Page 3 of Bleeding Hearts (Pine Valley College #3)

CHAPTER TWO

Six months later . . .

S miling at Sash, I return to my painting and see she’s right. “It does kind of look like him.” I giggle, and she leans into my side, laughing as we point out the resemblance to the guy in our class.

I swipe my brush over his face and try again.

Our easels are side by side, the massive art classroom echoing with others’ conversations and laughter.

Paintings are hung on the wall in different states, and more empty or forgotten ones line the floor, leaning against the wall.

The windows allow plenty of light to spill in, and it smells of paint and paper. I love it.

It’s my favorite class.

I never expected to fall in love with this one so much, but I have.

It’s like I’ve found my passion and purpose.

I’m not the best, and I’m still learning, but I’m determined to improve myself.

It helps that I found my clique here as well.

Sash, Toni, Pepper, and Will have quickly become some of my closest friends.

We eat, party, and paint together. I’m living just like I told Alek I wanted to.

I have my own apartment and friends, and life is good.

I’m healing one brush stroke at a time.

I’m moving on, or so everyone thinks.

I still have nightmares, but I don’t tell anyone.

I wake up with cold sweats, the feeling of his hands on me, and his voice in my ear.

Their screams haunt me, and the blood . .

. it never washes from my hands. That night left a wound, one that won’t seem to close over.

I know I’m not the only one, and we have all been changed by it in different ways.

It made Evan more determined to hold on tight to what he loves.

It softened Alek, and it gave Sky and Bones a chance to connect. Lally . . .

It changed her the most.

She’s angry at the world. I don’t know how to help her, but she also doesn’t seem like she wants anyone to. She pushes us all away, and there’s nothing I can do about it but keep showing up.

We had something amazing. I never felt so connected to anyone before. The feelings of safety and happiness clicked as soon as I was around her.

She doesn’t feel the same way, though, and that kills me.

I paint as my mind wanders, my hand knowing what to do even if my thoughts are miles away. When I hear her name, it brings me back to the present. I’m always attuned to anything that has to do with her—every sighting of her, the smell of her, any mention of her. She’s my obsession.

It’s unhealthy, but it’s true.

“Lally was so crazy last night,” some girl scoffs to her friend as they walk past. I think her name is Tai, but I could be wrong. “Did you see her and those two girls from that club?”

My heart freezes, and my hand stills.

“They were all over her.” Her friend laughs. “I hear she’s amazing in bed. I would even be tempted.”

“I was.” Her friend giggles. “Don’t tell Scott though. He doesn’t know.”

They carry on walking, their conversation fading, but the damage is done.

She was with someone last night—no, two people. It shouldn’t surprise me. She’s working her way through campus.

I know it isn’t personal, but it hurts me all the same, and for a moment, I feel like I can’t breathe. She refused to fuck me, but she is fucking everyone else to prove a point.

“You okay, Al?” Sash asks, knowing all too well my heart belongs to a girl who doesn’t want it.

I force a smile as I swing my gaze to her. “Fine. Sorry, I was miles away, thinking about my color palette,” I lie.

She gives me a look as if to say she doesn’t believe me, but she nods and turns back to her painting, and it’s only when I look at mine that I realize I drew Lally again.

My sketchbooks are filled with her image, and now so is this painting. I’m unable to do anything but draw her. Sighing, I drop my brush and grab my bag from the floor. “I’m done for the day, so I’m heading back. I’m tired,” I tell them and wave, escaping before they can interrogate me.

I’ve never told them about Lally, only Sash, and even then, I didn’t tell her everything. I don’t want them to hate her or worse. She’s mine, not theirs, even if she isn’t mine.

Whatever could have been between us is gone, or so she says, but I refuse to accept it. She’ll come back when she’s ready, and I’ll be waiting.

Lying sideways on my bed, I stare at my phone screen, wishing her name would appear like it used to.

She would text all day and night about everything and anything.

I never had this insane urge to stay awake just for one more word before her, but now her messages are almost archived.

My heart soars with every notification, hoping it’s her.

It never is, not since that night she kicked me out of her bed and life.

I think I know why, but I wish I could demand an answer and tell her to stop being so fucking stupid and admit what we have.

