Beneath the Hood (Sugarlake, #3)

by Emily McIntire

To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. THICH NHAT HANH, THE ART OF POWER

We live a blessed life of luxury. The kind people can only dream of, and greed breeds corruption from even the most unsuspecting people.

Fake it till you make it…and then keep faking it forever, even after you do.

The chain dangled by my heart, but her fingers tangled into my soul, and I wish like hell she’d loosen her grip. Realize that I need her to let go. It isn’t fair for her to hold on so tight when she doesn’t let me hold her back.

Sometimes it’s nice to feel wanted, to be the center of someone else’s everything, even temporarily.

Am I that unpalatable?

Maybe he can see the difference in us, can tell that while she’s effortless, I’m a constant struggle. A never-ending work in progress. A fraud.

I’ve always been the transplant. The added feature. One that makes your life easier but doesn’t sever your ability to function once it’s gone.

Truth has no place in the spotlight.

I’ve lived the past decade watching her give someone else the beats of her heart, leaving me alone with its echo.

When I’m at home, I have time to think. Time to feel. Blakely mutes the pain, and I’ll take that over the hurt any day.

He’s my anchor. The only thing keeping me from being lost in tumultuous seas.

My stomach jumps, her anxiety reaching out and tightening the knot in my gut.

“It’s not the place that’s bothering you, Blakely. It’s the thoughts.”

And I’ll keep coming back, so she isn’t alone. The lighthouse to her darkness, guiding her through the shallow waters.

My closest friend. My biggest lapse in judgment.

Been there, felt that

One day where I could sneak away and pretend to be normal. Silly me, thinking normal is something I could ever be.

Don’t ever be sorry for being real with me.

All that matters is his pain. And all I want to do in this moment is dive inside of his chest and grasp his heart in my hands, so she can’t hurt it anymore. So I can keep it safe.

All I know is that when I’m around Blakely—when it’s just the two of us—she’s so much more than what I was expecting. And that makes me want to stick around.

So what if I found someone who looks at me without the plastered-on smile, without the illusion of perfection, and still wants me to stick around.

“This”—my free hand gestures toward her body—“isn’t the girl I’ve been with all day. This is the Blakely the rest of the world gets, and I’ll be honest, I don’t have any interest in her.”

“I want the real you, Blake. Let me have her.”

But what is life if not the sum of all our experiences?

That it’s yet another glaring reminder of how I’m good enough to be a friend but not important enough to be a priority.

But if this is hurting…” She taps her fingers against my chest. “I want to be the remedy.”

Maybe it’s because when she looks at me, it feels like I’m the center of her universe.

My heart skips at her touch, but as I watch them walk away, a foreboding feeling floods through me like a storm surge, leaving me to wade in rising waters, hoping I can learn how to breathe without air.

Then I think of how different our lives really are but how I understand, so well, the need to show someone a different face than the one your soul wears.

It’s so interesting, the way it’s possible to not even realize that what someone shows is a mask until they decide to take it off.

He sees me even when I don’t want to see myself.

“But when we’re together,” he continues, “I get so lost in all the ways it feels like you were made for me, and I forget how different our lives have been.” He turns my face back toward him, his hand gripping my jaw tight. “Our circumstances don’t define us.”

I won’t stop looking, even when she tries to hide her truths behind her lies.

I watch him as he walks away, my heart feeling like a pulled muscle, straining to chase after him.

I’ve told myself it doesn’t matter what they say. After all, they’ll never be as good as I am at tearing me down.

“Every time you speak, the world quiets so I can listen.”

“I love your eyes,” he continues. “The way they show me all your truths. No one has ever consumed me with a single look, but you…” He blows out a breath. “You fucking wreck me.”

“I love your heart,” he whispers. “I would spend the rest of my life worshiping at your feet so long as I got to experience every beat.”

right now, the only thing that matters is this. Right here, with him. A single word tumbles through my brain, pushing its way into the middle of my chest and slipping into the fissures of my heart. Love.

For the first time in almost a year, I feel like myself again. My smiles are genuine, not used as a cover for the festering hole inside of me. I’d like to think it’s because I’m healing myself, but that’s not entirely the truth. It’s because of Blakely.

That I love him, and it’s the realest thing I’ve ever felt. That in a world of superficial, he’s my authenticity.

You don’t have to know something to mourn its absence.”

I didn’t know what love was until you.”

A vulnerability you don’t even realize exists until you’re falling into it.

I may want to show him to the world, but I don’t want the world to steal him away.

I know what the “can’t eat, can’t breathe, can’t sleep” kind of love feels like because I found it in this amazing woman.

But that was before my irritation for who she pretends to be transformed into passion for who she is.

while I feel more rested than I have in years, my brain automatically goes into flight-or-fight mode, racing around the room like I have somewhere to be.

That instead of handling it like an adult, I spiraled into the mess that I try so hard to hide from the world. The part that I hate about myself the most.

At the first sign of something not going my way, I fall apart at the seams. I don’t want to be this way. I’m sick of feeling like a malfunction. A broken doll that’s patched together to try and fool the world.