Until You (Fall Away, #1.5)(42)

She bowed, her hair falling around her with her dip, and she smiled a sad smile. Like she felt good but guilty that she felt good.

The distant cry of the school bell sounded, and I moved out of my seat, past her desk where she’d sat back down, and out of the room feeling like I was in a damn tunnel. People scurried around me, giving Tate congratulations on a job well done, and going about their business as if my world wasn’t crumbling.

Everything was white noise around me. The only sound that filled my ears was my own heartbeat as I walked in a daze into the hallway.

I pressed my forehead into the cool, tiled wall across from Penley’s classroom and closed my eyes.

What that hell had she just done to me in there?

I could barely breathe. I tried forcing air into my lungs.

No, no…

Fuck this.

She was lying. It was all an act.

All I’d wanted when I was fourteen was her. And she hadn’t been thinking about me when I was screaming for her. She didn’t miss me while I was at my father’s that summer. She didn’t want me then, and she didn’t want me now.

The day I got back, I’d needed her so goddamn much, and she hadn’t given me one f*cking thought.

Goddammit, Tate. Don’t do this. Don’t f*ck with my head.

Jesus, I didn’t know what I wanted to do anymore. I wanted to leave her alone. I wanted to forget her. But then I didn’t.

Maybe I just wanted to hold her and breathe her in until I could remember who I was.

But I couldn’t. I needed to hate Tate. I needed to hate her, because if I didn’t have a place to sink all of my energy, then I’d spin out again. My father would have me, and I wouldn’t have her to zone in on.

“See ya, Jared.”

I twisted around and blinked. Ben had called out to me, and she was with him.

She was looking at me like I was nothing. Like I wasn’t the focus of her life when she was the focus of everything in mine.

I stuck my fists into the pocket of my hoodie so they wouldn’t see me clenching them. It was kind of a natural thing for me to do now when I was in public. To keep my temper in check so that no one would notice what was boiling underneath.

My teeth ground together. She couldn’t hurt me.

But the air coming out of my nose was heating up as I watched them fade away down the hall.

She was leaving with him.

She’d just handed me my ass in that classroom.

She was surviving me.

And I clenched my fists tighter until the bones in my fingers ached.

“Give me a ride?”

My jaw instantly hardened as frustration threatened to boil over into rage.

I didn’t even have to turn around to know it was Piper.

She was the last thing on my mind these days, and I wished she’d take the hint and back off.

But then I remembered that she was good for one thing.

“Don’t talk.” I spun around and grabbed her hand without even looking at her and dragged her to the nearest bathroom. I needed to burn off frustration and Piper knew the score. She was like water. She assumed the shape of whatever container held her. She didn’t challenge me or make demands. She was just there for the taking.

It was after school. The place was empty as I barged into a stall, sat down on a seat and brought her down on top of me. She giggled I think, but to be honest, I didn’t f*cking care who she was, where I was, or that anyone could walk in on us. I needed to dive deep. So deep into a cave that I couldn’t even hear my own thoughts. That I couldn’t even see her blonde hair and blue eyes in my head.

Tate.

I ripped off Piper’s little pink cardigan and attacked her mouth. It didn’t feel good. It wasn’t meant to. This wasn’t about me getting off. It was about me getting even.

I grabbed the straps of her tank top and pulled them down her arms, her bra coming with it, until everything sat at her waist. Her chest was free for me, and I dived in as she moaned.

Nothing hurt if I knew I had you.

I was trying to run from Tate, but she was catching up with me. I pulled Piper harder against me and inhaled her skin, wanting her to be someone else.

I felt sick when I saw you hating me.

My heart still thumped like it no longer wanted a home in my body, and I couldn’t calm down. What the f*ck?

Piper leaned back and started grinding on me, and my hands were everywhere, trying to find the escape. Trying to find my control.

And my heart was ripped open. I missed you.

I gripped Piper’s ass and attacked her neck. She moaned again and said some shit, but I couldn’t hear it. There was only one voice in my head that no amount of Piper or any other girl was going to drown out.

I loved all of those things, and I loved you.

And then I stopped.

All the air had left me.

Tate had loved me.

I didn’t know if it was the look in her tear-filled eyes or the tone of her voice, or maybe the fact that I knew her almost as good as anyone. But I knew she’d told the truth.

She had loved me.

“What’s the matter, baby?” Piper had her arms around my neck, but I couldn’t look at her. I just sat there, f*cking breathing into her chest, trying to delude myself for even a few seconds that it was Tate I was holding.

“Jared. What’s with you? You’ve been acting weird ever since the school year started.” Her whiny-ass f*cking voice. Why didn’t people ever know when to shut up?