Brightly Burning Bridges: A Bully Romance (Kings of Capital)

by Ivy Wild

  She stepped inside and I let the doors close on her without saying another word. Silas snatched the bag of food out of my hands with an amused chuckle and made his way over to the kitchen. He set it on the quartz countertop of the island and watched me with a twinkle in his eyes as I performed a walk of shame to where he was standing.

  I tugged the bag out of his hands and began to unpack the plastic containers. He leaned against the countertop and crossed his arms, the corner of his lips quirking up into an annoyingly smug smile. “What’s got your panties in a wad?” he asked.

  I scowled at him. “The fact that we’ve got a ton of reading to get through to make sure you don’t end up paying massive fines or worse, but you’d rather spend your time flirting with the staff—in my own apartment, I might add.”

  “Jealous?” His eyes twinkled with mischief.

  “Irritated,” I responded back, not trusting myself to look up.

  Note to self: always mind your surroundings when around Silas.

  I gasped as I felt his form surround me as his hands pressed into the countertop on either side of me. His lips ghosted against my neck and shivers wracked my body. I tried to continue unpacking our food, but I suddenly seemed unable to get a plastic lid off a base. My fingers slipped against their task as his lips continued to dance above my skin, making their way to my ear.

  “This weekend could be so much more enjoyable, Sky. Just give me what I want and I’ll give you what you obviously need.”

  His voice washed over me and I pressed my palms into the cold stone to try and help calm myself down. Everything inside of me wanted to turn around, say what I already knew was true and let Silas take me the way I’d always wanted him to.

  But a small piece of me, the one that had quite literally watched our friendship burn to ashes, reminded me that he was too dangerous, too damaged, and too cold.

  “We don’t work together, Si,” I whispered back. “You know that.”

  “I don’t know that,” he said, his lips brushing against my ear as he whispered into my ear. “Because you’ve never given us a chance.”

  “You don’t want me. You just want a new toy you can play with.”

  His hand trailed up my arm and my body shuddered as my desire for him coursed through me before settling between my thighs. His fingers brushed my silvery hair to the side, exposing the intricate and colorful flowers that were inked into my neck.

  We were such opposites. I wore my insecurities in the form of visible ink all over my body whereas my insides were generally clean. Silas was pristine on the outside, but I knew his insides were more colorful than even my exterior.

  “I’ve had toys, Skyler,” he husked before his teeth grazed my earlobe. “While you’d be fun to play with, you’re the furthest thing from a toy.”

  His actions became bolder because I wasn’t pushing him away. I could feel his lips press into my neck now, moving against my skin, setting my body alight with fire.

  “Just admit it, Sky,” he said as his hand wrapped around the front of my body. His fingers crawled up my form, ghosting over my breasts to press lightly against my neck. I let my head fall back into him and he began sucking on the permanent flowers in my skin.

  “Why? Why do you need me to say it?” It was a legitimate question that my more logical side needed an answer to. I’d had a few sexual partners in my lifetime and none of them had ever asked me to admit I belonged to them before they would touch me.

  His fingers tightened against my neck and my body zinged with desire. He was holding me so his lips pressed into my ear. “Because you ran from me and because you never came back. When I have you, and I will have you, I want you to know just who you belong to.” His other hand left the counter and slipped down my pants, cupping my sex over my panties. “Once I slip my cock into this wet pussy, I don’t want anyone else having it. It will be mine to fuck, finger and feast on from then on.”

  My sex clenched at his words and I knew he felt it because that cocky smirk of his was pressing into my neck. “I know you want this, Sky. Stop denying us.”

  “There is no us,” I managed to say breathlessly.

  “You were always so smart, so stunning,” he whispered against my skin. “And yet, so stupid.”

  His entire body moved away from mine and I shivered at the loss of him. He strode over to the refrigerator and pulled a bottle of white wine from the wine rack. “Drink?” he asked, holding up the bottle like his hands hadn’t just been down my pants.

  I nodded my head, not trusting myself to speak. I was definitely going to need a drink to get through this weekend.

  * * *

  Past

  Two weeks after my gut-wrenching loss (still not saying it), two things happened. First, my father still hadn’t appeared at home and second, Skyler finally convinced me to return to school. She’d insisted on catching me up on everything I’d missed over the weekend, and on Monday she showed up at my house way ahead of schedule and reminded me that “this was good for me.”

  It didn’t feel good for me.

  It felt like torture.

  And I was unaware of torture being classified as “good.”

  But, for whatever reason, Skyler always had a way of getting me to do things I didn’t want to do, both good and bad. So, I dragged ass out of bed, managed to shower and put myself together and drove our asses to school. She offered to get out and walk the last block to school if I didn’t want to be seen with her, which again, made my chest feel really fucking empty.

  I shook my head and told her that that shit didn’t matter to me anymore.

  Of course I was wrong.

  I was always wrong.

  And I wish I had agreed to her request. Because if I had, maybe things would have turned out differently for us.

  My Beamer was white with a bright red leather interior. Basically, the definition of flashy. It got noticed and therefore we got noticed as we walked in together.

