Her ginger hair is piled into a curly, messy bun, a few tendrils framing her face in a haphazard manner as she folds her arms over her middle. Her eyes skate the floor before those emerald gems lock onto mine, and her brows bend, pink lips pulling to one side.
“Can I sit?” she asks, nodding toward the bed.
I scramble up to the headboard, scooting over and making room for her. “Of course. Here, sit. Please.”
She smiles, sitting at the edge of the bed, one leg propped on the sheets while the other remains grounded. Her eyes search mine, taking in what I’m sure are dark, sleepless circles by now. Cassie’s face breaks, tears glossing her pupils before she blinks them away.
“Adam, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have run from you, I shouldn’t have left you like that.”
“Stop,” I say quickly, holding up one hand on a breath. “Trust me, I deserved that. And more. I don’t…” I swallow. “I don’t blame you for leaving, for not believing me. You don’t have a reason to, not after all I’ve done.”
She smiles, but it falls quickly, eyes still glossed as she whispers, “That’s just the problem, though. Even though I shouldn’t, I can’t help it.” Cassie shrugs. “I do.”
I frown. “You do what?”
“Believe you,” she says it on a whispered laugh, a shake of her head like she can’t believe it’s the truth. Then, she lowers her voice even more. “Want you. Need you.” She pauses. “Love you.”
I gape at her.
Full on, eyes wide, mouth open gape.
“What are you saying right now?”
She smiles, shaking her head with something between a shrug and a shiver touching her shoulders. “I’m saying that it doesn’t matter what you’ve done to me, what I’ve done to you. It doesn’t matter if we’ve both hurt each other, if we’ve both messed up. It doesn’t matter that we can’t go back in time and make this story — our story — perfect.” She sniffs, her eyes flooding again as she watches me. “What we have is the messiest, stupidest, most fucked-up thing I’ve ever heard of and yet, I can’t let it go.”
I let out a breath, reaching for her hands, my fingers wrapping around hers as two tears slip from her eyes.
“I can’t let you go, Adam. Not even if I wanted to.”
I steal her next words with a kiss, tasting the salty wetness of her tears on her lips as they meet mine. She chokes — whether on a laugh or a sob, I can’t be sure — but her hands reach around my neck, fingertips slipping into my hair as she pulls me closer.
“Don’t let me go,” I whisper, kissing that plea as soon as it leaves my mouth and touches hers. “Please, Cassie. Don’t let me go.”
She laughs, climbing into my lap and kissing me harder. My hands slip into the back pockets of her jean shorts, and she gasps, pushing her hands into my chest.
“But, if we’re doing this, we’re doing it.” She says, one brow raising. “I mean like I’m your girlfriend, you’re my boyfriend, there is no other girl above me and no other guy above you.”
I cock an eyebrow back at her. “You act like any of that is a deal breaker.”
“And, I want to take it slow,” she says, resting her hands on my shoulders. “We’ve rushed through so much, made decisions without thinking… that stops now. From here on, I want to be a team.”
“Me, too.”
“Okay,” she says, as if she’s stood her ground. Her brows are set, eyes determined.
“Okay,” I agree, and I can’t help but smirk. “Can I kiss you now, boss?”
Her eyes soften, a smile touching her lips, too, before she lowers them to mine.
“It’s like you said earlier this semester,” she whispers against my lips. “You never have to ask.”
And just like an 80’s movie, I thrust my fist into the air, earning me a chuckle before I steal her next laugh with an even deeper kiss.
I got the girl.
Thank fuck, I got the girl.
A BLINK.
A breath.
A blink.
Repeat.
I stare at my planner, willing it to clear itself, or to check off the items highlighted in a dozen different colors without me having to participate. All I want to do, all I can manage, is to blink, breathe, blink, repeat.
Classes start back up tomorrow.
I should have stood tall as a leader tonight, running our post-Spring Break Chapter, but I cancelled it.
