Unturned Rubbles

Prologue

Past

Sweat drips down her damp skin as her lips part in a silent cry. With her long, sun-kissed hair fanned out, her skin flush with color, and her ice-blue eyes flared, she looks like a portrait of raw, youthful beauty.

His movements are deep, achingly thorough. His cock stretches her perfectly; his fingers tease her breasts in sinful strokes.

She fists the pillow under her head tighter, and when he grins down at her – that roguish curve of his mouth that she loves so much – she cups the side of his face with a hand and rises to kiss him.

He groans, and starts pumping his cock into her harder, which causes a burning pressure to rise in her.

His brows furrow a little. “Nia…” he whispers her name as his bright brown eyes run over her naked body.

She smiles and begins rocking her hips to match his thrusts. “Let go, Cass,” she says softly. “Come with me.” She bunches his short, unruly brown hair in a fist and presses her mouth to his.

He stiffens above her in an attempt to not raise his voice, then wraps his arms around her body before fucking her faster.

Her broken moans stifle against them with each pump of his hips, and when she comes – when they come – her back arches against the mattress, just as his shoulders shake, and his nails dig into her delicate skin.

“God, Nia.” He nuzzles against her neck. “That was so hot.”

She lets go of a breathless chuckle. “It always is, isn’t it?”

She’s never known a touch like his. Never known a kiss that wasn’t his. Never known a pleasure that wasn’t given to her by him. Cass is her world, just as she is his.

Inseparable – they’ve been unbreakable ever since they shook hands all those years ago as kids when he’d moved into the house next to hers. Sleepovers, movie nights, study sessions – they did it all together.

Always together.

Her first touch, first kiss, first sex – he’d been it all, just as she’d been his.

Like a mantel and flame, like a siren and sea, they went together; they fit together.

Rose and thrashed and thrived together.

Nia bites her lower lip as she runs her fingers over his smooth jaw.

“We gotta complete that Economics assignment,” she says.

It’s why she’d walked next door to his house in the first place.

Well, at least that’s what she’d told herself an hour ago when she’d knocked on his door and his mom had answered it with a knowing smirk on her face.

Cass’s expression – that was relaxed and satiated just a moment ago – shifts to something dark. Something that makes her stomach tighten.

“What is it?” she asks reluctantly.

He swallows and averts his gaze from her, then abruptly gets to his feet before heading into the attached bathroom.

With her eyes on the wooden ceiling, and her heart in her throat, she focuses on the noises around her as she waits for him to come back out.

The sound of him flushing.

Of the faucet running.

A cabinet opening and closing.

Then…

His footsteps on the floor as he walks out.

Almost tentatively, she watches as he puts on his discarded jeans and t-shirt, then let go of a limp breath when he sits at the edge of the bed with his back to her.

“I’m…we’re moving to New York next month,” he says. “Mom, Dad, and I.” A muscle ticks in his jaw as he tries to control the suffocating anxiousness he’s feeling right now.

She sits up and stares at him, not bothering to cover herself. Deafening silence breathes down her neck in the aftermath of his confession, and an irritable buzz of something foreign makes her feel dizzy.

“What?” The word is a pathetic excuse of a whisper. “What’re you…” Her voice – it won’t cooperate with her. She tries, but ends up failing to make herself speak.

How have things changed so drastically in just a matter of minutes?

Cass turns his head to the left, but still doesn’t meet her eyes. “You know I’ve always wanted more, Nia – more from school, from people. From Life.”

She grimaces when her eyes sting. “I do. But this… Cass, this is a decision you promised you’d make with me. You told me we’d go to college together. Be together. You wanted to graduate here; you wanted to be with me. You…you can’t just…”

“I had an opportunity, and I didn’t wanna let it pass.

” He finally looks at her. “My dad got a promotion and was asked to transfer to NYC. And he said yes, because he knows I’ve always wanted to go, and also because that city has so much potential for the entire family. I… Fuck, Nia, I just couldn’t say no.”

“But you can leave me here after making all those elaborate promises to me, making me believe in things that I otherwise wouldn’t have put my faith in,” she grits out, and when he doesn’t reply, she scoffs and gets off the bed before hastily putting her clothes back on.