I drop my phone to my chest as I throw my hand across my face. My room is quiet except for the soft, crooning voice of Chappell Roan on my vinyl player.

Lifting my phone again, I open the photo album on it, and Lally’s smiling face stares back at me. There are so many pictures of us relaxing here, having movie nights, and days spent exploring and just spending time together.

How could she say there was nothing between us?

I open the last one, and my thumb sweeps over her smile. It’s dimmed, and she looks a little sad, but she’s there with me, at my side, and I would give anything for her to be beside me again. She doesn’t need to smile or pretend.

She just needs to be here.

But she’s not.

Closing the album, I scroll aimlessly through Instagram so I stop thinking about her.

Alek’s post is at the top of my feed. He’s smiling down at Evan, who has a camera aimed at a mirror.

Fuck, they are so cute. It makes me sick.

The next is Skylar’s, and he and Bones are holding hands at a fancy restaurant.

I groan at all the happy couples. Everyone I know is happy and in love, and I’m just here, pining after someone who doesn’t even want me anymore.

I keep scrolling through posts before I click on stories, seeing Sash’s, then Liam’s, and a few others before I freeze.

It’s someone I know through a friend of a friend, a random guy from lit class, but it isn’t him I’m focusing on as he grins, spinning on the dance floor. I see pink hair in the background.

It’s a color I know better than my own eye color, and I know it’s her before he moves around, playing with his friends but giving me a better view of the party.

She’s stumbling around before falling into a big guy’s arms. He grins at his friends and pulls her closer.

Her eyes are barely open, and it’s clear she’s drunk as hell.

I sit bolt upright, panic winding through my chest as he grabs her, and she’s oblivious.

“Fuck!”

The house is recognizable, it’s one of the frats, and I’m shoving on my shoes, shorts, and oversized shirt before I can even register what I’m doing.

I click through the stories religiously as they come up as I run through campus toward the house.

She’s in no state to be alone. Where the fuck are her friends?

Who left her alone that drunk? It’s not the first time I’ve gone to her when she’s in this state, and it won’t be the last, but it does seem to be happening more frequently.

It’s all she seems to do at the moment—drink, fuck, and party.

Some might say she’s just enjoying her college experience, but this isn’t having fun. This is spiraling.

This is self-destruction, and there’s a difference, but no one else seems to care.

Putting my phone away, I maneuver around the drunk college kids spread across the lawn, and once inside, the music pulses as bodies move together. I have to press onto the toes of my tennis shoes to scan the crowd, but it’s no use.

I climb the stairs so I can look over the open living room, searching for a flash of pink as terror clutches my chest. Adrenaline courses through me until I spot a familiar face.

I push through the crowd, not stopping until I’m before him. “Well, hello, gorgeous. I’ve never seen you before?—”

“Yeah, cut the shit. I’m not fucking you. The girl with the pink hair, Lally, where is she?” I demand.

“Pink hair?” He blinks, clearly drunk. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bright pink hair. You were with her less than ten minutes ago. Where did she go?” I press, growing annoyed as his friends grin and look me over suggestively.

He smirks. “Why? Is she a friend?”

“Yes, now where is she?” I snap, barely refraining from grabbing this oversized jerk.

“Bitch threw up on my shoes and stumbled out back,” he scoffs. “You’re much more my type though.”

“Well, you aren’t mine. You have a dick, for starters,” I retort and turn away to head out after her.

His hand latches onto my arm as I turn away. “Stay and play with us. We’ll make you forget all about your friend.”

Anger courses through me, and I turn, forcing a sweet smile as I grab his arm.

He relaxes like he thinks he has me, the idiot.

Gripping it harder like Bones showed me, I turn and fling him over my shoulder, and he hits the floor hard.

The crowd around us stumbles back, but I simply step over him as he curses and yells after me.

I head out the open back door, ignoring the people fucking on the grass as I search for her, frowning when I don’t see her. I head left down a little paved path leading around the house, and I find her around the next corner.

She’s slumped into the wall, her hair over her face.

Her legs are spread before her, and her short leather skirt is more like a belt than anything else.

The guy is leaning into her, using his phone camera as he runs it across her body.

I watch as he reaches out to tug her tube top down, and I lose it.