Everly After by Rebecca Paula Read Free Book Online Page A

hazardous, using soap twice. He made me feel this way with his cold stare. I cup my hand to my mouth and test my breath, nearly knocking myself out. Maybe I’m not much of a prize right now.
    What I am is an idiot. I’m here in Beckett’s apartment, showing up like a sad disaster on the doorstep of a guy I hardly know. I can’t even remember how I ended up there. I hate myself for forgetting, and I hate myself for letting him judge me like an asshole. I hate that I actually care what he thinks.
    Not wanting to soil Beckett’s things, I wipe my wet hands over Hudson’s dress shirt. At least I think it belongs to Hudson. It smells like his cologne. I picture Beckett burning everything after I leave, his eyes returning to that non-condemning blue once the traces of me are gone. The same blue they were when we sat on the steps and he brushed his finger over my arm in circles for some strange reason I haven’t been able to figure out. His eyes were nice then. Kind, maybe.
    But that doesn’t matter. Girls like me only fill voids for guys like Hudson and Beckett. If they need money, I’m their sugar mama. If they want a beautiful girl on their arm, then I’m the go-to pick. If they feel insecure, I’m the girl they can hate on until they feel better about themselves. I thought I mattered to someone last spring and look where it got me—standing half-naked in the apartment of someone who may or may not hate me. But probably hates me.
    I turn the faucet off, and Beckett is still on the phone. The air crushes out of my lungs when I hear him mention her name.
    Nadine.
    I rush into the living room and grab my purse off the coffee table. I push my sunglasses up over my hair and rummage through the bag, pulling out the stash of jewelry I carry around. I feel like it’s safer with me than at my place. I mound it up on the table in front of me, my hands shaking as I try to block out what Beckett is saying. I don’t want him to talk to her like that. As if I have any say over who he can talk to. As if I care.
    Maybe I do and that’s why I start to tear at the silk lining of the purse. My hands tremble and the world goes a bit fuzzy, but I focus on the lining, sure that if I rip it out, I’ll find what I need at the bottom of the bag.
    “What are you doing?”
    I can’t stop. The panic claws inside of me until my heart is racing, and I struggle to keep breathing. I turn the purse upside down and shake it out, unsure what I’m even looking for anymore, but there must be something. There must be something in it that can make this all stop.
    Make me stop.
    “Everly. Breathe.”
    My whole body is trembling, my stomach uneasy, and then my throat burns and I know I need to be sick. I need to throw up and get this all out of me, and then I need to find something to fix me. Something to make me right because I’m not okay right now. I’m not okay and I’m in some guy’s apartment, half-naked, and I don’t remember how I got here…
    I see naked skin and camera flashes and feel the pain wash over me from what Hudson’s done. Of greedy hands and the rush in my veins.
    I push up onto my legs, preparing to run out the door or catch a cab or hurl myself down the stairs, when everything tips and the ground rushes up to meet me.
    My head strikes the coffee table, and warmth spreads over my temple. I’m sprawled on my back, clamping my eyes shut as the world spins, moving without me. Somehow, that doesn’t bother me. The rest does. The fact that I’m here. The fact that I have to live with everything, and it never seems possible without everything building and building until it explodes and I end up on my back with my head split open. That bothers the hell out of me.
    Fuck.
    “Open your eyes.”
    I’d rather lie here and pretend the world is black. That I’m someone other than the girl I am. Someone who has her life together. Someone who functions well and loves and wants to live and experience the world.
    “What were you