Page 145 of Chaos

And it works.

He holds my hand as he guides me to the attic.

And then he lets me go, and he doesn’t touch me again. And as I settle on the edge of my bed, it strikes me with a force I can only describe as devastating that it was only this morning that he was cradling me in this very spot. Smiling at me. Kissing me.

Twelve hours. If that. That’s how long it took me to ruin the closest thing I’ve had to a relationship—a pitiful, humbling realization. It was only last night that our positions were switched, that he was drunk and I was taking care of him. That he was murmuring sweet things he regrets now, he doesn’t mean anymore.

He won’t even look at me. He crouches to unlace my boots and slip them off, dropping them with a heavy thud. He maneuvers my arms from my leather jacket. He undoes my braided ponytail and tugs the tie holding it up free. And he does it all without really touching me. All without looking. Even when he murmurs that he’ll be right back, he says it to the floorboards, gone before I can even ask where he’s going.

Although, I can guess. He’s doing exactly what he promised, probably. He’s going to call Lux. She’s going to come here, with her anger and her disappointment and big, betrayed eyes, and I think that’ll be it this time. The last straw—theactuallast straw. This time, when she tells me to leave, she’ll mean it. When I leave, I won’t come back. I can’t. I can’t do this again.

Numbly scooting further up the bed, I curl into a ball, the pillow beneath my cheek quickly dampening as tears stain the silk fabric. I don’t know how long I sob for before Finn finally comes back—I just hear a soft curse echo around the attic and I huddle further into myself, knees tucked as close to my chest as they can get.

I try to bury my face in my pillow, but it’s stolen away, tossed somewhere. I try to roll over, but I can’t do that either. A firm hand on my shoulder stops me, a warm weight makes the mattress dip and me slide in its direction. My face brushes something soft—a sweatpants-covered thigh, I think, so I burrow against that instead only to feel the muscles stiffen with discomfort, and that makes me cry harder, a feat I didn’t think possible. But when I try to get up, gentle pressure keeps me down.

A just-as-gentle stroke sweeps my hair away from my wet face. A voice that’s all undeserved softness insists, “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.” I hiccup, the sound muffled as I press even closer to the thigh flush against my forehead, as I hide my shamein dark grey sweatpants. I soak them with my tears, damn near ripping them as I fist a handful and cling and fuckingweep.

“I don’t want to be like this anymore,” I gasp with whatever air I have left in my lungs. “I can’t do it. I don’t want to.”

A sharp inhale whistles through the air. An exhale of my name tickles my ear and I shiver, I tilt my chin to gaze woefully at the man hovering right above me, his body hunched over mine, his expression a wrecked crumple.

“I don’t want to be like this anymore,” I say again, and it’s even more garbled than the first time, even more true. “But I don’t know how to be anything else.”

“Oh, Lottie,” he says again, he mumbles into my hair. “Sweetheart.”

I wail like a damn banshee.

And then I move, he moves me, shifting me higher up his body until I’m cradled between his thighs, tucked against his chest, soaking his t-shirt now too. “I’m so sorry, Finn.”

He shushes me so quietly.

“I didn’t want to kiss him.”

The arms around me stiffen.

“I…” I swallow, tilting my chin until my lips brush a collarbone. “I did want to kiss you.”

The heart beneath my ear skips a beat. “Go to sleep, Lottie,” Finn says quietly, with none of the hard edges as before.

This time, I listen.

35

He can’t pinpoint the exact moment his heart decides to leave his body and live in hers.

He just knows it does.

I wakeup with a dry mouth, a throbbing headache, and completely alone.

Talk about deja vu.

Even though my insides protest, I roll out of bed. My pillows, my sheets, it all smells like Finn, and it only makes my stomach roil even more. Although, as I stagger across the room, I realize my hair smells like him too. As do the clothes I fell asleep in—as does my entire damn room, which is why I not only crack open the window, but I climb right out of it.

With the early morning winter chill stinging my sensitive eyes, I settle on the window ledge and hug my knees to my chest, slumping against the glass. Breathing in the fresh air, I hold it in my lungs until they start to burn before exhaling, repeating the cycle as I stare at the endless expanse of frosted green. And even though there shouldn’t be a drop of moisture left in my body, myeyes still mist over as I think about not being here to see the first real snow of the season. To wake up one morning and find the grass blanketed with white. To watch the spring sunshine melt the winter away and coax out the wildflowers once more.

I squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t open them when the window hinges creak, when I feel another body carefully settling beside me. I don’t say anything and neither does my new companion, and if it’s a battle of wills they planned on waging against me, they won the second they arrived because I don’t have the energy to fight.

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