Reaching the girls’ bathroom, I push it open with my back, smiling coyly at Ash. “I’ll just get changed. Wait there.”
The door swings shut behind me, opening again seconds later as Ash prowls in, dropping the supplies to the floor as he takes me in.
Gasping, I back up, meeting the wall. He stalks toward me, a dark hunger in his eyes, and I bite my lip to keep the sound of my excitement contained. I’ve been dreaming of his kiss since our day in Central Park, imagining the hard wall of him pressed up against me, over my body as he takes me, until nothing else but the way he makes me feel matters.
There’s nothing gentle about his kiss. He’s all raw passion and sexual hunger. His hands are all over me, consuming me. I’m falling, falling so hard I’ll never return. His hands slip under my panties, his fingers finding their way inside me as my cries of pleasure echo off the walls. I’m burning from the inside out, pleasure coursing through my blood, building to a crescendo. His jeans drop, and the hot length of him thrusts inside me, and he moans my name. He is my prayer and nightmare—all I’ve ever wanted and everything I can never have. My desire twists and darkens, my once beating heart growing cold and splintering.
Oh, God, what am I doing? I’ve never wanted something so much, yet as the emotions between us blaze, it’s not enough to silence the reasons why we should stop. What I feel for Ash is far more than physical; I want his heart as well as his body.
“Stop,” I gasp, “Please stop.”
He’s panting hard, his eyes drugged with lust and need, but slowly, Ash releases me and pulls up his jeans as I hastily pull my clothes into place. The nightmare I live in turns my happiness to dust. This is all I’ll ever get. Glimpses of a future he’ll never give me.
“What are we doing?” I whisper, horrified, a chill crawling over my skin.
“Rose, I thought you…” His words trail off as his gaze grows as cold and as distant as mine.
“What are we?” I demand, tears burning my eyes. “What are we?” My heart’s punching in my chest as I pull in breath after breath, desperate for oxygen, which never comes.
“Friends… you are my friend.”
I’m shaking my head before he’s even finished, tearing apart at the seams. I can’t pretend anymore. I can’t hide from the truth. Ash will never be my friend. He’ll always mean more, and every time he discards me, I crack a little more. “I’m not your friend, Ash. I’m your secret whore you fuck in the bathroom.”
Numbness travels from my head to my toes. I’m dead inside, full of self-loathing and disgust. I’d told myself it was enough, ignored the niggling voice inside my mind.
“No,” he whispers. “No.” But he knows it’s the truth. It’s written there in his horror-filled gaze. “This isn’t about fucking. I care about you.”
“Do you care that every time I feel your lips on mine, my heart kicks up in hope only to bleed when you walk away? Do you care that every time you look at me as if I’m a stranger, I die a little more? You are my salvation and my destruction, and I told myself it was okay. That it was enough because a piece of the boy I love was better than nothing, but I can’t do this anymore, Ash. I can’t be your dirty little secret,” I cry. “I’m worth more. Goddamn it, I’m worth more.”
Ash processes every word. I watch as the emotions roll over his face, and though I know this will end with pain, a part of me still hopes, and I hate him for it. I hate him for giving me enough of himself, a piece of me believed.
“Rose.”
He reaches for me, but I’m already running. I need to get away, run as far and as fast as I can. If I stay, I’ll talk myself out of it. I’ll convince myself what we have is enough. I’ll find myself imagining a life where I’m always in the dark, waiting for the crumbs he throws my way.
Pain is the only thing that awaits us if we carry on, and I’m already riddled with it. I’m one step from destruction, one kiss from despair. We aren’t a fairy tale. We aren’t even friends. We are two people standing on opposite sides of the line, hopelessly wishing the chasm between us would close.
Chapter 19
I’ve been running for a while when I finally stop, dragging in great heaving breathes. Fumbling for my phone to call for help, I scroll through, acting on automatic pilot while my body trembles as adrenaline leaves my body. It’s only when a voice tells me the call could not connect, I realize I was ringing Clare.
