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We step out into the darkness of the night, both of us silent as we stare up at the black sky and smoke our cigarettes. It’s too bright in the city to see the stars like we did that one night when we laid on the hood of her car.
It seems like it was a lifetime ago, almost like it never actually happened. Like it was some fucked-up fever dream—an alternate reality that I want to live in.
This is our reality now, though and that was our reality then.
Everything is defined by one pivotal moment. When I royally fucked everything up.
Seeing the stars was before I ruined it all.
This is after.
SEVEN
AINSLEY
I wake up to the smell of burnt toast and cigarette smoke. Rolling over, I feel for Killian, but the bed is empty, except for me. I slowly sit up, glancing around the apartment, but find it the same way as the bed. There’s no one here but me. Before, that would have brought me comfort, but now it only induces panic.
Where is Killian?
I climb out of bed, grabbing one of his T-shirts and pull it over my head, over the tank top that I had on. I need to take our clothes to the laundromat and wash them, but I don’t want to ask him for money to pay for it. I know that there’s a spare debit card in my duffel bag, but I haven’t brought that up to him either.
I sneak into Grace’s bathroom and dip into her stash. Killian told me what she had said about me stealing her dope, but I can’t help myself. I don’t know of anyone to get anything from yet and this is the only place that I can get what my body is screaming for. I take just enough to curb the impending withdrawal, but not enough that she’ll notice that I took any.
Slipping back out of the bathroom, my footsteps are light as I pad in my bare feet across the dirty carpet. The front door is unlocked and the knob jiggles as I turn it. A sigh of relief slips from my lips as I catch sight of Killian’s unruly black hair as he leans against the railing on the landing area that looks out over the parking lot, smoking a cigarette. His head is tilted to the side with a phone pressed between the side of his face and his shoulder.
“How long do you think until you’re here?” he says through the speaker to whoever he’s talking to. I step up beside him, taking the cigarette from between his fingers. Bringing it up to my lips, I take a drag, peering up at Killian as he winks. “Word. I’ll be here.”
He pulls the phone away from his ear and locks the screen before tucking it away in his pocket. “I went through everything and I don’t think your mom is tracking my phone.”
I nod, smiling as my mind wonders where the money came from but I don’t chance asking. Instead I hand the cigarette back to him and hook my arm in his, hugging it close to my body as I rest my head on his shoulder. “Was that Courtland?”
“Mhm,” Killian mumbles. “He’s gonna come scoop me so we can talk in person about everything. You’re gonna roll with, right? I don’t feel right leaving you here alone.”
Absentmindedly, I scratch at the skin on my arm. “Do you think they even want me over? You know... after what happened?”
“Ainsley.” Killian turns to face me, pulling me into his arms. “You aren’t the one who lost their temper and got us into this mess. I’m not saying I regret it, I’m just saying that this isn’t all on you.”
My eyes bounce back and forth between the sage colored pools in his. The unspoken words are the ones that mean the most. There is some blame on my part, he’s just being polite and not saying them out loud. We both know that this is ultimately my fault. I never should have gone into the other room with Ezra, whether I had my suspicions of Killian and Amethyst or not.
I never did ask him after that night. I don’t know if I really want to know the truth at this point. He told me that there was never anything between them and maybe he actually meant that. Maybe there was no lie in his words and that’s what I was taking it for.
If that was the case, he shouldn’t have made it seem like it was something that it wasn’t. Killian knows me, he knows how I react to shit. If he did it to get a reaction, he definitely got one. And my actions were just as vindictive as his, which is what got us in this predicament.
Maybe we aren’t good for each other, maybe we’re not good together.
Maybe this will never last between us.
But for now, this is enough. I will take whatever I can get from this broken boy.
We’re both broken, but our tattered pieces fit together perfectly. I know that together we can be whole—we just have a lot of work to do on ourselves. And we both have to be ready to put in the work that needs to be done.
We both have our own traumas to deal with. Neither of us dare to speak of them, but we both know that they’re there, hiding in the dark depths of our minds, poisoning our souls.
“Can I stay with Amethyst while you and Courtland go do whatever it is that you’re getting into?” I ask him quietly, treading lightly over the subject as her name leaves a bitter taste on my tongue. Maybe she can set the record straight, not that it really matters. “I kind of want to just lie low today.”
“Of course, baby.” Killian smiles down at me. “I don’t want you wrapped up in any more shit than you already are. It’s better if you just chill at their place anyway.”
“What are we going to do about Grace and where are we going to stay?” I ask him skeptically. I’m grateful that we’ve had a roof over our head instead of having to sleep in my car, but I think we’ve outstayed our welcome here.
