“I don’t think—”
I start to speak again, but before I can finish the sentence, my jaw snaps shut.
My muscles lock up.
Doctor Cohen said that anything could trigger a wave of lost memories. He said that they would likely eventually come back, because it was only short-term memory loss. I’ve had doctors give me all kinds of empty platitudes about the holes in my memory before, so I didn’t believe him.
But in one rush, like an impact to my body that sends me flying backward, like getting hit by a fucking truck, the memories do come.
They rush through me in a torrent, blazing through my mind.
I remember walking up the stairs at the party. I don’t remember why I went up to the second floor, but I do remember what I heard behind the closed doors. I remember recognizing the muffled voice as Gray’s, even though I didn’t know who he was speaking to.
She’ll be gone by next semester anyway. I’ve got it handled, all right?
There’s nothing special about her. She’s not fucking worth it.
It won’t be hard.
I don’t remember how I got back down to the first floor or how I fell down the stairs into the basement. That entire part of the night is still shrouded in darkness.
But I sure as hell remember those words, as clear as the fucking sunlight shining down on my now chilled body. Disgust and revulsion fill me. I want to tear myself away from Gray’s hold, but the other half of me…
I don’t want to believe it. I don’t fucking want to believe it.
Gray catches the change in me. How could he not? He was curled around a soft body a second ago, and now he’s hugging a block of ice.
“Sophie?” He lifts his head, worry creeping into his voice.
“Are you okay?”
Rage rushes through me in a hot wave as I look at him. I think tears are prickling my eyes too, but I can’t feel it. I can’t feel anything but the anger.
“Did you tell someone you would make me leave?” I ask, pinning him with my gaze. He’s going to look me in the eye like a fucking man when he responds, and I’m not going to waste any time tearing the truth from him.
Gray goes still. For a second, time seems to stop as we stare at each other. Then, just like that, his eyes harden. Everything in him hardens.
That ice cold man I knew from the moment I walked onto the Hawthorne University campus is back, and gone is the Gray who just fucked me like he could never get enough of me. Who wrapped his arms around me like he’d never let go. His cum is drying on my fucking thighs, and the thought of that makes my stomach tighten into a hard knot.
“Did you tell someone you wanted me to leave Hawthorne?” I ask again.
His jaw tightens. “Yes.”
That’s it. Just one word. Cold. Factual.
“It’s true?” My heart thuds wildly in my chest, like it wants to escape my body, to escape this fucking room. “You fucking said that?”
I don’t want it to be real. Even now, I’m hoping it’ll somehow turn out to be a mistake, some big misunderstanding. I look calm as fuck on the outside, but inside, a war between my head and my heart is being waged. I may be an expert at not showing my emotions, hardly even feeling them at times, but this?
This is a whole new level of fucked up.
“Who were you talking to?” I demand. I want to know. Goddammit, I need to know.
I didn’t hear another voice on the other side of the door—I didn’t stick around long enough for that—but I know Gray wasn’t just talking to the wall. There was something in his tone that night, so cold, so controlled, that it almost feels like it couldn’t have been the same man who’s lying here with me now. Like it was his fucking evil twin or something.
But he only had one twin, and she wasn’t evil.
It was him.