Chapter 2: The Morning After the Wreckage
I woke to the sound of my own heartbeat. Or maybe it was his. It was hard to tell where my body ended and his began. His arm was a lead weight across my ribs, his face buried in the back of my neck, his breathing a slow, warm tide against my skin. The room was a sickly grey-blue, that hour just before dawn when everything looks guilty.
My body felt used. A sweet, deep ache between my thighs, a tenderness on my hips where his hands had been, a bruise forming on my shoulder from the stucco wall or maybe his teeth. The smells of sex and sweat and him were baked into the sheets, into me. For a second, in the hazy not-yet-light, it felt like peace. Then my brain switched on, and the memories detonated one after another—Kendall’s poised smile, the roar of the party, the bathroom sink, the dark side of the house, his knees on my bedroom floor.
You’re my only real thing.
Bullshit. Poetic, devastating bullshit.
I needed space. I needed air that wasn’t filtered through his lungs. Carefully, I peeled his arm away. He grunted in his sleep, his fingers flexing against empty sheet. I slid out from the tangle of covers and stood on shaky legs. The hardwood was cold under my feet. I found his concert tee from the floor and pulled it on. It swam on me, smelling like him and last night’s smoke. I padded out to the kitchen, my mind a static roar.
I filled a glass with water and drank it staring out the tiny window over the sink. The parking lot below was empty except for a single cat picking its way through the trash bins. Normal life. Meanwhile, in my apartment, a supermodel’s boyfriend was passed out in my bed after fucking me twice in five hours. I felt nauseous. I felt electrified. I felt so stupid I wanted to peel my own skin off.
The click of the bedroom door hinge made my spine straighten. I didn’t turn around. I heard his bare feet on the floor. The fridge door opened, the light a sudden yellow rectangle on the wall. The clink of a beer bottle being snagged.
“It’s six in the morning,” I said, my voice scratchy from disuse.
“Hair of the dog,” he said, his voice thick with sleep. He came to lean against the counter next to me, shirtless, in just his jeans from last night, unscrewing the cap. He took a long swallow. I watched his throat work. I wanted to bite it.
“You should go.”
“I will.” He didn’t move.
“She’ll be wondering where you are.”
He set the bottle down with a sharp clack. “I told you. I’m ending it.”
I finally looked at him. His curls were a wild mess, his green eyes bloodshot. He looked beautiful and ruined, like a fallen angel in a truck stop parking lot. “When? After breakfast? Before your morning class? Or is this another one of your ‘tomorrow’ promises that stretches into next semester?”
“Fuck you, Nikki.” There was no heat in it. Just exhaustion.
“You did. Extensively.”
He turned to face me, his hands planting on the counter on either side of me, caging me in. “What do you want from me? I’m here. I’m saying I’ll end it. What else is there?”
“A reason!” The word burst out of me, too loud in the quiet kitchen. “A reason why you started it in the first place! You paraded her in front of everyone we know. You made me watch. You wanted me to watch. Why? Because you’re scared? That’s a cop-out, Harry. That’s a child’s excuse.”
His jaw tightened. A muscle ticked. “You know why.”
“I don’t! I really fucking don’t! Because if you wanted me, you had me. You’ve always had me. It’s the one fucking constant in this whole mess. So what was she? A test? A punishment? A trophy to prove you could have something shiny so you didn’t have to deal with the messy, complicated thing that’s actually real?”
He flinched. I’d hit the nerve. “It was easier.”
“Easier?” I laughed, a bitter, hollow sound. “Nothing about you is easy. You are the most difficult, exhausting person I have ever met. Loving you is like running a marathon with a broken leg. But I was doing it. I was right here. And you chose the one thing that would gut me the most. So don’t give me ‘easier.’ Give me the truth. You wanted to hurt me.”
His eyes went dark. The vulnerability snapped shut, replaced by a defensive, rising anger. “Maybe I did. Maybe I wanted to see if you’d even care. You play it so cool, Nikki. Sarcasm as a fucking force field. Maybe I wanted to crack it.”