“You are so stupid!” I yell, pulling at my hair. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
Marching in a circle, I berate myself silently, hating how much it still hurts, Clare is no longer my friend. It takes me a minute to realize my phone is ringing in my hand and even longer to control the shaking in my hands to answer it.
“Hello?” I answer through the tightness in my throat.
“Hey, Rose. What time do you get off mural duty?” Isla asks.
“Oh… I…” My tongue’s stuck to my mouth, unable to find the words to explain.
“Rose? What’s wrong?”
The second the words leave her mouth, tears spring from my eyes, and I let out a choked breath. The only sounds coming from me is an animalistic pain as if I’m a wounded bird dying, crying out in a last desperate plea.
“Where are you? Rose, tell me where you are?”
I look around me, trying to pinpoint my location through the sorrow blurring my eyes. “Central Park,” I rasp.
There’s nothing but grass and trees around me, and it reminds me of him. Of the Ash he can never truly be.
“Get up,” Isla snaps. “Start walking. Find a landmark.”
She’s out of breath as if she’s walking quickly, but there’s not enough semblance of thought inside me to think more about it. Numbly, I stand, following her barked-out instructions, wandering until I reach something other than trees.
“Castle,” I mumble. “I see a castle.”
“Belvedere Castle. Good, okay. Go to it. I’ll look for you. I’m about twenty minutes away.”
Following Isla’s instructions, grateful for something else to focus on other than the agony tearing apart my heart, I wander toward the stone building, not really taking anything in. The faces around me are a blur as I take a seat on the nearest bench I can find. I’m not sure how much time has passed when booted feet stop before me and I look up.
“Oh, Rose, what’s happened?” she gasps. “Here.” I stare at the tissue and pocket mirror she hands out to me, confused. “Rose, you look dreadful,” Isla adds, waving the mirror and tissue.
Taking them, I open the mirror and stare at my reflection. Streaks of mascara stain my skin, and my face is blotchy and puffy. Clearing the black marks up as best as I can, I snap the mirror closed and pass it back to Isla.
“Thanks.”
“What’s happened? I thought you have to do the painting today?”
“I did… I do.”
She eyes my outfit. “Not exactly dressed for it.”
I laugh emptily. “I was trying to gain access to the Bishop’s suite. Stupid, I know.”
“Okay?”
“All it did was make Ash horny.” I shake my head before covering my face in my hands. “I’m so stupid. How did I not think this wouldn’t end with heartbreak?”
“I’m confused. What ended?”
Lifting my head, I focus on Isla’s confused expression, see the clogs turning in her head, trying to piece together information. She’s not stupid; she’s pushed more than once for details on Ash and me. She’s caught me staring after him, more than likely witnessed the odd fleeting brush of his fingers as we’ve walked by. I’m the only one who’s been blind.
“You love him, don’t you?”
I nod, smiling sadly as the truth spills from my mouth. Once I start talking, there’s no stopping the rush of emotions falling from me. I tell her every detail, every moment of hope and pain, and when it’s over… when my truth is out in the world, I feel lighter somehow. As if speaking of the pain has taken some of it away and left an emptiness in its wake. I’
m light because I’m nothing but a raw, hollow shell.
“No wonder Sophia hates you. She must see the way you gaze after each other. I know I have.”
“I’m done, Isla. I quit. She can keep her throne. She can keep him. I can’t do this anymore.”
“But you’re just starting to get to her. No one has ever gotten to her before, Rose. You could win.”
“But what’s the point in winning?” I respond sadly. “Ash is as trapped as me, bound by the choices of his family.”
“His stepfather likes Sophia because she’s on top.”
I shrug. Maybe she’s right, but something tells me it’s more than that. There’s this “knowing” just out of my reach. I should know something, but I can’t grasp what.
“Don’t give up,” Isla insists.
Standing, I smile weakly. “Thanks for coming to check on me, but I just need to go home.”
“What about the mural? Doesn’t it need finishing today for the gala next week?”
