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“None of your damn business,” she snaps back quickly. I stop what I’m doing and lean my palms on the edge of the counter to hold myself up. “I’d say it is considering you had my cock in your hand only days ago.” DJ quietly murmurs, oh shit under his breath, but otherwise stays silent as he looks over his notes. “Well tonight is somebody else’s turn.”
The last time I showed off my scarred arms, the boy whose blue eyes would always see through my barriers looked at me in a dark light, like he was seeing the real me for the first time.
“Maybe part of me wanted him to try convincing me to stay, but I also didn’t expect that. Because he knew why I hid in his closet, and how many times I locked myself in mine to avoid the bullshit I always had to hear. He knew the missed birthdays, and the cop calls, and the police reports. That boy telling me no was the only gift I’d ever gotten in life. He let me leave.”
“This is why I’m Chaos. You know, kinda like how ivy spreads everywhere. That’s me.”
Shortly after we’d agreed, I’d begun crawling into his room. The first time he’d asked what was wrong, and I admitted my parents were arguing. I wouldn’t tell him anymore than that. But when it became a reoccurring reason to climb through his window, he’d pass me an extra blanket and pillow, and wouldn’t fall asleep until he knew I was situated in the makeshift bedroom I’d made in his closet, hidden away in case either of his parents checked on him in the middle of the night.
My arms hug my knees tightly to my chest, my feet propped on the edge of the seat in a protective stance. “I’m not a whore,” I whisper, failing at patching the internal wall up as a tear slides down my cheek. He turns the truck on, not looking at me once as he puts it into drive. “No, baby. You’re a survivor.”
“I’m just here to say that if you really care about him then you’ll step away until he gets his life figured out. If it’s meant to work out then it will, but you’re both young and I’ve seen a lot of men with great potential lose it because they’ve made untimely decisions.”
“And considering I’ve known Aiden since I was eight, I think I can confidently say he’s the type of person who can make his own choices without his coach or anyone else butting in. If he wants me out of his life, I won’t stop him from shutting the door in my face. Frankly, he’d be better off if he did, and I’ve told him as much already. But you and I both know he’s not that kind of guy.”
“I thought you knew that you mattered. It matters. We matter. Every time you shit on yourself and the past, it feels like you’re shitting on whatever the hell was going on with us then and what is now. I may not have had the resources back then, but you have no damn idea what one little message from you could have done for me.”
You were always mine, Chaos. Five years doesn’t change the fact that it’s always been me. Nobody else had a chance. So, that’s what I want. You. Not just your body. But you. Your personality. Your mind. Your problems. Your goddamn companionship. Because that’s what I’ve missed since the day I watched you disappear into the night. Stop trying to push me away. It won’t work.”