“Well, congratulations!” I shoved at his chest, but he didn’t budge. “You cracked it! You saw me care last night. Was it everything you dreamed? Did you get off on watching me die a little inside while you toasted your new girlfriend?”
“Yes!”
The word hung between us, ugly and stark. His breath was coming fast now, his chest rising and falling. The admission seemed to shock him, too, but he didn’t take it back.
“I got off on it,” he repeated, quieter, venomous. “Because for one second, I knew you felt even half of what I feel all the time. This fucking… chaos. This sickness. If I can’t be free of it, I don’t want you to be either.”
The raw, ugly honesty was more shocking than any lie. It wasn’t about Kendall. It was about pulling me into his hell so he wouldn’t be alone. My eyes filled with furious, hot tears. I hated him for it. I hated the part of me that understood it.
“You’re a goddamn monster.”
“I’m yours,” he shot back, and his mouth came down on mine.
It wasn’t a kiss. It was a collision. A transfer of rage. His tongue forced its way into my mouth, claiming, punishing. I bit his lip. He growled and bit mine back, the coppery taste of blood blooming between us. My hands fisted in his hair, pulling hard. His grip on my hips was brutal, yanking me forward into the hard ridge of his cock, already straining against his jeans.
“You want the truth?” he panted, tearing his mouth from mine. His hands went to the fly of his jeans, jerking them open. “This is the truth. It’s the only thing between us that isn’t a fucking lie.”
He spun me around so fast I saw stars. My front slammed against the edge of the counter, the metal lip digging into my pelvis. He yanked his old tee up over my back, baring my ass. The morning air was cold on my skin. I heard him spit into his palm again, that crude, wet sound.
“You’re still wet for me,” he snarled, his fingers shoving between my legs from behind, pushing into me roughly. “Even now. After all this. You’re still so fucking wet.”
I was. My body was a traitor, slick and ready, aching for him despite the fury screaming in my head. I pushed back against his fingers, a silent admission.
He pulled his fingers out and positioned himself. The blunt, hot head of his cock pressed against me. He didn’t ask. He didn’t ease in. He just shoved forward, one vicious, deep thrust that buried him to the hilt in one go.
A cry was ripped from my throat, half pain, half relief. He filled the empty, aching space perfectly. He felt like the only thing holding me together.
“This,” he grunted, pulling out and slamming back in. “This is real. You feel that?” Another brutal stroke. “That’s me. In you. That’s where I belong.”
He set a punishing rhythm, fucking me hard and deep over the kitchen counter. Each thrust jolted me forward, my hands scrabbling for purchase on the smooth laminate. The beer bottle wobbled and fell, clattering to the floor, foam spreading across the tiles. He didn’t even notice.
One hand clamped on my hip, holding me in place. The other fisted in the hair at the base of my neck, pulling my head back. The sting was bright, sharp, anchoring me to the moment.
“You want me to be sorry?” he rasped, his breath hot on my ear. His hips snapped forward, making me gasp. “I’m not. I’d do it all again. Because it led me here. To your tight little cunt wrapped around my dick. This is the only thing that makes sense.”
His words were filthy, degrading. They should have made me hate him more. Instead, they fanned the fire in my belly. My own anger fused with a dark, perverse pleasure. He was right. This was our truth. It was ugly and raw and violent and real. Everything else was just noise.
“Fuck you,” I moaned, pushing back against him, taking him deeper.
“You are,” he said, and his voice broke on the words. “You are, baby. You’re fucking me back. You love this. You love how much I need it. How much I need you.”
His free hand came down on my ass in a sharp, open-palmed slap. The crack was loud in the kitchen. A shockwave of pain-pleasure radiated through me, and I clenched around him involuntarily. He groaned, his rhythm faltering.
“Do that again,” he demanded, his voice ragged.
He spanked me again, harder. The burn was exquisite. My vision whited out at the edges. I was falling apart, coming undone on his cock, my orgasm building like a storm at the base of my spine. It wasn’t sweet or gentle. It was a dark, rolling wave of pure sensation, fueled by anger and hurt and this impossible, catastrophic need.
“I’m gonna come,” I warned, the words a broken whisper.
