Chapter 10
Gage
The wind rattles my bedroom window as if it’s trying to get inside and give me a lecture on why I shouldn’t have let my girlfriend drive home with someone whom I’m pretty sure she will never get over.
And I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t have lied and said I needed to head to the cemetery. Although, in my defense, it wasn’t technically a lie. Dad asked me to do that whole security thing yesterday, and I forgot.
I blow out a breath of frustration. I thought tonight meant as much to Skyla as it did to me.
But the way she kept looking at Logan—as if the two of them were in on some big joke—it made me wonder if the big joke was me.
And then she said she wasn’t feeling well.
It’s either a classic diversion or she was telling the truth.
Either way, I felt my balls getting stomped on, whether or not she meant to do it.
If Skyla felt half as much as I feel for her, I know we’d be all right. Heck, if she felt any of it, we’d make it to the finish line and straight into eternity, too.
But then there’s Logan.
The wind picks up, and the windows rattle. Paragon is acting up tonight—the fog is thicker than usual, sticking to the glass like wet gauze.
Dad is downstairs watching some old western, clueless to the fact that I’m about to take off.
Again.
He wouldn’t care. I just don’t want the questions as I pass him on my way out the door. I don’t feel like talking to anyone, not even him.
I slide the window open and drop to the ground, landing softly in my mother’s flowerbed.
She’ll kill me if she finds out I crushed her marigolds again, but some things are worth the risk.
Like seeing if Skyla is okay after tonight.
I know she didn’t want to see Chloe pawing all over me.
She’s pissed, and hurt, and I get it. I feel exactly the same.
I could have easily teleported, but it saps me, and I’m in no mood to wear myself out more than I already am.
The engine of my truck turns over on the second try, and I ease out of the driveway with the headlights off.
I don’t doubt that Dad is probably watching, but he won’t say anything.
He gets it. When you’re seventeen and can’t stop thinking about a girl, you do stupid things.
And with Skyla, I do fifty stupid things before breakfast.
But I need to check on her. I should make sure she got home safe after acting a little weird at Ellis’ party.
Something was off about her tonight, and I get the feeling Chloe wasn’t the only reason she was feeling it.
I saw the way she kept looking at Logan like she was seeing him for the first time.
And I’ll admit, I’m feeling a little pissed off, too.
But not at Skyla. At Logan. The dude can’t take a hint, no matter how many times Skyla and I tell him that it’s our time now.
I miss the left I’m supposed to make and end up driving toward West instead. Bad habits die hard.
But then driving helps. And I should probably lose all of the anger I have toward Logan way before I ever set foot in Skyla’s bedroom.
The roads are empty except for the fog that rolls across the asphalt like a smoky old friend.
Paragon has that end-of-the-world feeling tonight, like the island is just holding its breath waiting for something to happen.
And I can’t shake the feeling that whatever is about to happen, it’s about to happen to me.
I glance over at West as I’m about to pass it, and I inch back at an odd sight.
Is that Logan’s truck?
I squint as I head that way. Sure enough, it sits behind the gym at West Paragon High, with its chrome bumper catching the moonlight.
Two shadows move beneath the massive mural of Cerberus. Golden hair spills over familiar shoulders as a girl is pushed against the wall, a guy’s hands twisted through those curls I know by heart. His mouth covers hers like he’s drowning, and she’s the air he needs to survive.
My foot hits the brake so hard that the truck lurches.
What the hell?
Skyla is my girlfriend. Mine. We’ve been together for months, and tonight she was supposed to, we were going to—
The punch to my gut comes fast and brutal. Like someone reached inside my chest and twisted my heart into knots. I grip the steering wheel and watch my girlfriend disappear into another guy’s arms, watch her arch against the wall like she belongs there. Like she wants to be there.
Logan lifts her up, and she wraps her legs around his waist like they’ve done this before. Like I’m nothing. Like the promises we made, the plans we had, the way she looks at me, none of it matters.
Part of me wants to get out of the truck and run on over. Wants to remind them both that she’s with me. That I had her first, that I love her in ways Logan can’t even understand. That we’re destined to get married one day, just like the visions I’ve had foretold.
But the logical part of me knows better.
Instead, I gun the engine and peel out, tires squealing against the wet pavement.
Fine. If she wants to play games with Logan, she can have him. But this doesn’t change anything between us. It can’t. At least I don’t think it can.
It doesn’t change the fact that she still looks at me like I’m her whole world when she thinks no one is watching. She still finds excuses to touch my hand when she passes me in the hallway. She still gets that dreamy expression when I smile at her.
Logan might have stolen a moment under some stupid haunted mural, but I’ve got something deeper. Something that doesn’t need to hide in parking lots behind the school.
I head home through empty streets, past houses where normal people are sleeping and leading normal lives.
But nothing about Paragon is normal, and nothing about what I just saw makes sense.
Something is changing. I can feel it in the way the fog clings to everything, including my bones, in the way Skyla acted like a stranger wearing her face tonight, in the way my chest still feels like someone is tearing it apart from the inside.
I guess it just means I have to fight harder.
After all, she’s worth it.