Page 198 of Three Reckless Words

The mess I caused.

The smile slips off my face.

The world resumes throbbing again, my vision wavering.

I’m hugging my shoulders.

It’s weird because it’s definitely not that cold tonight.

Yet somehow, I’m shivering.

I wish I had a kiss with a bad-tempered man to warm me up.

I would not mind it if he used that mouth.

He knows what he’s doing with his tongue, and I can almost feel it now, the searing, sharp heat flowing through me. I let my head roll back.

This is what I want, what I need.

But I can’t have it.

Reality picks me up and hurls me back down.

I can’t have it because I left, and that was the right thing to do.It had to be.

If only good morals didn’t hurt so effing much.

Every time I blink, it’s like the world reassembles itself in a slightly different way.

My eyes dart around. I think I hear voices, but it’s just the trees whispering, the leaves shaking and murmuring with the wind.

Win-nie,they say.

Winnie!

I start laughing. Trees don’t talk and they certainly don’t call your name.

Even if they could, I’m not important enough for them to know me. They don’t care.

It’s a little sad.

Archer cares—or at least he did.

The little family I had, the one who adopted me—and I know I’m stretching the truth but God I don’t care—they cared plenty.

I frown because I keep pinging on the ugly truth.

I ran away from them.

I didn’t even wait for an adult conversation.

Some coping mechanism.

I’m sure Lyssie will dig me up and kill me again once she finds out how dumb all this is.

God, I’m a mess.

Maybe it’s the fever giving me these teeth-chattering chills. Can some bad algae from a tainted stream poison your brain, too?

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