24 #2
My mother was right. Attachment is weakness. Caring is vulnerability. Love is a weapon someone will use to destroy you.
I learned that lesson when I was eight years old. Forgot it for three days. And now Aurora Lane has reminded me in the most brutal way possible.
I close my fist around the necklace. Feel the metal bite into my skin.
And I whisper into the empty courtyard: "Get out of my sight, Aurora Lane. Get off my campus. I don't ever want to see you again."
The words taste like poison. Feel like dying.
But they're necessary. Because if I see her again—if I have to look at her face and remember what it felt like to think she cared—I'm going to do something I can't take back.
I turn. Walk toward my building. Each step measured. Controlled. The Ice King armor snapping back into place with brutal efficiency.
By the time I reach the penthouse, I'm completely numb.
The penthouse is too quiet.
I stand in the doorway, staring at the space that three days ago felt like home. Her oversized sweater is draped over the back of the couch. Her textbooks are stacked on the coffee table. The coffee mug she used this morning is still sitting on my desk, chapstick stain on the rim.
Evidence of her. Everywhere. Mocking me.
Evidence of the lie I believed.
My hand hits the sound system panel on the wall. Not deliberately. Just searching for something to hold onto. To ground myself.
Music explodes through the speakers. Loud. Aggressive. The bass so heavy it vibrates through the floor.
Chris Grey's "Wrong" fills the space with agonizing clarity.
The lyrics hit like a physical assault. Like the universe is mocking me. Because that's exactly what she did. Told me lies. Made me feel alive. Made me believe in something that was never real.
A roar tears from my throat. Guttural. Animal. The sound of something breaking beyond repair.
I grab the nearest thing—a crystal decanter worth more than most people's cars—and hurl it across the room.
It explodes against the wall. Glass shards scattering like stars. Bourbon dripping down expensive wallpaper in dark, damning streaks.
It's not enough.
I need more. Need to destroy something. Need to make the outside match the inside.
The coffee table goes next. Heavy glass and steel that takes actual effort to flip. It crashes onto its side with a sound like thunder, one leg snapping clean off.
The sound system is still blaring. The bass pounding through my chest in time with my racing heart.
I grab the edges of my desk—the massive oak piece that's been in the Laurent family for generations. The one I've sat behind for months, watching her work at her smaller desk across the room.
I flip it.
The sound is catastrophic. Wood splintering. Drawers exploding open. Papers and files and expensive pens scattering across the marble floor.
I'm breathing hard now. Chest heaving. Hands shaking with adrenaline and grief and absolute rage.
The penthouse is in ruins. Glass everywhere. Furniture destroyed. Everything I've carefully controlled for years reduced to chaos.
And it still doesn't help.
Not enough. Not nearly enough.
I grab another. And another. Throwing everything within reach. Crystal. Books. The laptop sitting on my desk. All of it smashing, breaking, destroying.
The music gets louder. Louder. Until it's all I can hear.
I flip my desk. The heavy oak monstrosity that probably weighs three hundred pounds. It goes over with a crash that shakes the entire penthouse, papers scattering, the ashtray where I burned Aurora's debt contracts hitting the floor and shattering.
Ashes everywhere. Mixed with blood and bourbon and broken crystal.
The physical destruction feels good. Cleansing. Like I can purge Aurora Lane from my system if I just break enough things.
I grab the coffee mug—her mug, with her chapstick stain because she uses the strawberry one with a bit of a tint—and I'm about to throw it against the wall when the door slams open.
Tristan. Lucius. Landon.
They're all here. Standing in the doorway, staring at the destruction, at me, at the blood dripping from my hands.
"Get out," I snarl. "Get the fuck out."
They don't move. Don't leave. Just stand there watching me with identical expressions of concern.
"Evander—" Tristan starts.
"I SAID GET OUT!"
I throw the mug. Not at them. At the wall beside Landon's head. It explodes in a shower of ceramic and coffee residue.
They still don't leave. Just exchange a look that's clearly some kind of silent communication.
And then they walk into the penthouse. Close the door behind them. Step over broken crystal like it's not there.
"No." I back up. "No, you need to leave. I need you to—"
Lucius reaches me first. Grabs my shoulders. "Hit me."
"What?"
"You need to hit something. Hit me." He shakes me slightly. "Come on, Laurent. I can take it."
"I don't want to hit you—"
"Bullshit." He shakes me again. "You want to hit everything. So hit me instead of destroying your penthouse."
The rage surges. Hot. Immediate. Overwhelming.