Because I couldn’t stand up there in front of all my sisters and pretend like I deserved to be there.
Not after what I did.
As soon as the words slipped from my mouth, I regretted them. I almost stopped mid-sentence, almost turned and left Kip standing there wondering what the hell I was going to say. But it was like word vomit, unable to stop once I started upchucking the truth.
My parents never told me it was right to tell the truth, but somewhere along the way, I learned that. Church, maybe? A teacher? A friend? Wherever that lesson came from, I’m sure there was a little asterisk somewhere that said, “Always tell the truth — if that truth is yours to tell.”
And what I told Kip? That was not my truth to tell.
Sure, I was a part of it — the “plan.” Hell, I was the source of it. But, I knew just as well as everyone else after seeing Kip and Skyler that night at the piano bar that they were in love. I was out of the picture. There was no chance for me and Kip anymore.
But I couldn’t stop.
I wanted him so badly, wanted happiness so badly, that I couldn’t see reason.
And now, I have to own up to that. To my truth.
A blink.
A breath.
A blink.
Repeat.
Somehow, I peel myself out of my office chair and let my feet carry me on autopilot down the hall to Skyler and Jess’s room. The girls all freeze inside when I swing the door open, my eyes gracing each one of them.
Ashlei, Jess, Cassie, Skyler — all snuggled up, spending a lazy Sunday watching movies.
Without me.
“Little,” I finally say, my voice a croak. “Can I talk to you?”
The realization of how bad I must look sinks in as the girls’ brows bend in pity, their eyes skating over my worn and tired features. I cross one arm over my stomach, holding the elbow of the opposite, feeling like an injured bird on display at a zoo.
“About what?”
Skyler’s voice is a clip, her jaw set.
I just watch her, silently begging her to give me the chance to explain.
She sighs, throwing the covers off her and Cassie in a dramatic fashion before hopping off the bed. I don’t even look at the other girls before I turn, and Skyler follows me back to my room.
Skyler pauses at the entrance, her arms crossed, body language as closed off as I imagine her heart is to me right now.
“Come sit down,” I try, gesturing to the bed.
“I’ll stand.”
I sigh. “Leave it to you to make this even harder than it already is.”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, I internally curse. They aren’t my words — they’re my mother’s. I hear her more in every move I make nowadays. But, for once, I understand her.
Easier to point a finger at the other person than admit my own part in the game.
Only, Skyler isn’t me. She won’t just sit back and let me speak to her the way my mother speaks to me. She won’t let me — won’t let anyone — talk to her like that.
She crosses the room in less than a second, and yet I feel the palm of her hand against my cheek in slow motion, the sting of it somehow lost by the time I register what happened. My hand flies up, covering the cheek she struck, and while my immediate reaction is to strike back, I simply nod.
Skyler stands there, chest heaving, face beet red as she dares me to get mad, to lash out. But she and I both know I won’t.
“Fair enough,” I say, rubbing my cheek. “I deserved that. But I’m not the only one at fault here, Little.”
Skyler laughs
, throwing her hands up and turning to leave without another word.
“Wait!” I plead, stopping her just before she hits my door. “Please, let’s just talk about this. I’m not saying it was your fault, I know it’s mostly mine, but just let me speak. We have to work this out.” My chest squeezes. “You can’t be mad at me forever.”
“The hell I can’t.”
Her face morphs in that moment, a darkness I’ve never seen in my Little emerging like a dragon.
“You’re a bitch, Ex.”
Her words are like another slap to the face, and I stagger back at the force of them.
“I’m your Little. Your Little. You’re supposed to take care of me, to help me through college, to be my mentor in all things. Instead, you wrapped me up in this twisted game that you knew I was uncomfortable playing.”
The more she speaks, the more my brain scrambles, quickly building my defense. I should be listening to her, should be heeding her words, but I can’t help but hold up my mirror to reflect back at her.