If I’m lucky, Ash stayed to finish it, but even if he didn’t, I can’t go back. I’m not even sure how I’m supposed to face school on Monday. I’ve been fighting fate since my father’s secrets tore my family apart. Pushing back against every wall, smashing through every obstacle in my way, desperately seeking something I’d lost. But I’m not sure what it is I lost anymore, everything I thought mattered seems like an illusion, as if my entire existence was made of glass one crack from shattering. I never realized how unstable the ground I was standing on was, or how heavy the crown upon my head became. What’s the point in fighting for something that was never real in the first place?
I could take down Sophia, destroy the throne upon which she sits, but then what? It won’t make me whole; it won’t fix something that was broken long before I came back to New York.
Don’t become a plastic queen. My father’s voice echoes in my head, his last desperate plea before we parted for years. He was right; this life is plastic. The fake smiles and the faker words wrapped in a pretty box, which is empty inside. I knew there was a sacrifice to being on top. I’d told myself it was worth it, but all the things in the world can’t make up for the ache inside me. I don’t know who I am anymore, and the most terrifying part is, I’m not sure I ever did.
Chapter 20
I convince my mother I’m sick, and she goes along with it until Wednesday morning comes around, and she demands I get out of bed and attend school.
I get dressed, robotically, going through the motions, but I don’t really feel a thing.
“What are you doing?” my mother snaps as I enter the kitchen.
I stare at her for a beat before replying emptily. “Going to school like you asked.”
“Not like that, you’re not.”
I look down, wondering if I imagined dressing in my uniform, but no, it’s all there from the shirt to the socks.
“Ugh!” She flings her arms in the air. “Sit down.”
Following her instruction, I watch her with a detached expression, part of me wondering if I’ll ever care again. She disappears into my room, returning seconds later with my cosmetics bag.
“I don’t know what’s happened to you, Rose, but you need to snap out of it.”
I don’t reply. I don’t try to express what has happened to the daughter she knew because I’m not quite sure myself, and answering this life you love broke me, won’t make things any better.
I sit on a kitchen stool unmoving as my mother applies makeup to my face. She’s plastic as well, holding on to empty things, so she doesn’t have to admit this life broke her too. So she doesn’t have to acknowledge maybe she’s part of the reason my father began to bend the rules. She puts on my mask, hiding the fissures within, but nothing can cover my vacant stare. She can see it; it’s why she won’t look at me for more than a second. It’s why she’s putting makeup on my face when the last time she did this, I was a little girl of five.
I keep waiting for the moment she asks if I’m all right. I wait and watch, wondering if she’ll ever be the mother who rocked me back and forth on the floor again. But it never comes, and I somehow find a smile and the energy to stand.
I’m a ghost, drifting through a half-life, and if I’m lucky, no one will even notice I’m here.
I arrive outside school just as the first bell rings, signaling to head to class. A part of me urges my body to walk faster, but the closer I get to the gates, the heavier my feet become. It’s like wading through sludge. Forcing each leg to step one foot in front of the other, I make it through the gates, up the three steps and through the ornate double doors. Other students overtake me as I walk the long hall, which will eventually lead out into the central courtyard. Classroom doors and lockers line the hall, but I keep my gaze forward, willing myself to keep going.
The courtyard opens up before me, and I step into the rectangle space, heading for the arched double doors directly in front of me. The cafeteria is on my right and on my left, the large wall Ash and I were painting.
Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look. But I seem to have a sick fascination with torturing myself. Pausing, I scan the painting, my already sluggish heart stopping altogether. It’s finished. When I ran away, broken, he shook off his feelings and completed our mural. I’d convinced myself I meant something to him, but apparently, all I ever was were three weeks of his childhood and a bit of lust-filled fun. How could I be anything more? How could he have the strength to finish something after what I said to him?
I don’t see paint. I see laughter. I see the light in his eyes as he grinned cheekily before flicking paint at me. I hear my squeal of surprise and see the paint I smear across his cheek in retaliation. I see and feel every shared glance and unspoken emotion. Every brush of a finger that reached deep into my heart. Every claim of my lips he never truly intended to keep. I see all my broken wishes and hopes smeared into color.