I drive my fist into his stomach. Hard. All my strength behind it.
He doubles over. Gasps. But doesn't let go of my shoulders.
"Again," he wheezes.
I hit him again. And again. Punches fueled by grief and rage and absolute betrayal.
He takes every single one. Doesn't block. Doesn't defend. Just stands there absorbing my violence like it's nothing.
Tristan moves in from the side. "We've got you."
"You don't—" Another punch. This one catches Tristan in the ribs. "You don't understand—"
"Then make us understand." Landon's voice. Calm. Controlled. He's positioned himself behind me, ready to catch me if I collapse. "Tell us what happened."
"She left!" The words explode out of me between punches. "She fucking left! Said she never cared! Said it was all an act! Said I was just—just convenient—"
My voice breaks. The punches get weaker. Sloppier.
"She gave back the necklace." I'm crying again. Can't stop it. Can't control it. "My necklace. The one I gave her. She said she didn't need it anymore."
Lucius catches my next punch. Holds my fist against his chest. "Evander—"
"I begged." The confession comes out broken. "I got on my fucking knees in the middle of the courtyard and I begged her not to leave and she looked at me like I was nothing."
Landon's hand lands on my shoulder. Grounding. "Evander—"
"Don't." I try to pull away from both of them. "Don't tell me it's going to be okay. Don't tell me I'll find someone else. Don't—"
"We weren't going to say that." Tristan's voice cuts through the chaos. "We were going to say we're here. And we're not leaving."
The simple statement breaks something in me. Some final wall I was holding up through sheer force of will.
I collapse. Actually collapse. My legs give out and I'm falling and—
They catch me. All three of them. Moving in perfect synchronization, lowering me to the floor instead of letting me hit.
And then they're around me. Landon at my back. Tristan and Lucius on either side. Creating a wall of bodies between me and the destruction I've caused.
"Let it out," Lucius murmurs. "Whatever you're feeling, just let it out."
So I do. I sob like I haven't sobbed since I was eight years old and watched Matthias get pulled from the pool. Ugly, broken crying that comes from somewhere deep and primal and absolutely shattered.
They don't tell me to stop. Don't tell me to pull myself together. Don't do anything except hold me while I fall apart.
Landon's hand is in my hair. Gentle. Grounding. And very quietly, in a voice I haven't heard in thirteen years, he whispers: "It's okay, Evan. We've got you."
Evan.
Not Evander. Evan.
The name Matthias used to call me. The name I stopped using after he died because it felt like too much of a reminder.
And somehow, hearing it now—from Landon, who's known me since we were children, who remembers who I was before grief turned me into this—makes the grief worse and better at the same time.
I cry until there's nothing left. Until I'm empty. Hollowed out. Scraped clean of every emotion except exhaustion.
The music is still playing. Still Chris Grey. Still lyrics about betrayal and broken trust and the mistake of thinking someone cared.
Tristan reaches over. Shuts it off with one precise movement.
The silence that follows is absolute.
"Better?" Lucius asks quietly.
I want to say yes. Want to tell them I'm fine now, that I've purged the grief, that I'm ready to move on.
But I can't lie to them. Not when they just absorbed my violence and held me while I broke.
"No," I whisper. "But I'm not going to destroy anything else tonight."
"Good enough." Tristan shifts slightly, adjusting his position so his back is against the overturned desk. "Want to talk about what happened?"
I start to say no. Start to retreat back into the Ice King armor that's kept me safe for thirteen years.
But then I look at them. Really look at them. At Lucius with my blood on his shirt from where I hit him. At Tristan with his expensive slacks covered in bourbon and crystal dust— with a pain in his ribs . At Landon still positioned at my back like he's ready to catch me if I fall again.
They're here. They stayed. They're not going anywhere.
So I tell them. All of it. The three perfect days. The text asking her to meet me. The way she walked across the courtyard with that blank expression. Every word she said. Every moment of the rejection.
By the time I'm done, my voice is hoarse and my hands are shaking.
Tristan is quiet for a long moment. Then: "She was lying."
I laugh. The sound is bitter. "I know she was lying. But it doesn't matter. She said what she said. She left. That's all that—"
"No." He cuts me off. "I mean she was lying badly. You just can't see it because you're too close."
I turn to look at him. "What are you talking about?"
"Aurora Lane has tells." He says it simply. Clinical observation. "I've been watching her for weeks. Every time she lies, her right hand twitches. Every time she's uncomfortable, she touches her throat. Every time she's actually feeling something, her pupils dilate."
He pauses.