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Reed closed his eyes, but his eyes didn’t need to be open for me to see right through him. Despite the fact that he was still hard inside of me, still cupping my cheek and dusting his thumb across my skin, the truth resided in everything he didn’t say.

My feet defeatedly trailed down his backside, his thighs, calves, until they plopped down to the mat and my whole body drained of fight, my hopes shrinking to fragile embers.

I fought back tears. I fought back anger.

I needed to go.

“Get up.” I rasped out the words, my voice small. “Please.”

His eyes fluttered back open. They glinted with promises he wanted to make but couldn’t keep. Fairy tales he wanted to weave into happily ever afters.

Pain so raw it hurt to look at.

But he obeyed my wishes and pulled himself off me, while I covered my breasts with both arms, glancing around for my scattered clothing, my thighs damp from our combined release. I couldn’t meet his eyes while he stepped into his boxers and plucked my dress and underwear off the floor, handing them to me.

Sitting up, I yanked the dress over my head, hauled the lace up my legs, and remained silent. Reed paced the living room with his hands in his hair, a blur in my periphery.

When I was dressed—my zipper unzipped and my dreams undone—I stalked over to my discarded heels, covered in nicks, scratches, and bite marks. My skin was pink and blotchy. An ache throbbed between my legs and ribs, a subtle reminder of what we’d been too stupid to resist and too weak to pursue any further. We hadn’t even used protection, but I was too tongue-tied and sucker-punched by the turn of events to broach the subject.

I just need to go.

Frazzled, I snatched up my purse and camera, flattened my chaotic hair, and reached for the doorknob.

Reed called out to me, his voice cracking on my name. “Halley, wait.”

If I opened my mouth, I would cry, and I refused to cry. I hadn’t even cried after sex with those nameless, faceless men, after they’d pumped into me a few times and rolled over, leaving me pleasureless and used up. And that was because I’d been numb to it.

“I can’t stay,” I said.

“Where are you going?”

He hadn’t expected me to leave. I had no car to drive, no sneakers to run in. Nothing but adrenaline and pain fueling my escape. “Home.”

I unlocked the door and raced into the hallway, then out through the main doors, the humid night and half-moon guiding me the four miles back to Tara’s house. Ripping off my heels, my bare feet pounded the pavement while hot tears burned my eyes, muddling my vision. I ran. I ran with pebbles in my soles and glass in my lungs. I still felt his body pressed to mine, felt him between my legs, felt his tongue on my flesh, engraving his essence into me. I’d never be able to scrub him off my skin.

I ran the whole way home until I buckled in the front yard and dropped to my knees, out of breath, out of hope, my fingers fisting the grass blades.

My insides howled and bled.

Tears burst from my eyes, carving devastation down my cheeks.

I sunk into the earth and begged for it to bury me.

One thing was certain—I wasn’t numb anymore.

And oh, how I wished I was.

CHAPTER 23

Tara turned eighteen the day before our high school graduation.

Blue water sparkled before me as I stared out at the slow-rippling surface, the shoreline teeming with Tara’s circle of friends celebrating her birthday with a luau-themed beach party. Sugar Ray’s Fly mingled with loud laughter as four girls smacked a volleyball back and forth, one of them diving into the lake to retrieve it after it’d gone rogue.

A melancholy smile tipped my lips. I sat by myself, watching the summer Saturday unfold, sipping a cherry Coke while my skin sizzled beneath a cloudless sky. My emotions were all over the place. I felt a pull to join the fun and distract myself from the Reed “incident” from a week ago, but my legs refused to budge, anchoring me to the sand.

I hadn’t seen or spoken to him since it happened, and it was my fault for running away before we had a chance to discuss things. But I also knew there was nothing worth discussing. It was easier to pretend it never happened than to breathe more life to something that had the power to unravel every other thread stitching me together.

When the song ended and the radio DJ cut in, Tara raced toward me with braided pigtails in her hair and multiple colorful leis around her neck. “Hals!” she called out, her smile beaming as bright as the midday sun. She always said my name like that, like happiness, like happiness caught in a granite bubble that would never leak.

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