Page 29 of Cruel When He Smiles

Shaking the memory away, I apply surgical glue, bandage the wound with gauze and surgical tape, wrap it tightly, and pull a clean shirt from the back of the drawer where I keep the plain ones. No designer label. No tailored fit. Just a basic black tee that doesn’t ask questions. Nothing tight that might draw attention to how I’m favoring my side.

Nothing that’ll let my brother see that I fucked up again.

He isn’t at home right now, but he knows me better than anyone. If I don’t pull myself together, he’ll see the unraveling. He’ll corner me again with his lazy grin and his murder-glazed eyes and remind me that we were never built to be touched without breaking.

He knows my tells and the difference between a strategic break and a real one. And this is real. Too real.

I slip on the tee and pull the hem down carefully, wincing as the fabric tugs across the gauze. The pain grounds me. Good. I need to stay here. In control. In this moment. Not in the fucking parking lot with that wrecked little smile that makes me want to rip it off his face and replace it with something only I can give him.

I walk back into my bathroom, toss the bloodied towel into the hamper, then clean up the counter. No evidence. No mess.My reflection in the mirror looks wrong. Pale, drawn, eyes shadowed. I swipe the fog from the glass and stare anyway.

You ruined him, and now, you’ll ruin yourself, too.

I run my tongue across my teeth, jaw ticking. “Not this time,” I whisper to no one.

I won’t let it happen. I can’t. I’ve built too much—crafted my image with surgical precision. Every smile, every controlled response, every step I take on campus, every word I say in therapy. It’s all designed to keep me above suspicion. To make sure no one sees the rot beneath.

It’s all working.

Except it’s not.

By the time I step back into my room again, I look like I’ve just taken a shower. Nothing more. I cross to my desk, sink into the leather chair, and open my laptop. I scroll through class notes, then through news feeds, my brain latching onto anything to keep me focused.

But even through the distraction, I feel that hunger I couldn’t cut out. That need that’s starting to take shape behind my ribs.

Nate got under my skin. No matter how many times I tell myself he’s just another experiment—just another weakness to study, dissect, and destroy—part of me knows it’s a lie because experiments don’t make me bleed.

And he did it all without trying. He just walked in with his pretty little smirk and those fucking eyes that see too much, and he touched something I’d locked away since I was a boy cowering behind a door while my mother explained how pain builds resilience.

I grip the edge of the desk hard enough to make it creak. The pain in my side is pulsing like a metronome. A reminder.

Never again.

I let my mind go still. I start to rebuild brick by brick, voice by voice, until I’m untouchable again.

Walls up. Smile on. Cold as ice.

Tomorrow, I’ll be the version of me I’m good at being. The one who doesn’t blink. The one who doesn’t kiss boys against cars or press their throats like he wants to feel their heartbeat through his fingertips. The one who walks away before anything can hurt.

Because if I let myself want Nate again, I won’t stop at obsession.

Nate

Iwakeupwiththe taste of his name still stuck to the roof of my mouth, bitter and clinging. The kind of hangover that has nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with regret.

There’s a dull ache in my jaw from where I must’ve clenched it all night. My neck’s sore, too, tender in a way I shouldn’t notice if I hadn’t leaned into the pressure like some fucking lunatic asking for more.

I blink at the ceiling of my room for a full thirty seconds before I shove the covers back, my whole body heavy with a decision I made sometime between three and four in the morning.

It was a mistake. What happened in that parking lot wasn’t me. That wasn’t who I am, who I’ve worked so damn hard to become. It was weakness wearing want like a noose, and I let him tighten it like he had the right.

I shower longer than necessary, then I dress with more intention than I’ve bothered with in weeks. I pull on my blackjeans—the pair that fits me right, snug in the waist and loose around the legs.

I find my favorite black hoodie, the one with the cuffed sleeves and no logos, soft on the inside and heavier than it looks. It fits well and hugs my frame without making me feel exposed.

Afterward, I dig around in the drawer until I find the Audemars Piguet watch my dad gave me when I turned sixteen and he got rid of my mom. He said something dumb about time being the one thing no one could steal from me. I didn’t believe him then, but wearing it makes me feel closer to who I want to be.

Not the brat who wears crop tops and lace while flirting with everyone who would look at him. I don’t want anyone’s eyes on me anymore.