“And when it was all finally over,” she continues, “and we could move on, you gave me one last jab with your knife like the last thing you wanted to see was for me to come out of this whole mess alive. I don’t owe you anything, Erin. Nothing.”
“I know that, okay?!”
The words burst from my lips in a high-pitched, desperate scream. I step toward her, hands out in a plea for understanding.
A blink.
A breath.
A blink.
Repeat.
Except this time, with the blinks, my cheeks are wet. With the breath, a sob.
“You think I don’t see that what I’ve done is pathetic and disgusting?” I choke out. “I can’t even talk to anyone I know about how I feel because I’m ashamed to admit what I asked you to do. And on the cruise? Yeah, I made one of the worst choices of my entire life, Little. I fucked up.”
My next breath is stolen, chest stinging painfully as I gasp for air on another sob.
“And I am so, so sorry,” I croak. “I’m sorry for what I asked you to do, for the way I’ve treated you, for what I did earlier this week. I’m sorry for all of it. I love you, Little.”
Skyler swallows hard as I succumb to another wave of tears, my skin hot and itchy with emotion. Sniffing, I inhale a deep, cleansing breath, wiping the tears from my cheeks with the back of my sleeve.
“But you hurt me too, Little,” I say, finally looking her in the eye again. “You could have stopped this. You could have told me from the beginning that you couldn’t do it, that you didn’t want to. At the auction, I told you before it even started that we didn’t have to do this,” I remind her. “You could have stopped it.”
That seems to sober Skyler, and she blinks, holding her chin almost defiantly high.
“And when I was getting caught up in Kip and thinking everything was working,” I say, voice thick with emotion again at the realization that everything I thought I felt from him was all a lie. “You could have warned me that it wasn’t. You could have told me the truth. But instead, you snuck behind my back and pulled him back to you. You played our own little game so that you could come out of this whole thing unscathed.”
“You threatened me with the presidency!”
“And you knew that with or without me, you could get elected!” I throw back.
Skyler’s jaw clenches, the air thickening with a hot, electric charge.
“Stop trying to make it sound like you were defenseless in all this, Sky. You didn’t stop it, and you damn sure didn’t do anything to make it right in the end. You would have never told Kip. Yeah, it wasn’t my place to tell him,” I admit. “But he deserved to know. If you two are going to be together, he should be able to choose to be with you knowing the truth.”
“God, do you hear yourself?” Skyler throws her hands up, exhausted. “You manipulated me, Erin. You know what, I will give you one thing — I should have stopped it,” she confesses. “But I couldn’t. I didn’t have the strength — not until after Kip made me realize to stop caring so much about what you and all the people on this campus think of me.”
She shakes her head as I digest her words, wondering what intention lies beneath them. Does she think I judge her, that I don’t love her for who she is? Because that couldn’t be further from the truth. If anything, I look up to her. I wish I could be more like her, not the other way around.
“I don’t know if I want to be president next year,” she adds, voice softer. “But if I run, it will be because I want to. Not because our family has been in this room for as long as anyone can remember, not because everyone would talk if I didn’t run, and damn sure not because you want me to.”
Skyler points at me with one straight, damning finger. When she lets it drop again, she just stares at me like I’m a monster.
And I can’t even argue that I’m not.
I nod, sniffling. “Look, I don’t want to fight anymore,” I say pathetically. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry for everything. I know it’s not going to be like a light switch for you to forgive me, but please just tell me you’ll try,” I plead, eyes searching hers for the same girl I sat with on pledge night, the same girl I helped become the young woman she is now. “I’m human, I made a mistake. But I love you, Sky. And whether you think I do or not, I love you regardless of what you wear, or who you’re with, or what position you hold.”
Skyler’s bottom lip quivers at that, but she just holds her chin higher.
“We all do,” I add, gesturing to the girls down the hall. “We’re your sisters, Skyler. You may think we judge you based on those things, but we don’t.”
