One Moment More, S. J. Evans [ebook reader ink txt] 📗

heart as it broke, all over again. I stumbled along the cement, searching blindly for a wall to support myself. When I finally found the wall of the dimly-lit alleyway on the right-side of the building, I felt my way along it a little ways before sinking against the bricks to the cold, dirty ground.

      Hysteric cries echoed off the walls as I curled up into a ball and sobbed, chest heaving, body shuddering, stomach twisting and reeling. I was winded—no, exhausted—by the fact that he’d come back, he’d actually come back for me. And maybe he hadn’t come back for me; maybe he had ulterior motives for returning, motives I had nothing to do with, and running into me here had been nothing but an accident, just a dark, cruel twist of fate, and everything he said had been nothing but another lie. But then that thought only had me wondering: what if fate had also played a part in our surprise collision? What if we were supposed to run into each other so that I could give him that second chance? But, being the broken, fragile mess that I was, I had screwed it all up?

       No, I told myself, shaking my head as another wave of nausea rolled over my stomach, I didn’t do anything wrong. Running away was the only way to settle things, the only way to get over him, once and for all. After all the sleepless nights he put me through, he didn’t deserve a second chance. I did the right thing by leaving him.

       Except, no matter how many times I repeated those words in my head, there was still a part of me that didn’t believe them. Because despite how badly he had hurt me in the past, the fact that he had even come back at all had wondering if it hadn’t all been a lie, if he really had fallen as madly in love with me as I had with him.

      The mere thought chilled me to the very core.

      Because if that truly was the case, I would never forgive myself for running. And even worse than that . . . he would probably never forgive me.  

      As I balled the material of my dress into a fist, grasping for something—anything—to hold onto, something that wouldn’t abandon me like he had, I completely lost it. My heart yearned for him, while all my thoughts collided with one another in my mind, overwhelming me to the point I couldn’t even place where I was, what was happening. I just sat there and lost myself, tears blurring my vision like pouring rain on a windshield, tormented cries breaking the otherwise silent night. “Gavin,” I gasped, clenching my hand over my heart as a pang of pain—unlike any I had ever felt before—attacked my nerves. “What happened to us?”  

      And that was when I felt it. I felt an overwhelming dawn of realization grasp a hold of my thoughts, piecing them back together, and I knew what I had to do. I knew what I had to try, even if it left me entirely exposed in the end, with nothing but the haunted memories of a summer romance that had ended because neither of us were willing to admit how terrified we had been—how terrified we still were.

      But before I could pull myself together enough to go through with anything, I heard, fading in and out with the droning in my ears, heavy footsteps clapping against the pavement, approaching me. Then, as I scrambled to put myself back together—swiping the tears from my face, along with a good-sized amount of make-up, including globs of mascara that I could only imagine meant I now resembled that of a frazzled raccoon, and inhaling deep, calming breaths—a familiar voice penetrated the stillness of the night’s bitter air. “Reina?” Hearing my name uttered in such a dark alley, so late into the night, under the circumstances, churned my stomach with unease. Especially considering the voice it belonged to. “Is that you, Reina?”  

      Well, this could surely complicate things. 

4 ♡

 

Cold seeped into my skin, ice coursing through my bloodstream as I caught a glimpse of the boy who now stood at the nose of the alley, silhouetted by the street lamps glowing behind him. With my hands wrapped around my arms in a vain attempt at shielding them from the chill, I bit my lip, swallowed the lump in my throat.
"Mark?" I whispered, trying to keep the anxiety out of my straggled voice. "What are you doing out here?"
  He stepped—or, more accurately put, stumbled—further into the alley, his sneaker-clad feet thudding along the pavement, the sound echoing off the tall walls surrounding us. "I could ask you the same thing," he said, his words slurred, voice unnecessarily loud. Then he held up a cigarette between his fingers. "Came out for a smoke."
   "M-Me, too," I mumbled, and then chided myself for even thinking such a stupid lie up in the first place. Everyone knew I didn't smoke. Nor did I appreciate being surrounded by it. "Just started," I added, trying to sound more convincing, as I slowly, cautiously pulled myself into a standing position. Despite the fact that my heart was now beating a mile a minute, mirroring the pounding bass that projected from the club, nearly shaking the entire building, I tried to keep up a calm front, well-aware that if I tried to dash away in a hurry, I’d risk getting stopped by the obliviously trashed boy guarding my only exit, who just so happened to have a track-record for doing some fairly messed up things while intoxicated.