“Come, then,” he ordered, his fingers digging into my hipbone. “Come all over my cock. Show me it’s mine.”
That was all it took. The wave broke. My body seized, convulsing around him in intense, pulsating waves. I cried out, a raw, animal sound, my knees buckling. He held me up, his thrusts becoming wild, erratic, losing all rhythm as my inner muscles milked him.
With a shattered groan, he drove in one last time, hilted himself, and came. I felt the hot, pulsing rush of his release flooding me, marking me. His body collapsed over mine, his forehead pressed between my shoulder blades, his whole frame shaking.
We stayed like that, joined, panting, for a long minute. The only sound was our ragged breathing and the drip of the tap I hadn’t fully closed. The dawn light was stronger now, washing the room in a pale, unforgiving glow. It illuminated the spilled beer on the floor, our tangled reflections in the dark window, the brutal intimacy of our position.
Slowly, he softened and slipped out of me. A trickle of his release followed, warm on my thigh. He gently pulled my shirt down. His hands, now tender, smoothed over the skin he’d just slapped. The shift from violence to care was dizzying.
He turned me around. My face was wet with tears and sweat. His thumb brushed my cheek. He looked devastated.
“I’ll end it today,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I mean it.”
I believed he meant it in that moment. I also knew, with a cold certainty that settled in my bones, that it wouldn’t change anything. We were a closed circuit. We’d burn each other out, but the current would always find a path.
I didn’t answer. I just leaned my forehead against his chest, listening to the frantic beat of his heart, and wondered which of us was more ruined.
The frantic beat under my ear began to slow, settling into a steadier, exhausted rhythm. His hand moved in absent circles on my back, a mechanical gesture of comfort that felt miles away from the violence of minutes before. The smell of sex and spilled beer was souring in the growing light.
I pushed away from his chest. The space between us instantly flooded with cold air and a heavier silence. My thighs were sticky. The counter’s edge had left a red, angry line across my hips. I turned my back to him, righted the empty glass, and ran the tap.
“You should shower,” I said, not looking at him. “You smell like a bar floor.”
I heard the rustle of him pulling his jeans up, the zipper’s rasp. “Come with me.”
“No.”
“Nikki.”
“I said no.” The water was scalding on my hands. “I need you to leave. Actually leave this time. Go handle your shit. Then maybe we can have a conversation that isn’t just screaming or fucking.”
He was silent for a long moment. I felt his gaze on my back like a physical weight. “What if I don’t? Handle it.”
“Then this was the last time.” The words were flat, final. I almost believed them.
He moved then, coming up behind me. He didn’t touch me. He just leaned in, his lips close to my ear. “It’s never the last time. You know that.”
He walked out of the kitchen. I listened to the sounds of him gathering his things from my bedroom—the jingle of his keys, the soft thud of his boots being pulled on. The front door opened. It closed. The lock clicked into place with a definitive sound.
The apartment exhaled. The silence was different now—thin, waiting, charged with the echo of him. I slumped against the sink. My body felt hollowed out and hypersensitive, every ache a bright, pulsing reminder. I cleaned up the spilled beer with a trembling hand, the paper towel turning brown and sodden.
The shower I took alone was a ritual of erasure. I used my own soap, something with lavender and oatmeal that smelled nothing like him. I scrubbed until my skin was pink. It didn’t work. The phantom feeling of him, the specific soreness inside, lingered like a tattoo.
I wrapped myself in my own robe and made coffee. The mundane routine was a lifeline. Click of the brewer, pour of the milk. My phone buzzed on the counter, skittering.
Hanna: You alive?
Me: Technically.
Hanna: Details. Now. Spencer’s chewing her lip off. She thinks you’ve eloped with him to Vegas.
Me: He just left.
Hanna: And?
Me: And I don’t know.
Hanna: Fuck that. I’m coming over. Do not argue. I’m bringing bagels and a cattle prod for when he inevitably circles back.
I didn’t have the energy to argue. I just texted back a thumbs-up emoji. It felt like a white flag. By the time Hanna let herself in with the spare key an hour later, I was on my second coffee, still in my robe, staring at a paragraph on my laptop screen that made no sense.
