Page 56 of The Truths We Burn

Maybe anger because I’m doubting her. Sadness because she’s in some sort of trouble.

I would have taken regret. I would have accepted her lying to me about Easton and regretting it because she had learned to care about me.

Instead, I’m met with nothing.

A passive face with an unreadable expression.

I look up at the ceiling, my chest expanding with a deep breath. “Just how long were yougoing to keep this up? Were you planning on keeping me around till just after the reception or when you had to figure out who the baby daddy was?”

She just stands there, looking at me with zero reaction.Normally, she’d yell back, fight back with me, because that was her. That was who she was with me.

I’m fueled with so much energy, my hands want to reach out and shake her. I want to scream at her to say something, to say anything.

“Tell me it’s a lie, Sage,” I say with a harsh tone, but my chest is aching.

She told me I could keep her. That she was mine to keep, and here I am doing the exact opposite.

I’d never been able to keep anything I cared about.

I just want this one godforsaken thing.

“Please fucking tell me the engagement is a hoax, that it’s not true. That this is what your parents wanted for you. Tell me the truth, and I swear I’ll shred the world in half to save you from it, to protect you.” I keep going. “Tell me the you that clings to my hoodie when she sleeps is the real you. Tell me I got the real Sage.”

Hoping this will be the straw to break her from her trance, I step forward, placing my hands on either side of her head.

“Just tell me it’s a lie, baby,” I whisper.

In three short movements, she obliterates all the trust I had for her. She steps back, out of my touch.

“This isn’t how I wanted this to go, but I suppose it’s best to rip this Band-Aid off.” She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear casually, as if I’m not ready to explode. “I just, I needed a little…”She trails off as she thinks of the right word, looking rigid and calculated.

“Danger before graduation, ya know? You get that, right?” Her eyebrows lift at the rhetorical question, sounding more like a robot than a human. The attitude that soaks every single word rocks me.

The girl I had started letting in is gone. This is the old Sage, and she is back with even sharper claws.

The sad part is I don’t think she ever went anywhere.

“I didn’t really get the full wild high school experience everyone always talks about—trying to keep up images, cheer, school—and when Easton proposed…” She sighs, looking away from me for a moment as if she’s picturing him, then returning her gaze to mine. “Well, I just wanted to check off all my life experience boxes, and you seemed like you would get the job done.”

My chest constricts. A large knife had been dug into my back, filling my lungs with blood.

The only words I can manage through gritted teeth are “Is that right?”

She nods, showing her teeth with a condescending smile.“I’ll admit, I had my doubts when he popped the question.” As if to rub it in worse, as if to pour gasoline over my sliced wrists, she absentmindedly twirls the ring on her finger. “But! I think you made it more than obvious Easton Sinclair is everything I need for my future. I mean, we were practically made for each other. Don’t you think?”

Is she fucking serious right now?

I step closer to her, furrowing my eyebrows into an angry V.

“You’re joking. Your future is fake orgasms and people who treat you like a blow-up doll? That’s bullshit, Sage. This is bullshit. You mean to tell me that all the scripts, all the tears, LA, that was all, what? An act?” I’d never heard my voice so full of emotional intensity.

I could sound threatening. I could sound funny or sarcastic, sure. But this is different. Every word feels like razor blades against the soles of my feet, because she barely flinches at them.

As if they don’t bother her, as if she couldn’t care less.

“I told you what you needed to hear, Rook.” She adjusts the strap on her book bag, bored of this conversation apparently. “I gave you a girl you thought you could save. And you were just the pool boy I wanted some dirt on. I just—”

She stops, and fuck me if I thought she was going to crack and take it all back.