  To be fair, with Skyler’s white hair and complexion, she was noticed everywhere she went, she couldn’t help that. I generally had to work to get noticed.

  Oh, the irony.

  She hated the attention and it’s all she got.

  I craved it and had to grovel for it.

  Hushed whispers, giggles and outright laughs filled the hallways as we walked into the Academy together. Skyler’s hand brushed mine and I looked down before meeting her gaze. She’d done it on purpose to get my attention and her eyes were kind and told me that everything was going to be fine.

  She was so fucking trusting.

  Nice.

  Naïve.

  She must have forgotten who she was walking next to and even worse, who I’d become. There was a black hole in my chest the size of my mother’s love and I’d paid attention in science class enough to know that those things sucked harder than a five dollar hooker and were just as crushing.

  And standing this close to me, it was only a matter of time before Skyler became my collateral damage.

  Morning classes were a snooze fest. No surprise there. After doling out one or two deadpan looks to teachers who tried to call on me, I was generally left alone for the rest of the class. People in the school seemed to be avoiding me, too, which was odd. I knew that I was being as sour as Warhead candy but that usually didn’t stop people from at least approaching me or trying to associate.

  What made matters even worse was the new transfer student, Var—whatever the fuck his name was, still seemed to be after me. It’d started since he’d arrived at the Academy and for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why I was even on his radar. As far as I knew I hadn’t said two words to the fucker but he seemed to make it his goal to rag on me. For the most part, I chalked it up to him trying to take on the biggest dude. Like the way guys get to prison and pick a fight with the toughest guy just to make sure they don’t get ass-raped later. But for whatever reason, he was really grating on me today.

  When the lunch bell rang, I made my way over to Sk
yler’s locker. We had agreed to meet up there in the morning before we parted for classes. Her locker and the windows were still sporting some obvious signs of white paint and feathers. It was the first time I’d been this way since the incident and seeing it up close, it made me feel even more like shit. My walls came up and I leaned my back against the metal and tried to look the other way.

  “Hey,” Skyler said softly, closing the locker and looking at me with those big lavender eyes.

  “What’s up?” I asked, trying hard not to look at her.

  “I’m proud of you for coming to school today,” she said.

  I had to look at her now. Everything about me felt numb at the moment. I was just cold from the inside out. Skyler was like a 1980s heater fan. Scorching hot and totally devoid of safety mechanisms.

  “Awesome,” I replied, brushing off her comment. I was acutely aware of the looks we were getting and I hated admitting that it was starting to get to me.

  “So are you two an item now?” The question rang out over the hallway in a thick accent and I looked up to see Vartan strolling down the corridor. A hush came over the entire wing, everyone itching to watch new drama. Our school was like the fucking Bravo channel. Tacky, but trying to convince everyone it wasn’t.

  “What’s it to you, douchebag?” I yelled back at him.

  “Si, don’t.” Skyler tugged at my sleeve, but I brushed her off.

  “I just wanted the whole school to know whether you and Miss Skyler are dating.” His stupid face was smiling smugly because he knew he’d caught me in a trap. If I admitted to dating Skyler, or even being friends with her, I’d lose clout in the school rather quickly. Something like this wouldn’t have been such a big deal. I’d hung around people who were not popular when I wanted to in the past, especially girls. I didn’t discriminate.

  Issue was—I’d made Skyler out to be public enemy number one. To do a flip flop and suddenly act like we were friends would make me look like a pussy. And trying to come up with some excuse that made it look like Skyler and I were just hooking up would do more to hurt her and embarrass her than anything.

  “Who the fuck cares, man,” I said, trying to sidestep the question while I came up with a plan.

  But this Vartan guy wasn’t an idiot. Fuck, I hated him. He was so goddamn irritating. He made my blood boil in a way that made it hard to think straight.

  “I care. Because the whole school tells me you hate this girl and that you told everyone they should hate her too. But now here you are. We all just want to know why you get to set rules for us but not follow them yourself.”

  Backhanded murmurs started to rise amongst the people watching and a larger and larger crowd seemed to gather around us. Everyone was staring at me and Skyler at the end of the hall, the evidence of our hatred for one another still painted clear as day across the windows.

  For most of the day, I’d walked around the school seeing what it felt like to keep my mask off. I didn’t try and smile at people, I didn’t try and put people at ease, and I tried not to care what they thought about me.

  And for a brief moment, I thought I could do it.

  Be myself.

  Not pretend.

  Not be fake.

  But as I stood there, with everyone staring at me, really staring at me, it was too much. I couldn’t handle the judgment in their eyes. I was too raw, too hurt and too damaged to let them see the real me. It had me slamming the mask back over my face so quickly and sliding back into my comfort zone.

  I took a step away from Skyler and she looked at me sadly, like she knew what was about to happen. I hated myself so fucking much as I said the words. “I was just down here reminding her not to walk through the halls until after the bell rings, since she weirds everybody out. Like fuck I’d date a chick that looked like her. Maybe bang once just to be able to say I did, but even then I’d have to be pretty hammered.”

  The words left my mouth and I felt absolutely sick.

