Page 56 of Scarred

Her eyes flash, but her muscles bob as the smoke swirls down her throat and bleeds into her lungs.

Our eyes catch.

“Exhale.”

She listens, and a cloud curls around her face, obscuring her from my view. My insides preen from her obedience.

“Good girl.” My fingers tap her neck before I take the joint away and bring it to my own lips, the end wet from her saliva.

Her dark eyes gleam when they lock on mine and then drop.

She clears her throat and scoots away on the bench. “I still don’t think I like it.”

I lean back until I’m staring at the sky, ignoring the way every nerve in my body is sparking like a cannon, urging me to let loose and either fuck her or kill her, just so I can regain the blessed type of numb I’m used to. “It’s not for everyone, I suppose.”

“Why doyoudo it?”

“Why not?” I shrug my shoulders.

She doesn’t reply, choosing to mirror my body, stretching out her legs and tangling her fingers as they rest on her stomach, her head leaned against the back of the bench.

It’s silent; the sounds of cicadas in the trees and the occasional hoot of an owl the only thing that accompanies us.

“It calms me,” I finally say.

Immediately, I want to take the words back, expecting her to jump on the chance to cut me down. But she doesn’t. She just hums and closes her eyes.

“Do you ever feel like you can’t turn it off?” I continue. “Your thoughts, I mean.”

“Always.”

“When the whispers won’t quiet, my body revolts, turning into knots and tangles until I can’t sit still. Until my lungs seize up and I can barely breathe through the panic…” I lift the burning paper. “This helps.”

Her head turns toward me, her brows rising. “Did the mighty Prince Tristan just admit to me that something can best him?”

“Anxiety is something that bests everyone it touches. Even me.” I suck in another hit before offering it to her again.

Surprisingly, she takes it, holding it between her fingers.

“I get it,” she says. “Before my father died, I was like any other girl.” She hesitates, glancing at me from her peripheral. “And then right before my twentieth birthday, he went out of town to do what he did best.”

“Which was?”

“Being a good man.” Her lower lip trembles. “He promised he’d be home in time, and every day leading up to my birthday, I’d sit at my bay window, staring out at the dirt road, waiting to see him come down the drive, thissickfeeling swirling around my gut, making my nerves jump beneath my skin.”

She shakes her head. “Turns out I was right, and sometimes when you try to be good, you end up a martyr.”

My chest pulls, wondering why she’s telling me this, and wondering why I care.

“Anyway.” She laughs. “Ever since then, that feeling’s never left. It just stews like acid, dissolving everything in its path. I’m always just…waitingfor the next knock on my door, telling me that a person I love is never coming home.”

I swallow around the unexpected emotion her words cause, my mind flashing to the moment I found outmyfather had died.

She brings the joint to her lips, rolling her head back to the sky, her throat bobbing as she inhales. Her silhouette is gorgeous in the moonlight, and before I can stop myself, I’m reaching out to brush a curl from her face, unable to temper the urge. “You’d make a stunning portrait.”

Her nose scrunches, but she doesn’t turn my way. “What?”

“I’d like to draw you,” I rephrase, moving in closer, my fingers dancing across her skin. “Just like this, with your face kissing the stars... I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”