Page 31 of Pastel Kisses

I have to.

At first, it’s just low murmurs, the occasional shift of movement above me. But then…

Then the sounds change.

The unmistakable moans and panting creep through the floorboards, clawing into my ears, into my soul.

I stop breathing.

No. No, no, no, no, no…

The sound is like poison seeping into my bloodstream, a disease eating away at the last shreds of my sanity.

Jaxton.

Moaning.

With her.

It doesn’t last long—not nearly as long as the times we spent tangled in each other. But the comparison doesn’t help, doesn’t soothe the gaping wound left in my chest.

It still happened.

It still destroyed me.

Then, just as suddenly as it started, it ends.

There’s a commotion.

Raised voices.

A slamming door.

The echoes bounce around in my skull, but the only sound I truly hear is Sarah’s moan.

A broken, devastated sob rips from my throat.

The tears won’t stop now. They pour, hot and unrelenting, down my face, seeping into the mattress beneath me.

And then, a new thought slithers into my mind—cold, lethal.

Maybe it’d be better if she just ended it now.

The pain is unbearable.

My heart? A Thanksgiving turkey, carved up and picked apart.

I don’t want to die.

But I don’t know how I’m supposed to survive this.

I can’t.

I don’t know how.

Time passes, a meaningless blur. I don’t know how long I lay there, drowning in my own torment.

And then…

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