Chapter 8
SHANNEN
No matter how hard I try, I can’t separate the boy who once made me feel protected from the man he became, the stranger who stood by and let me bleed for the sake of people he called friends.
And now, somehow, I’ve let him pull us to this moment, where his breath is mine and his eyes sear into me like he never once looked away.
His dark hair falls over his eyes, his body practically pressing me to the edge of something I don’t even have a name for, and I want him in ways that feel dangerous.
I want him like I hate him.
I want him like I loved him and never stopped belonging to him, even when he decided I wasn’t his to keep.
I want him in the way you want to tear out someone’s heart and shove it down their throat, just to see if it still beats for you.
This isn’t lust. It’s a sickness. It’s years of silence and pain, twisted up in his relentless, psychotic obsession and my own desperate need to feel something that isn’t hollow .
I should be running, calling the police, or screaming for a restraining order. But I won’t because some screwed-up part of me likes being the center of his attention.
I have so many questions I’m terrified to ask, and even more scared to hear answered, but I need them all the same.
He’s dangerous. I can feel it in the way he watches me, but I can’t walk away until I figure out who Phoenix really is now.
And I say now ,like that darkness in him is a new thing, and I haven’t always felt it coiled underneath his skin.
I always knew it was there, but now I need to see every part of it.
“I have a room here.”
“Oh, perfect,” I snap. “Let’s head straight to the place where you probably have plastic sheeting on the floor and a meat cleaver under the bed. Hard fucking pass.”
“I’ve had years to hurt you. If that’s who I was, don’t you think I’d have already done it?”
“Am I meant to find that comforting?”
“Yes.” He reaches for me, brushing my hair back like he’s done it a thousand times in a different life. I know I should shove him away, but I don’t.
“We’ll go back to my room, but when I’ve heard enough, you’re leaving. You’re not staying while I sleep. Nonnegotiable.”
“I’ve watched you sleep plenty of times.”
“Jesus Christ, when did you get so creepy?”
“Maybe somewhere between losing you and watching other men touch you like they had any right. Or maybe the day we met, when I knew you’d always be a part of my life, and then I fucked it all up.”
“Okay,” I breathe out, pressing my fingertips against my temples because this is unreal, and I’m crazy for still standing here. “I’m not asking another question until there’s enough alcohol in my system to handle whatever the hell you’ve become. ”
I shove past him, feeling his stare burn into the back of my neck, and by the time we reach my room, my hands are shaking so badly I don’t bother to hide it. I slide the key in, push the door open, and step inside. He follows, closing the door behind him with a click that sounds too final.
“Do you want a drink?”
“No.” His refusal is immediate. “I told you—it makes people do stupid shit, and I sure as hell don’t want to drink around you.”
“Why?”
“Because I think you grew up around enough people who weren’t sober when they should’ve been.”
My parents.
The words hit like a fist to the throat.
Of course he remembers. He cataloged every bruise I attempted to hide under long sleeves and every busted lip I tried to cover with makeup I had to steal.
He remembers the days I showed up at school, unfocused, with dried blood on my skin.
He was there for all of it, and the only thing that felt safe in a world that wanted to break me.
Until he broke me first.
He sees the way my body goes rigid and how my breathing turns shallow and desperate as the memory of him abandoning me slams into my chest. And for the first time tonight, his composure cracks.
Something dark flashes across his face, like watching me break is killing him too.
He steps closer, his muscles straining against his black T-shirt, head tipping as he studies me, waiting to see if I’ll break or just bolt for the door and run.
“You can keep hating me until it destroys us both,” he whispers, and I can hear the agony threaded through every word, “or you can let me try to fix what I ruined. Just for tonight.”
“It’s too hard,” I choke, the words barely making it out whole.
“Then tell me how to make it better. Tell me what you need. ”
“Disappear,” I whisper. “Just… vanish the way you did when I needed you most.”
