WAKING UP THE morning after the veil is yanked from my eyes is déjà vu, but not the kind of déjà vu that reminds me of waking up in a new city yesterday, or the day before that, or the day before that. It’s a déjà vu that carries me back to the summer after my freshman year of high school, to another morning-after. Then, I cried into a pillow. Now, I’d sooner gouge my eyes out.
I roll away from the metal wall of the bus and stare through the pale rays of sunlight separating me from Shawn. He’s facing me, like he’d been watching me sleep, and his face looks peaceful. Beautiful. Deceiving. His black hair is a tangled mess against his pillow, his jaw dusted with shadow and his dark lashes fanned against his cheeks. It was almost impossible to sleep last night, with him right across the aisle as the bus ferried us to a new city. Part of me wanted to crawl across the impossible space separating us and kiss him until I forgot about all the things he said and all the things he didn’t.
But an even bigger part of me wanted to punch him in the face and then smother him with his pillow.
I fell asleep angry, I woke up angry, and after tugging on a fresh pair of clothes, I leave the bus angry. Driver parked us in a new lot hours ago, and with the sun peeking through the windows, I know Shawn will be awake soon. He’ll expect me to meet him in the kitchen before everyone else is awake, just like I have every other morning for far too long, and maybe he’ll want to finish what we started on the roof of Van’s hotel, or maybe he’ll want to ask me why I went all zombie on his face last night, but either way, I hope he feels as lost as I do when he realizes I’m long gone.
Block after block, crosswalk after crosswalk, my combat boots gain the distance I’m so desperately in need of. The city is buzzing with people heading to their day jobs, dressed in suits and formal wear that stand in stark contrast to my shredded jeans, my band tee, my black-and-purple hair. I don’t even know where I’m going—I only care that it’s away. Because I can’t think around him. I end up kissing him or biting his fucking lip off, or both.
When my phone buzzes and Shawn’s face flashes onto my screen, I don’t slow down. I don’t turn around. Instead, I toss a few choice curses at his face before making it disappear. My contacts get pulled up. My thumb hovers over SEND. I make the call.
“Hey,” Kale answers, the sound of his voice lifting an invisible weight off my chest.
I take a deep breath and say the three words he’s probably been dying to hear. “You were right.” My voice is firm—loud enough to make the confession real even to my own ears.
“Of course I was right,” Kale agrees. “What are we talking about?”
“Shawn’s an asshole.”
“O . . .kaaay . . . ”
“He remembers.”
With the phone pressed tight against my ear, I wait for Kale to cuss Shawn out or rub it in or say anything, but my twin is silent for so long, I end up pulling the phone away from my head just to make sure I didn’t lose the call.
“Hello?” I prompt with it back under my hair.
“Sorry . . . He remembers?”
“Everything.”
“Like . . . He remembers you from high school?”
My heart twists in my chest, the writhing of a million jagged pieces that will never be put back together. “Everything, Kale.”
“He told you that?”
A single laugh escapes me, cutting into the morning air of a city much too far from home. “No, Mike told me.” I slip inside a random coffeehouse, the jingling bells on the door taunting me as my choice attire earns stares from the patrons. I dare them to give me a look, or say something, or breathe the wrong way. “But two nights ago, before I found out,” I say as I approach a wary barista, “he asked me to be his girlfriend.” I make a noise at the end, something between a scoff and a choked-out laugh. “I’ll take a large coffee. Black.”
“And what happened after that?” Kale asks as I hand the barista my money.
I laugh again, the wry sound a cruel reminder of just how much he hurt me. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
Long seconds pass, and I try to block out the memory of all the sweet things he said to me that night, and all the dirty things he did to me the morning after. “You said yes?”
“I did a lot more than say yes.”
I woke in his arms and let him pin me to a wall. I let him kiss me, touch me . . . I let him drop to his knees. I let him—
My skin heats from the memory of what we did on that roof, and my fist clenches with the urge to punch myself in the face for the way my body betrays me. Even after everything, part of me—an untrusted, carnal part of me—still floods hot for him, and probably always will. He’s still gorgeous. Nothing can change that. And he’s still talented and smart and funny. And my heart . . .
My heart can’t be trusted either.
“You slept with him?” Kale asks, worry seeping through the phone from hundreds of miles away.
“No. Almost . . . but no.”
His sigh is heavy, and the weight of it bears down on me as I move to the edge of the counter to wait for my coffee.
“Kit . . . ” Kale says after a while. “Are you okay?”