She sucks in a breath when her tears threaten to flow, and swallows the growing lump in her throat while fixing her hair into a ponytail above her head.

“Nia…” Cass voices slowly, but she refuses to glance his way.

“Nia,” he says a bit firmly now.

She buttons her shorts and looks at him. “What, Cass?”

“Can we talk, please?”

She doesn’t stop her anger from surfacing, her pain from showing on her face.

“You’ve broken me, hurt me. You’ve betrayed everything I thought we had, just to fulfil your selfish desire of wanting to move to a big city.

And I understand that you put yourself first in this situation, but there’s something you need to understand, too, Cass.

Just because you’ve decided to move on, doesn’t mean I’ll be onboard with the idea as well.

I have the right to be upset, and I sure as hell reserve the right to not want to speak to you. ”

“Nia, come on. Please.”

“I fucking hate you,” she croaks out, and her tears finally spill out, tainting her cheeks and making her vision blurry.

She puts a hand over her mouth as her emotions get the better of her, because the last thing she would have expected was to direct those 3 words at Cass.

But damn it, it hurts, and the pain warrants a release – be it with anger or sadness.

Cass stands up so he can look at her fully, his own pain flashing openly across his features. “You don’t mean that,” he says, more to himself than her.

She sniffs and swipes her shaky fingers over her face.

“Oh, but I do.” She takes a step towards him, then thinks better of it and moves back.

“Were you even going to let me know about it?” she asks.

“If I hadn’t mentioned the assignment, would you have told me?

Why do you even come to school? What’s the point of it if you’re fucking leaving anyway? ”

“You know I wouldn’t have left without telling you,” he states.

“Do I, though?” she challenges.

“Nia, please…” He tries to reach for her, but she jerks away from him.

“Don’t,” she warns, mainly to keep herself from falling apart. If he touches her, she knows she won’t be able to stop him. And that’s the kind of power she simply can’t hand over, not anymore.

He clenches his hands at his sides. “What do you want me to do?” he questions, his anger rising.

“What the fuck would you have me do, huh, Nia? Stay here in Adenbrooke – a lame-ass town in the middle of Maine with no hope of reaching my goals? Be as aimless and na?ve and stupid as you, with no ambition in life other than selling coffee and pastries at your parents’ café?

Have no real motives other than marrying and having kids, and have them be just as foolish as you?

Because that’s not me; that’s not even remotely close to who I am. ”

To say that she’s shocked would be an understatement. To say that his words have gutted her would be a cruel joke.

“Wow…” she whispers, just as Cass’s eyes widen in realization.

“Fuck,” he spits out. “Nia, I swear I didn’t mean–”

“Save it.” She grabs her bag from next to his bed, then breezes past him and towards the door, only to stop when she reaches the threshold.

“If you think I’m so dumb and useless, why did you tell me you loved me?

” she asks, letting yet another tear paint her cheek.

“Why did you kiss me on my porch last year and ask me to be yours? Why did you fuck me a week after and call me beautiful?” She doesn’t want to cry, but it’s hard not to when you’re getting your heart broken by the man you thought was your forever.

Thirteen years of friendship, laughter, love, and this is what it’s accounting to in the end. And what’s worse is that he didn’t even consider telling her about his decision until he absolutely had to.

Cass doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t know what to. He shot an arrow, but it ricocheted back to him, hitting him squarely in the chest.

“Was it because you had something to prove, Cass?” Nia questions softly. “To yourself, maybe, or to someone else. Is that what it was for you?”

“You know that’s not what it is, baby. You know I love–”

“Goodbye, Cass,” she says, her throat tight. “And good luck. May you get everything you’re looking for, and your paths never cross with someone as aimless and na?ve as me, because I wouldn’t wish the pain I’m feeling right now on anyone.”

As she walks away from him – from what he meant to her – she ignores his voice, his pleas. His desperation and regret. She ignores it all, and lets the battered pieces of herself fall to the ground – like timeless rubbles of a once-glorious empire raining down on an inevitable fate.