sabrina picked out cheap sunglasses for everyone. “Family photo time,” she insisted, shoving a ridiculous pair onto my face.
Alex leaned closer. “Cute. But I think you’d look better in nothing at all.”
I shoved his arm away, but some part of me liked the attention. Liked it, but needed it to be different. Needed it to be Caiden.
He was lingering in the back, towering and silent. A black hole, cold and heavy, sucking all the light out of the room.
After a while, we spilled back out into the sunlight.
Why did I keep wanting him to see me? Why did I crave that sick burn in his stare, even after everything he’d put me through?
Maybe I wanted to hurt. Maybe I needed to keep peeling the old scabs, because I didn’t know what else to feel.
Colorado proved he could break, too. That he could bleed. He protected me, held my head when I thought I was going to die, and let me see the pieces he tried so hard to hide. But sometimes the way he looked at me now felt like the old days all over again.
I wondered if I was just addicted to the pain.
I shoved my hands into my pockets and tried to laugh along with the others. Alex reached for my shoulder, tracing the line from neck to collarbone. “You want to grab a drink somewhere? Just us?” His voice was soft.
I almost said yes. Almost let myself be normal. But the words stuck in my throat.
Caiden’s shadow towered at the edge of my vision.
Instead, I just nodded, eyes on the ground. “Maybe.”
Movement blurred around me, my head full of static.
I was never going to outrun it. The wanting and the hating. The way he made me feel whole and ruined, all at once.
We kept wandering, group splitting and reforming, always orbiting the same old gravity.
At some point, Shane called, “You guys hungry? Let’s hit the shack at the end of the pier before we melt.”
Everyone agreed, voices blending into a haze. I followed, heart thudding and ears buzzing.
I glanced once more at Caiden, praying for something. But his face was carved from stone, mouth flat, staring straight through me.
Somewhere in the noise, I realized I was smiling. Pretending. Like my mother taught me. Take what you’re given and make it last.
Even if all it gave you was scars.
I let them sweep me forward, feet skimming across sun-warmed wood, all of us spun together like tangled fishing line. It was almost funny, how easy it was to fake happiness, how none of them would ever see the war in my head.
But under it all—the ocean, the sun, the blur of strangers, there was only one person I wanted to notice me.
And he never fucking did. At least, not today.
The inside of the shack was all noise.