Page 88 of Through the Flames
The door clicked shut, the silence pressing in like a weight.
We’d only just started, and I could feel the nerves twisting in my gut. I needed him to look at me the way I’d imagined during all those nights we spent shrouded in darkness.
My chest constricted, my thoughts racing, trapped in the all-too-familiar spiral.
I hated myself for hoping for more, for wanting something he never promised.
But how was I supposed to ignore the way he touched me? Like I was his. Like I was everything. Pretending it didn’t mean anything felt impossible.
Sitting in the suffocating silence, I stared at the door for a long time after he was gone.
The phone in my hand, the screen having gone black from disuse, buzzed, making my attention snap to the notification popping up.
Dom: Are you still alive? Or did he kill you for leaving your leggings on the couch?
Ella: Ha. Very funny.
Dom: Just checking in. Haven’t seen you in a minute and he lowkey gives me serial killer vibes. Everything good?
I typed “Yeah,” then deleted it. Typed again, and eventually settled on, “All good. Just busy.”
If he knew what I was doing — why I agreed to this — he’d never look at me the same. He’d try to save me. Like we’d always done for each other. But I didn’t need saving, not this time. This time,Iwas taking care ofhim.
Back home, it didn’t take much to ruin a girl. Wearing a skirt even an inch too short, laughing too loudly, or allowing a boy to put his hands on your waist for one dance could be enough.
But I hadn’t just danced. I’d given him everything.
One guy. Just one.
We’d hooked up in the back of his truck under a bleeding Georgia sunset, the smell of hay and gasoline thick in the air. He’d told me I was beautiful, and I wanted to believe it. I’d wanted to feel wanted. For once, I’d wanted to stop doing what I was supposed to do.
So when he’d asked what I liked, what Iwanted, I told him. Whispered secrets I’d never dared speak.
That I wanted to be taken. Owned. Used, like the kind of girl who didn’t care what anyone thought.
He’d promised he’d never tell, but by Monday, everyone knew.
My words and fantasies had spread throughout the school, being passed around amid laughter and the slamming of lockers. The boys repeated them with smirks and the girls looked at me with disgust; their holier-than-thou attitudes written all over their faces.
Slut.
Whore.
Wants to be used.
I’d wanted to disappear. Crawl out of my skin and vanish.
And then Dom had showed up, cutting through the hallway like a storm. Shoulders squared, jaw like steel, daring anyone to breathe wrong in my direction. When one guy had opened his mouth, Dom had slammed him into a locker so hard the sound had cracked like a gunshot.
After his outburst, the whispers died. At least out loud.
Dom had never asked what happened or judged me. He’d just looked at me like I was still me, like I hadn’t been ruined.
And now it was my turn.
Hunter wasn’t like those boys back home. They’d been loud and cruel. All talk and no teeth. Hunter was quiet and lethal, a man who didn’t let anyone close. Not really.
But I was close. I was the one allowed to touch him, the one he trusted to sleep in his bed.