“Holy hell, you look like you got run over.” She dropped a paper bag on the table and her oversized purse on the floor. Her bright eyes scanned me, missing nothing. “But also, kinda… fucked within an inch of your life. It’s a confusing vibe.”
“Thanks.” I reached for a bagel. “That’s exactly how I feel.”
She sat across from me, pulling her own bagel out. “So. He stayed.”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“And we fought. In the kitchen. Then he fucked me over the counter. Then he left.” I said it around a mouthful of everything bagel, the crudeness of the facts somehow easier to swallow with food.
Hanna didn’t flinch. She took a deliberate bite. “Charming. Classy. So the same song, just a new verse. Did he say anything? Or was it just primal grunting and breaking your dishes?”
“He said he’d end it with Kendall. Today.”
She put her bagel down. “And you believe him?”
I stared at the steam rising from my mug. “I believe he wants to believe he will.”
“That’s a no.” She sighed, a long, weary sound. “Nikki, you have to see this. He’s in a panic. He’s doing damage control. He got what he wanted from you—again—and now he’s throwing out promises to keep you on the line. The second he walks out that door, real life hits. The model girlfriend. The frat brothers. The social capital she gives him. It’s a drug. You think he’s going to choose the messy, complicated history with you over that shiny new toy?”
Her words were needles, each one finding its mark. “You think that’s all I am? Messy history?”
“To him? Right now? Yeah, I do.” Her voice softened. “To me, you’re my best friend who deserves a goddamn parade. But he’s not seeing parades. He’s seeing an exit strategy from a commitment he never should have made, and you’re the closest door.”
I pushed my coffee away. “So what do I do?”
“You change the locks. On your door and on your legs.” She said it bluntly. “You let him handle his shit, truly handle it, with no access to you. If he shows up clean, ready, having actually done the hard thing… then maybe. But not until. You have to break the cycle, because he clearly can’t.”
It was rational. It was what Spencer would say, just with more curse words. It felt impossible. The idea of not answering the next time he called, of not opening the door if he showed up—it sent a physical jolt of anxiety through my system. My body was already conditioned to respond to him, a puppet with tangled strings.
My phone buzzed. A single text.
Harry: It’s done.
My heart slammed against my ribs. Hanna saw my face. “What?”
I turned the screen toward her. She read it and her expression tightened into a skeptical frown. “That’s it? ‘It’s done.’ No details. No ‘hey, I just had the hardest conversation of my life.’ Just a fucking press release. He could mean he finished his homework.”
“He wouldn’t text that about homework.”
“Wouldn’t he?” She raised an eyebrow. “It’s vague on purpose. It keeps you hooked. It makes you wonder, makes you hope. Don’t respond.”
But my thumbs were already moving.
Me: What’s done?
The three dots appeared immediately. They bounced. They disappeared. They came back.
Harry: What you asked for. I’ll come by tonight. We need to talk.
Hanna snatched the phone from my hand. “Oh, hell no. ‘We need to talk’? After ‘it’s done’? He’s managing you. This is a controlled negotiation.” She typed quickly, her thumbs a furious blur.
“What are you doing? Give it back!”
She held it out of reach, finished, and slapped it face down on the table. “I’m saving you from your own pathetic impulses. You’re welcome.”
I grabbed the phone.
Me: Don’t come by. I need space. If it’s really done, we can talk tomorrow. In public.
His reply was instant.
Harry: That’s fucking cold.
Me: It’s realistic.
No dots this time. A full minute passed. Then:
Harry: Fine. The library. 4 PM. Don’t be late.
I showed Hanna. She nodded, a grudging approval. “Good. Public place. Limited time. No beds or counters in immediate reach. It’s a start.” She stood, brushing crumbs from her lap. “I have to go to class. You should get dressed. Do not sit here in this robe all day thinking about his dick. Write your paper. Watch bad TV. Scream into a pillow. But do not text him back.”
She left, taking her brisk, pragmatic energy with her. The apartment felt quieter, heavier. I looked at the time. 10 AM. Six hours until I had to see him. Six hours to rebuild every wall he’d systematically demolished.
