“Sweet girl,” Seth whispered.
His cock thickened in my grip. I wrapped my fingers tight around his girth and head, and I let him buck into my hand until he came. He was curiously silent. Warm fluid surged across my palm. An expression like pain flickered on his face, primal and stunned, and then it was over.
The drumming of my heart filled my body.
Seth tucked himself away, zipped his jeans, and turned toward the window. I moved automatically to the bathroom and washed my hands in the dark.
When I stepped out, my skirt straightened, I found Seth seated on the edge of the bed. A few more pieces of hair had come loose from his ponytail. He looked beautiful, and fallen, like Lucifer. He lit a cigarette and smoked vapidly, his eyes on the floor.
“I’m pretty fucking high,” he said after a while.
“I’m kind of wired, too.”
“I knew it would be this way, if I hooked up with you.” He sucked in a lungful of smoke. “So I just let myself go.”
“Hey, don’t even worry about it.”
Seth chuckled. “I’m not worried about it.” He lifted his head, looked at me, and I felt nothing. Not aroused. Not embarrassed or coy. Nothing.
I knew if I thought about Matt, though, and how much this would have hurt him, I would fall to my knees.
The heart always knows what the mind refuses to accept.
My heart knew that I would be holding a torch for Matt forever.
“Stick around and I’ll make you come,” Seth said, but his voice was defeated, as if he already knew my answer.
I went to him and tucked a piece of hair behind his ear. I touched his cheek and frowned.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and left him smoking on the bed.
I let myself out of the room and found Chrissy. I told her that I wanted to walk back to my hotel, and then I did, feeling less and less alive with each step.
Chapter 38
MATT
One foot in front of the other. The rhythmic slap of my sneakers on pavement. The streetlights passing in long yellow ellipses.
And my breath coming faster and faster.
Calves burning, arms aching, my heart outpacing my stride.
As if I could outrun the pain.
But maybe I could. When I ran like this—dead runs late at night—I left behind the nauseating unease of Hannah’s absence. I stopped picturing Hannah and Seth together, and I stopped trying to work out the logistics of their romance.
I reached the point of exhaustion, and then I pushed myself harder. And when my limbs felt numb and my chest seemed ready to explode, I smiled.
Here we go, I thought, I’m going to collapse.
Except I never collapsed, and the effort left me feeling juvenile and stupid.
A streak of sweat ran into my eye, salt stinging.
I slowed to a jog and pushed back my hair. Everything’s going to be okay, I told myself. Then I imagined Hannah touching my face and saying, “Everything’s going to be okay.”
She left three weeks ago.
This wasn’t getting any more okay.
I passed the Hard Rock Cafe and a little Italian place and realized dimly that I was about to cross Fourteenth. I stopped. In the city lights and nighttime traffic ahead, I saw someone like Hannah walking. A trick of the mind, no doubt. I refused to give in to irrationality.
I turned and sprinted back to the condo.
I had one new voice mail from Nate. I checked the time—ten for me, midnight for him—and returned his call.
“Why aren’t you asleep?” I said as soon as he answered.
“It’s not that late. How are you doing?”
“Fine. I was running.” I sat at the kitchen island and fiddled with the AlumaFoam splint on the counter. I’d removed it to run. I barely wore it, in fact, preferring the pain in my hand.
“Running at night?” Nate said.
“Yeah. Running at night, not drinking, not drugging, not calling Hannah, not stalking her sister, not driving by her parents’ house. Anything else you need to know?” I felt instantly cruel for snapping at Nate, who loved me beyond reason.