Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 91361 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91361 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Behind me, he asked, “How much do you know about me?”
I stilled.
“When I was drunk, how much did I tell you?”
Fumbling for my phone, I slowly typed my answer. Everything.
“I see.”
I twisted around and cupped his face. “You’re...mad?”
“Ashamed.” His voice was toneless.
Again, my chest tightened, so, so tightly that it made my voice shake harder as I said, “Nothing...to be...ashamed...of.” When he didn’t answer, I touched his face gently, a plea for him to meet my eyes.
And it was a plea he answered because while the whole world knew Kellion Argyros to be many things – a player, a daredevil, a man who most people would fear to cross – with me, he was different...had been different from the start.
With me, he had always been the man who made each day a little brighter.
Looking at his eyes, his face, hurt, and knowing that it was partly because of me hurt even more. Swallowing, I told him more emphatically, “Nothing...nothing to be...ashamed...of. If someone...should be...ashamed...it’s...your...parents.” I pointed to myself. “If...someone...has...something...to be...ashamed...about.” My lips twisted. “It’s me.”
Kellion’s face had paled while I was speaking and by the time I finished, he was shaking his head. How different he was from Dan and Amelie. My parents liked to hear my voice even if it was hurting me, but Kellion—-
Kellion brought my fingers to his lips. Kissed them one by one before whispering, “Don’t force yourself to speak for me.”
I shook my head. “You...don’t...get...it...do you?” My shoulders lifted in a helpless shrug. “You...matter...to...me...now....so...much...that...if...you’re...broken...” A painful laugh escaped me. “I...want...to...break...alongside...you...too.”
Kellion’s face was pained. “Dammit, baby, no—-”
I placed a finger over his lips, silencing him. “I...know...your...inner...demons.” I inhaled deeply, knowing that every word from here on would tear me apart. “Let...me...show...you...mine.”
Already, my world was blurring, already Kellion’s face was fading and all I could see was Ashton. All I could hear was Ashton. And all I could feel and taste was the pain of his loss.
“Let...me...tell...you...why...I...don’t...want...to...speak.”
KELLION
It was midnight when he stepped out of Aria’s room, his little monster fast asleep. For a moment, Kellion hesitated outside her door, a curiously heavy sense of guilt lodging in his throat, blocking his air passage.
Please, please come before I start hurting myself.
Jacqueline needed him in a way she had never needed him before. What he was doing wasn’t wrong. Leaving Aria couldn’t be wrong, surely – not when it meant saving the only girl he had ever loved?
Pressure built inside of Kellion with every step he took, the pressure growing as the distance between him and Aria yawned. By the time he reached the ground floor, Kellion felt like he was about to explode.
They made me sing. Her words had been halting like they always were, but her eyes had been as dead as her voice.
They made me say things that made people think I was a slut.
She had stared at him without seeing him, spoken like she wasn’t talking about herself, and Kellion had known then that Aria had lost herself in her past.
It was what they wanted. It made them happy the men thought I was willing to do things for them.
Kellion’s eyes involuntarily closed, a self-defense reflex because what Aria had said after that, how she had looked like after that—-
Even when I realized what was happening, I wouldn’t have stopped. Because of him. Aria’s voice had cracked. And when she had looked at him, she was no longer dead, no longer living.
Instead, she was in the hell her parents had created.
They knew I only sang for him, Kellion. They knew. She was crying without the tears, hurting without any physical wounds, and at that moment, Kellion would have given his every possession if he could be in that same hell she was caged in, would have set his own soul on fire if it meant saving hers.
Why did they have to let him down? Why did they have let him die?
Aria had screamed the words out, every word a cry for help.
He was the cutest boy in the world. The cutest. If you had met him, you’d have fallen in love with him, too. When he smiled – it was like seeing a piece of heaven. I thought of him every time I sang and it didn’t hurt as much. When I thought of him, the way they stared at me didn’t make me feel as sick—-
Remembering the way Aria had turned to him made Kellion’s fists clench in impotent rage, and he expelled his breath in a furious hiss. She had looked at him like a child...a child who had been beaten to death, a child betrayed by the very people she had loved and trusted.
When he died, I died with him. The way her lips twisted then had made Kellion want to kiss her – anything to stop her from being eaten alive by her grief.