“No,” he says, calm in a way that makes me want to scream. “I’m not leaving. Not this time. I’ll sit here and watch you hate me all night if that’s what it takes, but I’m not leaving you again.”
“You said I could walk away.”
“Not until I’ve said what I need to say. You gave me tonight. And you’re smart enough to know I wouldn’t be here unless I was planning on staying forever.”
“You keep saying that like I want you.”
“Baby, you soaked my cock earlier. Now, I may not have much experience with women, but I’m pretty damn sure that means you liked what you felt.”
I blink at him, stunned. “That’s your logic? Seriously? That’s what you’re going with?”
He just watches me, all smug confidence and zero shame.
“First of all, I got off on the power I thought I had—the illusion you let me believe—while you humiliated me and said shit you didn’t even mean.
And second, what planet do you think I live on?
‘ Not much experience with women ’? Are you kidding me?
I was there, Phoenix. I remember the lineup of cheerleaders you ran through before we were even out of high school. You think I forgot that?”
I gesture at him—his broad chest, that perfect face, the whole infuriating package that’s probably ruined more women than I can count.
“You don’t need to lie to me or play some celibate saint because I honestly don’t give a shit if you fucked your way through half the state.”
He doesn’t flinch, but the grin fades, and the muscle in his jaw ticks.
“Well, that’s a shame because I’ve cared enough about you to be standing in front of you now, having never touched another woman.
” He stares down at me, and for the first time tonight, there’s something vulnerable in his expression. “The last girl I kissed was you.”
“Stop lying to me.”
“Look at me. Look at my face. You know me. You know I’m not lying.”
I see the truth. It’s raw and stupid and so painfully etched all over him. I knock back the rest of my whiskey, the burn doing nothing to dull what’s rising in my chest, and I pour another. Before I can think better of it, I drop into the nearest chair and point toward the bed for him to sit.
“How could I kiss anyone when you were the last girl on my lips?” He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and there’s no smirk now—just the truth. “I’m not ashamed to still have my virginity at twenty-eight. Not when the only woman I’ve ever wanted to touch me is you.”
“Then you’ll die a virgin.”
“Maybe.” He shrugs. “But I’d rather die yours than live as anyone else’s.”
I down another mouthful of whiskey, not because I need it but because I don’t know what the hell else to do with this.
“You realize none of this makes any sense to me, right? Where the hell have you been, Phoenix?”
He leans back, resting his hands behind him on the bed. “That’s the wrong question, baby. Try again.”
I drain half my drink, feeling the whiskey scorch down my throat. “Fine. Where do you live?”
“New York.”
“Give me the address.” When he rattles it off—my building, the floor directly below mine—I go completely still. The glass freezes halfway to my lips, and I don’t know whether to laugh, scream, or hurl this tumbler at his beautiful, lying face. “Why? ”
“To be close to you. To watch and wait until the day came when I felt like I deserved to look you in the eye again.”
“And today felt like that day?”
“No, not even close. But you came looking for me, so it didn’t matter anymore whether I deserved it or not.”
“I didn’t come because I missed you. I came because I wanted to hurt you. I wanted you to suffer.”
“Watching you for ten years without being able to touch you or hold you… to tell you I’m sorry…
” His voice cracks. “That’s what real suffering looks like, Shannen.
It’s been pure fucking torture knowing you were out there building a life that had no room for me in it.
I wanted to disappear, but I couldn’t stop watching.
I didn’t know how to let you go. I still don’t. ”
“Jesus, Phoenix.” I set the glass down, my hands trembling. “What the hell do you mean you’ve been watching me?”
He tilts his head, and there’s something unsettling in the way he studies me, like he’s trying to decide exactly how much truth I can actually handle.
“Will you run?”
“What?”
“If I tell you everything, are you going to run from me?”
“Should I?”
“Probably,” he says calmly, but his eyes are saying I need you to stay more than I need to breathe.
I let out a slow, shaky breath, knowing I’ve come too far to turn back now, even though this isn’t going remotely as planned.
“I’ll listen.”