Page 5 of Pucking Unhinged
When Sebastian woke up and was looking for an opportunity to jump in, I knew he needed a distraction. I also knew if she was injured, it would be harder for them to just grab her and run. I waited until Sebastian was able to grab my father’s gun that had fallen to his side, and I gave him the distraction he needed by slicing into Winter’s thigh, just deep enough to make her bleed. “What the fuck?” One of the men had yelled, but it was too late. Sebastian shot them both in the head, and the third? He took off running as Sebastian shot at him. I watched as he grabbed the side of his black mask near his cheek, and I knew one of the bullets nicked his face. I’ll never stop hunting him, and when I find him, he’ll wish he had died that night.
Ultimately, Winter should hate me. She should recoil from every touch, every glance, every reminder of what I did. But she doesn’t. She still lets me close. She still lets me breathe her in, and that’s what ruins me most of all. Because she’ll never understand that she is the only one I will ever want, and I already destroyed her.
She’s supposed to be off-limits in every single way. Every part of me knows that. Foster care papers, society’s rules, every line drawn in permanent ink that says she’s untouchable. But it doesn’t matter. Because if I can’t have her, no one else will. No one deserves her. She’s mine in every way that counts, even if I’ll never be good enough to keep her.
I try every fucking day, but it’ll never be enough.
The truth I’ll never say out loud is that I haven’t come once since that night. Not once, not even from thinking of her, imagining how our first time should have been. Still with each other, but alone. I always want to just be alone with her, and that’s been since day one, so I doubt that will ever change.
Winter is the only woman I’ve ever touched, the only body I’ve ever been inside. And it kills me that the memory isn’t ours. It isn’t love, it isn’t gentle, it isn’t anything but survival for her. She doesn’t know that every time I close my eyes, it’s her I ache for. Her scent, clean and soft and justher.Her warmth pressed against me when she curls into my lap and breathes against my chest like I’m not a monster. I get hard just thinking about her, so hard it hurts, but guilt crushes me flat before I can ever finish. I don’t deserve the relief. Not when I stole everything from her that night just to keep her breathing. I would have rather hurt her myself than watch someone else touch her. I’d like to say I’d make a different choice now that I know the consequences, but that’s a lie.
Last night was supposed to be like always…me unraveling, Winter slipping into my room, soothing me until I had enough control to send her away. My routine. Our routine. But last night I was too weak. I didn’t let her go. I let her stay like a selfish bastard. I already miss the rise and fall of her chest under my face, my breath syncing to hers until I finally passed out.
Forbidden. Perfect. Mine.
The intimacy sears me from the inside out. Her hand stroking my hair like she didn’t realize how dangerous it was to touch me that way. My face pressed into her breasts, the safest place I’ve ever known. I shouldn’t crave it, but I do. I crave this girl like oxygen. The shame coils with the desire until I don’t know which is worse…wanting her or needing her. All I know is both burn hotter than anything else in my life, and she consumes me.
I can’t sleep without her.
I can’t focus without her.
I can barely fucking breathe without her.
She owns me in the most complex sense. Mind, heart, body, and soul.
I belong to Winter LeBlanc.
I barely hear the guys entering the locker room, and it’s only when I’m out of the shower, putting in my headphones that the pain in my chest eases slightly. I hear her, the way she breathes when she’s sleeping peacefully. This is the only soundtrack to my life I’ll ever need. She doesn’t know that I record her while she sleeps, that the sound of her breathing is the only thing that gets me through the times we’re not together. Somehow, I don’t think she’d mind.
That’s the most heartbreaking thing about my girl, she never minds anything when it comes to me.
WINTER
The ballet rehearsal room is empty except for me. Just the mirrors stretching wall to wall, cold and judgmental, reflecting every angle of my body. My posture is not great, but I don’t really care. This is just something for me to do, something for me to occupy my time with and keep my mind off of things. I want to teach ballet to foster children when I graduate. I don’t really know what that looks like or how it will all come together, but I know that it will. I just know that I want to be a positive influence for kids like me who didn’t have anyone growing up. I never met my birth father, and my mother passed away during my birth. Things were rough until the Vales decided to foster me. I still don’t know why people like them would take in a girl in her teens, almost ready to age out of the system. I’m so thankful that they did, because if they hadn’t, I would have never met Tristan.
The marley floor squeaks softly under my pointe shoes, the sound thin and sharp in the silence of my solitude. The faint tang of rosin dust clings to the air, and sweat beads at the nape of my neck as I push through another repetition.
Breathe. Rise. Hold. Fall. Again. I say the words in my head as if I’m the instructor.
The movement is supposed to quiet me. But my chest feels like it’s pulling tight, every breath feels unbelievably shallow.
Across the room, my phone buzzes against the hardwood bench. The sound jars in the stillness, vibrating like it’s mocking me. I ignore it, jaw locking. Tristan would never call. He doesn’t interrupt me here because he just shows up without warning. Halfway through a movement, I’ll feel his eyes on me and sure enough there he will be. Leaning in the doorway with his hood up, those green eyes locked on me until I’ve got full body chills just from his stare.
The thought of him stabs deep. I let it hit me, and it’s such a sharp and mean feeling. Because I know that even if we didn’t have that awful night hanging between us, we can never be together the way that I want. It’s for all the reasons I said I’m so thankful for. It’s taboo to fall in love with your foster brother, and no one in his family, especially his father, would ever accept it.
Thinking about Tristan never comes clean anymore. It’s tangled in long sleepless nights, his face buried in me, his voice raw when he says my name. The bond we have is… wrong. Complicated. But I can’t cut it loose.
The phone buzzes again. I break from an arabesque, landing too hard, my toes aching inside the shoes. My breath punches out, sharp and annoyed. Focus is impossible, and I realize that I’m just as affected as Tristan is. I try to be strong for him, but sometimes it feels like I’m just going to break into pieces.
I glance at the mirror and see myself. My long black braid is wound up into a bun, my chest is heaving in the light pink leotard Tristan bought me when he overheard me telling Madi I wanted one in this particular color. My gray eyes show, even to me, just how haunted I am. People say ballet is about control. They don’t understand that sometimes this feels like it’s the only place I have any control at all.
The Vales were never parental to me. And while I don’t know why they put in an application to foster me in the first place, I’ve always had a feeling that it wasn’t supposed to be for very long. Especially not after I turned eighteen. The only thing I can think is that maybe Mr. Vale pays for my tuition at Castlebrook because Tristan wants him to. I’ve always suspected that Tristan is the reason for every luxury I’ve been gifted in this life. Every other foster home shifted me around after a few months, and I thought maybe this one would too. But then I’d see Tristan in the corner of the room, watching me with that silent intensity, and I knew I wasn’t going anywhere. Not if he had a say.
My muscles burn as I spin into a pirouette, trying to shake any heavy thoughts out. Spot, turn, land. My calf seizes, but I keep going. Push the ache higher until the strain distracts me. But then the phone goes off again, buzzing like an angry hornet’s nest, dragging me right back.
I sigh, annoyed, breaking from the movement. My shoes scuff loudly as I cross the room, sweat cooling on my skin. The screen lights up when I grab the phone, and my stomach drops. Speak of the devil himself.
Mr. Vale.