   Now that he was only a few feet away and I could see his face, I noticed the clouded over look in his eyes, along with the disbelief that flashed behind those incredibly dark irises. He narrowed his eyebrows, his very confused little mind most likely trying to process whether or not he should actually believe me. “You serious?” I nodded, nibbling on my bottom lip to keep myself from letting out a spurt of nervous laughter. “Mind if I join you then?”

   Even though I had very little interest in spending even one more moment with Mark Ivan—captain of the football team and an all-around player—I wasn't about to object, afraid of what a guy like him, who was easily twice my size, with broad shoulders and a short temper, could do to me. So instead, I merely shrugged my trembling shoulders and wiped my fingers under my eyes again, sniffling.   Leaning against the wall beside me, he popped the cigarette into his mouth and pulled out a lighter, brought it to the tip. "So," he said, lighting it up, "what's a pretty girl like you really doing out here all alone, in the freezing cold?" I shivered, almost as if the mere mention of the cold weather made it all that much more freezing, and before I knew it, he was shrugging out of his football jersey and draping it over my shoulders. "There," he said, with a sloppy, sluggish grin on his face. I tried to object, reaching for the material, but he covered my small hands with his own, trapping them there for a moment, his body unnecessarily close to mine, breath on my face, and I felt my heart stumble a bit. "Don’t. You need it more than I do. Trust me."

   “But I—”

   He pressed a finger against my lips, shaking his head. “Trust me.”

 Swallowing the urge to bite his finger and try to make my escape, I nodded my head in submission, stiffly. “Okay,” I breathed, when he removed his finger and returned to his place on the wall, trying to hide how badly I was shaking.

  “Now.” He tapped the cigarette in his fingers, embers raining onto the ground, as he blew out a large puff of smoke. “Wanna tell me why you're all alone? Where are your friends?”

   "Inside," I muttered, busying myself with my dress, brushing off any dirt that had managed to soil it. As I straightened back up, feeling Mark's gaze burning a hole into my back, I was struck with the realization that they were my out. They were the only way I could get out of this without coming off as rude or suspicious. "Which reminds me," I said, pulling off his jacket and handing it to him, "I should probably get back to them. They'll be wondering where I went." 

   Forcing a smile, I glanced up at his face, suddenly well-aware of the dark, lustful look burning behind the redness of his eyes. "Wait," he said, voice gruff, and pushed himself off the wall, tossing the cigarette on the ground where his shoe then squished it into the damp pavement. "Don't go. They're probably busy." The closer he pushed himself towards me, the further I stepped back, my heart in my throat as a rock formed in my stomach, fear grasping a painful hold of my lungs. "Why don't you stay here with me instead? I'll show you a good time." A sluggish half-smile crawled up his lips, while his gaze traveled from the bottom of my dress, up. 

  That was when I felt it. The cold, damp surface of the opposite building's—an abandoned warehouse, in the early stages of becoming a storage unit for the apartments next to it—stone wall. My breath caught in my throat as I realized he was cornering me, all alone, in the alley of a building whose residents would have no clue what was going on behind its walls, no matter how desperately I tried to make our presence known. Scrambling to gain my bearings, I tried to duck away from him, but his hand shot out and stopped me in my tracks. "Mark, I—"

   Before I had time to blink (much less object), he had his other hand—the one not blocking my only exit—pressed against my waist, pinning me in place between him and the wall, and his lips crushed against mine, hard and unrelenting. I could feel his hand leaving a bruise as it squeezed my small waist; feel his aggression only intensify the more I squirmed against him. My heartbeat pulsed in my ears, my face hot, while the rest of my body shuddered with chills as he practically devoured me. I tried to scream, tried to wiggle out of his captivity, my small hands beating against chest and shoulders as he pressed himself tighter against me, but my voice was lost in his mouth and the fight was slowly dying inside of me, defused my his immovable strength, even in his intoxicated state. 

   He pulled away for a moment, and I gasped for air, trying in vain to duck beneath his arm while I could, clawing blindly at him as my vision blurred with tears I hadn't even noticed I was shedding. But I didn't get very far. "Stop fighting this, Reina," he growled under his breath, grabbing both my wrists in the hand he'd had propped up against the wall and pinning them above my head. "I'm just trying to show you a good time. Learn to enjoy it, now." The vile taste of his tongue, bathed in cigarette smoke and alcohol as it had tangled with my own, swam in my mouth, overwhelming me with the urge to hurl the contents of my stomach