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What the hell was wrong with me? What kind of a person had these thoughts?

Yet I picked the pen back up anyway.

I can’t stop thinking about him.

His hair. His body. His face.

The way he looks at me.

It’s like a drug.

The more I get. The bigger the fix I need.

My grip tightened on the pen.

I need more.

Then—

More of Rafe.

More.

More.

More…

Finally, something inside of me snapped.

“Nope.”

I dragged the pen across the page, scribbling dark, angry strokes over everything I’d written—again and again, as if I could erase my thoughts by destroying the evidence.

My heart was pounding by the time I stopped.

The page was a mess—ink bleeding through, holes carved into the paper.

And still it wasn’t enough.

I slammed the journal shut, shoved it back into the box, and buried it under the sweaters again.

Maybe journaling wasn’t as cathartic as I’d thought.

Or maybe the problem wasn’t the journal.

My eyes drifted toward the kitchen.

Toward the counter.

Toward the cordless drill.

Maybe the problem was that some thoughts couldn’t be buried, no matter how hard you tried.

***

An hour later, I stood at Rafe’s door, holding the case with the cordless drill inside. I’d given up on trying to ignore it and decided the best thing to do was get it the hell out of the apartment. If it wasn’t sitting on the counter, I couldn’t be distracted by it anymore…right?

I lifted my hand, knocked lightly, and waited.