  The one person in my life who actually seemed to give a damn about me and I had to piss all over her feelings. All over my own feelings. Shit, I was such an idiot and I hated myself.

  The crowd laughed and Vartan crossed his arms over his chest, looking strangely pleased with himself, which wasn’t what I’d expected of him. This entire time I thought he wanted to catch me in a lie and admit that Skyler and I were friends—or more. I thought I’d bested him, but his face looked as fucking smug as ever.

  I heard the door to the stairwell behind me slam shut and I laughed and pretended to cry. Having got what they wanted, everyone started to disperse, including Vartan and as soon as no one was around, I darted down the stairs, taking them two at a time to chase after Skyler.

  I’d messed up—bad and this time, I didn’t know if there was a path back from this. I knew where she was going to be and I ran behind the school. The tree limbs grabbed at my clothes, as if nature itself was trying to say I wasn’t worthy of seeing her.

  I knew it was true, but I still pushed through the underbrush. When I broke through the tree line, she was sitting on the old, splintered bridge. Her feet hung over the edge and her backpack was thrown off to one side.

  Even from where I was standing, I could see how red her eyes were against her pale skin.

  Fuck, I’d made her cry. Like, really cry.

  “Hey,” I called out to her.

  She turned to look at me and wiped her eyes with the sleeves of her sweatshirt. I started to walk towards her but she stood and yelled “Stop!”

  Her outburst stunned me. “What the fuck?” I exclaimed before I could even process what I was saying.

  “You what the fuck, Silas!” she screamed. “How could you do that to me? In front of everyone?”

  I looked down at the ground, kicking the dirt beneath my feet. I already felt like an asshole. She was the one person I’d always been able to be myself around. But, with her screaming at me like this, it had me reaching for my mask in defense, even around her.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled, putting forth one last ditch effort to save whatever it was we had between us. I threw it out there and it landed like a wet rag. I wanted to run to her, tell her I loved her. Tell her I was sorry and that I was broken and that I needed her in my life. Tell her that I couldn’t get through the pain, the grief, the loss without her. But when I tried to take a step, she recoiled and moved backward.

  “You can’t just go around being nasty to people, say sorry and then just act like it’s going to take the pain away, Silas!” Tears were streaming down her face and the wind blew through the hole in my chest and made me shiver. “I told you I loved you! I do love you! Can’t you understand how badly your words hurt?”

  Of course I did. I wasn’t an idiot. But, what she didn’t seem to understand was that I said those things because I was hurting that much and more. I was the walking embodiment of the phrase “misery loves company.” Skyler’s mother might have said, “the fiercer the hate, the deeper the love.” And maybe that was true for most people. But for me, the saying went “the fiercer the love, the deeper the hurt.”

  I hurt everything I loved. Not on purpose, of course. It was just the way I was made. Born under a fucked up star called self-loathing.

  I fished my joint and a lighter out of my jacket pocket and lit up.

  “Oh, real nice, Silas. Add the illegal use of drugs to another thing on your list of shit for the day.”

  I couldn’t understand why she was being so nasty to me. She knew what I was going through. She was the only one that knew what I was going through. I knew my walls were coming up fast. I could feel them building brick by brick around me, my natural defenses trying to keep myself safe from a world that had long told me the real me wasn’t good enough.

  The only person I’d been good enough for was dead and burned to ashes.

  And it made me want to watch the whole world go up in flames along with her.

  I took a puff and let out a long exhale before flicking my joint towards the
brook.

  It landed on the bridge, instead.

  And my wish came true.

  Remember that shit saying, “careful what you wish for?” Yeah, it’s fucking accurate.

  Cause that rickety old bridge lit up like it had been dipped in gasoline. The splinters that had dug into my feet and hands when I’d walked on it, the planks where I’d sat when Skyler told me she loved me, all of it, lit up in an eerily beautiful inferno.

  Skyler screamed and ran to the other side of the bridge.

  Away from me.

  Away from us.

  Alone.

  I stood and watched the blaze. There was nothing that could be done now. Red and orange and yellow swirled together as the bridge served as our friendship’s funeral pyre. At some point, Skyler ran off into the trees and I sat down and let the heat wash over me until I watched the charred remains of her favorite place crumble into the brook.

  It was the one place she loved.

  And I’d destroyed that too.

  * * *

  Present

  I’d spent the entire weekend with Silas, trying desperately to concentrate on the hundreds of documents we needed to go through. He didn’t try to seduce me again. Apparently one rejection was enough to last the whole weekend for him.

  I shivered in my thin, brightly floral printed coat. I should have worn something heavier, but I still hadn’t moved all of my clothing into the new apartment. It was like I was holding a part of myself back. The last trip I’d made was a few weeks ago and I hadn’t thought to bring my winter coat back with me. I think a part of me doubted this whole thing with Silas would last that long.

  I hated D.C. winters. Everything was gray, washed out and dreary. There was no color anywhere and it just made the whole place feel more depressing than usual.

  The towncar Silas and I were currently seated in slowed to a stop and I looked out the window. It was an odd section of town we were stopped in and Silas seemed to sense it too. “You sure this is the right address?” he asked the driver, irritation coating his voice.