Play Me Real by Tracy Wolff Read Free Book Online Page A

mine. “It’s not your fault.”
    “That’s not true.” I turn my head, try to look away, but she’s right there. In my face. In my space.
    “It’s not your fault,” she tells me again. No fuss, no muss, no ridiculous platitudes that I got by the bucket load when he died. Just her and me and the lie that she can’t let go of.
    “Aria—”
    “It’s not your fault.”
    I tug on her hands, pry them off my face. “Stop.”
    “You stop.” She grabs on to my shirt, refuses to let me turn away, walk away. Refuses to let me do anything but stare her straight in the eyes and listen to the words she keeps repeating like a mantra. “It wasn’t your fault, Sebastian. Dylan made his own choices in life—bad choices, dangerous choices, deadly choices. What happened to him—it wasn’t your fault.”
    “I let him down.”
    “He let himself down.”
    “I didn’t help him—”
    “You tried to help him. You were betrayed.”
    “I should have known better. I should have realized—”
    “It wasn’t your fault,” she tells me again. “I swear to you, Sebastian, it wasn’t your fault.”
    “Stop saying that!” I say and even I can tell that I’m getting louder, more desperate sounding. But doesn’t she get it? Doesn’t she understand that she can’t do this to me? Not now, not today, when I just stood in that parking lot and listened while Dylan’s mother called me a murderer. Not now when all the memories are raw and real and so, so fresh.
    “I can’t,” she tells me, her hands soft against my arms, my chest, my face. “Not when it’s the truth.”
    There’s a part of me that wants to stay here forever, right here, in this fairy tale that she’s creating. In a world where I’m not culpable for my best friend’s death and all the shit that’s come after it. But this isn’t Wonderland and I’m not Lewis Carroll. I can’t bend time, can’t reshape things just to strike my fancy.
    “You have to stop,” I tell her again, injecting as much force and rage into my voice as I can.
    She doesn’t even flinch. “I’m not going to. It’s not your fault, Sebastian. What happened to Dylan was a tragedy. It was awful and horrific and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, but that doesn’t make it your fault. None of this is your fault.”
    “You don’t understand.”
    “I do understand, better than you could possibly imagine. There was nothing you could have done to save Dylan, nothing that could have made this thing turn out the way you wanted it to.”
    “You’re wrong.”
    “I’m not.”
    “You weren’t there.”
    “I didn’t have to be. I know you, Sebastian. I know what a good person you are and I know that you did everything you could to save Dylan. What happened to him was out of your control.”
    The words slam into me like bullets and my much-touted control shatters like glass. Like nothing. The iron grip I’ve kept on my emotions—on myself—for so long rends into a million unfixable pieces.
    I grab Aria then, yank her to me. Shut her up the only way I know how, with my mouth against hers. With my tongue and teeth and lips sucking, licking, biting at hers sharply enough to cause pain. To draw blood.
    She gasps, her hands coming up to my shoulders and I figure this is it. This is when she finally understands and pushes me away. But she doesn’t push, doesn’t try to wriggle free from what I know is a punishing grip. Instead, she tangles her fingers in my shirt and pulls me closer. She opens to me, giving herself to me completely when I have never been less deserving.
    Frustrated, furious, aroused, I rip my lips from hers. Whirl her around and slam her back against the wall—not with enough force to hurt, but definitely hard enough to soothe the savage pressure building to a boiling point inside of me.
    “Do it,” she tells me, her voice low and husky in my ear.
    I think about stopping, think about stepping back and walking away before things get completely out of control