Page 94 of You Were Always Mine
What changed him? Was it me?
My head throbs, pounding with all the contradictions. He was supposed to be the good one, wasn’t he? The safe one? If Kai is the fire that burns me alive, then Tyler was meant to be the water. And yet here I am, drowning in both.
My fingers shake so violently the phone nearly slips. I want to delete them—every single venomous sentence—but my thumb won’t move. I just keep staring, reading them again and again, whispering under my breath, “Why are you doing this? Why now? What did I do?”
The words echo in the empty bathroom, bouncing back at me like I’m losing my mind.
I curl tighter, forehead pressed to my knees, breathing shallow. There’s no answer. No explanation. Just his name on the screen, over and over, until I’m not sure if I’m moreterrified of Kai finding out—or of what Tyler’s turning into.
The tiles are cold beneath me, biting through the thin fabric of my pyjama bottoms, but I don’t move. I can’t move. My phone is a shard of glass in my palm, screen still glowing with his words—ugly, sharp, nothing like the ones he used to send. I scroll up, scroll down, as if maybe the messages will rewrite themselves if I just look long enough.
“I thought we were friends,” I whisper. The words break in my throat before they’re even fully formed. They come out jagged, pathetic—like I’m begging a ghost.
Friends.That’s what he used to call me. His girl. His safe place. The one he’d walk home, the one he’d laugh with until my cheeks ached. The boy who tucked my hair behind my ear in the dark cinema, who made me feel like maybe there was goodness left in this world.
Now it’s threats and demands—each notification a blade sliding between my ribs.
Hot tears spill down my cheeks, soaking the collar of my shirt as I clutch my knees tight against my chest. My voice cracks, louder this time, broken and desperate.
“I thought we were friends!”
The sob tears through me, raw, loud enough that for a second I think someone might hear. My whole body trembles with it. My chest hurts. My eyes burn. And still, I can’t stop whispering it, over and over, rocking like the words might glue me back together.
“I thought we were friends. I thought we were friends. I thought we were?—”
But the screen keeps lighting up—cruel little vibrations that remind me I was wrong.
So wrong.
The phone buzzes again, and the sound is a knife straight to my chest. I can’t stand looking at it anymore. My hands are shaking as I shove it behind the stack of folded towels under the sink, burying it there like a corpse that might rise if I let it breathe. Out of sight. Out of reach. If I can’t see his words, maybe they can’t keep poisoning me.
I stand, my legs unsteady, palms flat against the cool porcelain edge of the sink. The girl in the mirror doesn’t look like me. Her eyes are swollen and red-rimmed, her skin blotchy, her lips trembling as if she might shatter any second.
“No,” I whisper, biting down hard on the word. My nails dig into the counter as I lean closer. “Nobody can know.”
I grab tissues, blot away the streaks of mascara bleeding down my cheeks, press until the puffiness blurs into something almost passable. Powder. Lip balm. I go through the motions like a soldier cleaning her wounds after a battle—mechanical, practised—pretending it’s enough to cover up the wreckage beneath.
When I swipe the last trace of tears from my face, the girl in the mirror smiles back. A brittle smile, sharp-edged, but it looks enough like normal. Enough to fool them. Enough to survive tonight.
I straighten my shoulders, pull in a shaky breath, and force myself out of the bathroom.
Scarlett
The house is too quiet when I step out of the bathroom, that fragile smile still painted across my face. I expect voices, the sound of the TV, the clink of glasses from the kitchen—but instead, there’s only the soft flicker of light.
Candles.
Dozens of them lined neatly along the floor like a trail of stars, their glow trembling across the walls. My breath catches, a lump rising in my throat as my eyes follow where they lead—back toward the living room.
Rose petals scatter over the carpet, crimson against the pale fibres, a deliberate path marked out just for me. My heels crunch faintly against them as I step forward, slow, hesitant, every nerve in my body unsure.
It feels unreal. Like I’ve walked into someone else’s night, someone else’s romance. A fairytale stolen from a girl who deserves it more. And yet—I can’t stop the way my lips part, the way my chest aches with something soft and dangerous.
For one wild heartbeat, it’s almost enough to make me forget the phone hidden beneath the towels. Almost enough to drown out Tyler’s words still clawing at the edges of my mind.
The petals pull me onward, each step a question mark, each flicker of flame a whisper I can’t ignore. Confusion curls with something sweeter, quieter, something I shouldn’t want but do.
I pause just shy of the living room, the glow spilling wide and golden ahead of me. My hand presses to my chest, trying to still the frantic flutter there.