A scream builds in the pit of my stomach, and I want nothing more than to let it out. To rage and shout and scratch the paint from the walls. But instead, I push it all down inside, a fiery ball of hate and pain, and use it to keep myself upright. I let dark emotions fill every empty space inside me and turn my back on the painting and the memories it surfaces.
The Rose Ash knew died that day. Crumpled and faded into nothing when she ran away, and he didn’t follow. I knew it was coming. I knew we’d never be, and yet I hoped. I hoped somehow my feelings matched his and he’d give up everything for me. But I’d forgotten one vital thing, chose to ignore what was painfully obvious.
Ashton Cole is the king and wearing the crown takes sacrifice, and he sacrificed my Ash a long time ago.
***
Classes are awful. I can’t concentrate on anything but the buzzing in my head. Every insult thrown my way, every jibe of my father’s affairs bounces off, not truly sinking in. I can’t feel anything but this darkness that seems to grow.
On my way out of math, someone sticks out their foot and trips me. I land hard on my knee, the pain bringing tears to my eyes. No one stops to see if I’m all right or offers a hand back to my feet. Instead, I’m met with sniggers and outright laughs. Their queen has made me a target, and they delight in destroying me for her.
Gritting my teeth, I force myself up, my feet pounding across the school with the intensity of my hate. Sophia’s eyes widen as I enter the courtyard, fear momentarily filling her eyes. I smile to myself, hoping she remembers when I dragged her to the floor by her hair.
There’s a second as I’m marching toward her when that version of Rose surfaces. When I picture ripping her from her pretty heels and slinging her to the ground like last week’s trash. But then Ash steps up beside her and the anger in me splutters and dies.
I’m broken, finished. She can keep her crown.
“It’s over,” I say, coming to a stop a foot away from her. Grayson steps to her left, Ash on her right, but I can’t look his way. I can’t meet his gaze and survive.
“Over?” she asks, tilting h
er head slightly as if she doesn’t comprehend.
“I’m out. Done. You win, Sophia, just leave me alone.”
“Did we break the delicate English Rose?” Grayson sneers.
I meet his gaze unflinching. “No, Grayson, I was broken long before I arrived here.”
He chuckles as Sophia studies me curiously. “Is this a trick?”
I laugh, the sound hollow and empty. “I don’t care anymore. I don’t care about anything, so do me a favor and call your minions off. There’s no point in breaking me.” My eyes swivel to Ash’s, my heart a rapid drum in my head drowning out everything else. “I’m already broken.”
Holding his gaze, I let go of the dark emotions I’ve been clinging to and let the heartbroken girl in me to the surface. I want him to see. I want him to live with what he’s done. I want him to remember the look on my face every time he closes his eyes.
His face contorts in pain, and for a moment, I think he’s going to reach for me. I think he’s going to leap across the chasm between us and piece back together my broken heart, but the pain is gone in his next breath, and I let the darkness wrap around me once again.
Turning, I walk away, my breath caught in my chest, a dagger lodged in my heart. I find myself at Mrs. Chandler’s office, her door cracked slightly open. Knocking, I don’t wait for an answer before I push myself inside and stumble across the room.
A shout of surprise leaves the headmistress’s throat as my back hits the wall and I slide to the floor.
“Please,” I whisper, the first of my tears springing loose. “I need to go home.”
When it doesn’t appear my crying will stop, and the guidance counselor is brought into the office with no luck, Mrs. Chandler has no choice but to call my mother. She arrives far faster than I expected, and I beg her to wait until classes begin again before taking me out of the office.
“Is this all over a boy?” she asks the moment we are alone in the car.
I laugh at her as tears roll down my cheeks. I imagine I look slightly deranged. I feel it.
The Destruction of Rose: A High School Bully Romance (Albany Nightingale Duet Book 1) Page 13