I got dressed in my own clothes—yoga pants, an old sweatshirt. I tried to work. The words on the screen blurred. Every few minutes, my eyes would dart to my phone, lying silent and accusing on the desk. I imagined the conversation he’d had with Kendall. Had it been a phone call? A meet-up? Had she cried? Had she thrown a drink in his face? The image of her perfect, poised face crumbling gave me no pleasure. It just made me feel like an accomplice.
By 3:30, my nerves were live wires. I put on jeans and a sweater, something armor-like. I didn’t do my hair. I didn’t wear the lipstick he liked. These were small, pathetic rebellions, but they were mine.
The campus library was a brutalist concrete fortress. The fourth floor study hall was nearly empty, just the distant tap of a keyboard and the hum of the HVAC system. I chose a table in a back corner, near a window overlooking the dead winter grass. I had a book open. I couldn’t have told you the title.
He was late.
4:05. My knee jogged under the table. The rational part of my brain, the part that sounded like Hanna, said this was proof. That he was unreliable, that nothing had changed. The wounded, hopeful part waited, breath held.
At 4:07, I heard the stairwell door swing shut. Footsteps, familiar in their cadence. He came around the stack, and my stomach dropped.
He looked terrible. Not tired, but ravaged. His green eyes were shadowed, his face pale. He wasn’t wearing his usual effortless cool; he was rumpled, a sweater hanging loosely on his frame. He slid into the chair opposite me, the metal legs scraping loudly.
“Hey,” he said. His voice was rough.
“Hey.”
He didn’t speak. He just looked at me, a searching, desperate look that scraped me raw.
“So?” I finally prompted, my own voice tight.
“I did it.” He said it to the table between us. “I ended it. With Kendall.”
“How?”
“I went to her hotel. I told her it wasn’t fair. That I was… entangled. With someone else.” He winced at his own word choice. “That I couldn’t do it.”
“Entangled.” I repeated the word. It was so sterile. It erased the bathroom, the side of the house, the kitchen counter. It erased the years.
“What did you want me to say, Nikki?” He looked up, frustration flashing. “That I’m obsessively in love with my best friend from high school and I’ve been using you as a human band-aid? She’s a person. She didn’t deserve the gory details.”
“And I do?”
“You are the gory details.” He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “You’re the whole fucking crime scene. You want the truth? Here it is. She asked if it was you. I said yes. She called me a coward and a liar. She said she knew, the whole time, that she was just a placeholder. She threw a vase. It missed. Then she told me to get out and never contact her again. It was brutal. It was humiliating. And I deserved every second of it. Are you happy now?”
The raw pain in his confession was a tangible thing in the space between us. I wasn’t happy. I felt sick. “No.”
“Good. Because I’m not.” He ran both hands through his hair, pulling at the roots. “I feel like shit. I hurt someone who didn’t deserve it to try and fix something I broke with someone who maybe deserves better than me anyway. So here I am. No girlfriend. A shit-ton of regret. And you.”
He finally looked directly at me, his gaze clear and utterly vulnerable. “Just you. That’s what you wanted, right? For me to choose you. I chose you. It’s messy and it’s ugly and I did it all wrong, but I’m here. Now what?”
The question hung in the sterile library air. The tension was different now. Not the sharp, violent tension of hatred and lust, but the heavier, more terrifying tension of possibility. Of a door being opened onto a blank, uncertain space.
I didn’t know how to answer. All my defenses were built for battle, for the push and pull of our chaos. I had no blueprint for this shaky ceasefire.
“Now…” I started, my throat dry. “Now we see if you can be here without destroying everything. Starting with me.”
He reached across the table. Slowly, giving me time to pull away. His fingertips brushed the back of my hand where it lay on the open book. The touch was electric, but soft. A question, not a demand.
“I’m so tired of destroying things,” he whispered.
I turned my hand over. Our palms met. His fingers laced through mine, warm and solid. We sat like that in the silent library, holding onto each other across the Formica table, two wrecked things in a too-bright room, with no idea what came next.