She swallows, nodding a bit as her eyes gloss. “I love you, too, Big. And I forgive you.” She pauses. “I’m not ready to move back to where we were before, but I’m willing to try if you are.”
A smile splits my face, and I nod.
“But don’t ever put me in this kind of position again, Ex,” she warns.
“Never.”
Skyler nods. “Okay.”
“Okay,” I agree, still smiling. But as soon as she turns and leaves my bedroom, that smile dissipates, like cotton candy in a bowl of cold water.
What the hell is wrong with me?
She’s only just left the room, and yet I can’t help but replay my so-called apology — one that she gracefully accepted even when I didn’t deserve it. I can’t even apologize right. I can’t even accept fault for the mistakes I’ve made without pointing two fingers right back at the person I’m apologizing to.
My mom has hardened me into the same kind of woman she is.
Cold.
Heartless.
Selfish.
In my attempt to heal, to survive what happened to me, I took advice from the one woman I never wanted to be. And just as I suspected, it’s lonely in her shoes.
It’s lonely in mine.
I don’t even realize what I’m doing until I’m halfway down Greek Row, tears still stained on my cheeks, hair pulled up in a messy pony tail and shoes not matching my sundress. A few girls gape at me as I pass, no doubt wondering if it’s even me. Surely, that can’t be Erin Xanders, the most put-together girl on campus.
Surely, those can’t be her tears on her cheeks.
Surely, that can’t be her hair, thrown up haphazardly over a face completely void of makeup.
I shove through the door of the Omega Chi house, and on my way down to Clinton’s room, I run into him in the hallway. His cologne invades my senses before his full body comes into view, and I can’t help but scan him — hat to matching sneakers. He looks incredible, like he’s going on a date, like he’s ready to make panties melt off with one little second of eye contact and a smirk.
I should leave.
I should leave him alone.
I should let him be happy.
But one glance at me has his brows furrowing, his hands reaching for me before I can stop the tears from pooling in my eyes. They slip over easily as he pulls me into him,
dampening his button-up shirt.
He just kisses my hair.
“I’m here,” he whispers, holding me tight. “I’m right here.”
A blink.
A breath.
A blink.
Repeat.
And then, I break.
WHEN WEDNESDAY ROLLS AROUND, the first week of classes post-Spring Break back in full swing, Kip and I finally get together for the first time since he kissed me goodbye after the cruise ended. We’ve texted, but he’s blown me off every time we had plans to hang out. He kept saying he was dealing with something, and though I told him I was there to help, he just asked for space.
So, I gave it to him.
But now that I’m finally with him, I can’t help but feel uneasy as one thought repeats like a record in my mind.
Kip is different.
I don’t know how else to describe it. He’s physically here — he cooked me dinner, held me close while we watched a movie, kissed me just as slow and sensual as ever before loving me between his sheets — but mentally, he’s gone.
And for the life of me, I can’t figure out how to pull him back to Earth.
“Are you sure we’re okay?” I ask for what has to be at least the tenth time. I’m sure it’s annoying, but it can’t be half as frustrating as him avoiding whatever it is that’s bothering him.
We’re still lying in bed, our bodies tangled up together. He pulls me in a little closer and kisses my forehead. “We’re fine, babe.”
“Just fine?” I lean up to look at him, taking in his messy blond hair — the hair I had my hands in not too long ago. He sighs, gently moving me off of him as he stands and pulls on his boxers. I watch as the muscles in his back ebb and flow with the movement, like a hypnotizing song lulling me into a trance.
“Sky, please, I’m asking you to just not push right now.”
My stomach aches at his words. I hate this. We’re not fighting, but something is off and he won’t tell me what. And perhaps the feeling souring in my stomach the most is that this is uncharted territory for us.
We’ve never been here before.
We’ve been pissed at each other, sure, but all those times we were apart. Now, we’re together and something is wrong, but what?
Legacy: A New Adult College Romance (Palm South University Book 4) Page 34