The Girl I Once Loved: Love & Hate Duet
The Girl I Once Loved: Chapter 12

As I step onto the porch of my childhood home, my lips hike up at the corners when I hear Daisy shouting some incoherent thing in utter glee, her contagious jubilant excitement piquing my interest. What could have possibly happened for her to be so giddy this early in the day?

When I enter the small kitchen, I replace Daisy jumping up and down, a red-faced Skylar hiding her embarrassment behind a coffee mug.

“Do I even want to know what all this is about?” I tease, going to the cupboard to grab my own mug.

“My baby sister is a New York Times Best Seller!” Daisy shrieks enthusiastically, pushing her phone right in my face. “Look! See? That’s her right there! That’s Skylar!”

Excited to see this for myself, I swiftly put down my mug on the kitchen counter so I can give Daisy’s phone screen the attention it so richly deserves. But my pride in Skylar’s accomplishment dies an excruciating death when I see that it isn’t her name on the prestigious listing, but some soap opera actress’.

“No, Julia Crawford is a New York Times Best Selling author, not your sister.” I point to the screen before handing the damn thing back to Daisy. “Isn’t that right?”

Skylar’s crimson cheeks turn even redder, only this time it’s not from shy embarrassment but from unadulterated rage.

“Don’t be a dick, Noah,” Daisy quickly defends. “Skylar was the one who wrote the book, word for word. I doubt Julia Crawford even knows how to string a sentence together, much less be credited with being a bestselling author.” She scoffs, rolling her eyes.

“Doesn’t matter. It’s her name on the listing. Not Skylar’s. As far as the world is concerned, your sister didn’t write jack shit. Tell me I’m wrong?” I demand, piercing Sky with my penetrating gaze, feeling her anger starting to match the one starting to bubble inside me.

“Geez, Noah. Stop raining on Sky’s parade. This is a huge deal. Ease up, will you?” Daisy rebukes with a warning tone, telling me she’s seconds away from wringing my neck if I so much as say another word.

“Fine,” I grumble in defeat. “Have at it then. Celebrate someone else’s accomplishments for all I care. Be my fucking guest. I need to take a piss anyway.”

Without a further word, I turn my back on the two stunned sisters and storm upstairs, knowing I need a safe space to cool down before I do or say something I’ll eventually regret. With my temper skyrocketing as it is, it’s a fucking miracle I have the frame of mind to keep my distance. If I hadn’t and stayed a second longer in that damn kitchen, I’d just end up running my mouth and escalating things to the point of no return.

But to my dismay, Sky isn’t as eager as I am to let shit go.

My fury increases as the familiar scent of cherry blossoms follows me up the stairs to the second floor, announcing that Sky is right at my heel. And when she pulls me by the arm, forcing me to turn around to face her head on, I reluctantly oblige.

“What the fuck is your problem?” she whisper-yells, keeping her voice just low enough for Daisy not to hear us fighting.

“Isn’t it obvious?” I sneer. “You’re my problem, Sky. You’re always my fucking problem!”

“God, you’re an asshole!”

“Trust me, sweetheart. You’re no prize either.”

Her silver gaze flashes with burning rage, and to my chagrin, it only amps up my own fury.

“You really are still the same arrogant asshole you’ve always been, huh?”

“And you’re still that scared little girl who likes to hide in the shadows, instead of owning up to who she really fucking is!” I bite back.

“Keep your fucking voice down,” she snaps, her attention split between arguing with me and worrying that her sister might hear us and come upstairs to stop us mid feud.

“Fuck this,” I curse, grabbing Sky by the elbow and pulling her into her bedroom.

“Let me go!” she seethes, slapping my hand off her.

“Gladly!” I yell, releasing my grip from her to slam the door behind us.

“God, you’re a piece of work,” she pants furiously.

“Ditto, baby,” I retort, turning my back at her outrage and hurrying over to her closet.

Before she even knows what I’m up to, I reach up to the high shelf in her closet and pull down every notebook I can grab—every last single story that Sky’s imagination was able to materialize into beautiful prose during the years she lived under this roof.

“And just exactly what do you think you’re doing with those?!” she accuses, wide eyed in shock when I spread the notebooks on her bed. “Those are not yours to manhandle!”

“You’re right. They’re yours!” I throw my arms in the air from pure frustration alone. “Every last word written in those pages came from you. It came from your incredible mind. It didn’t have to be dictated by some B-list actress!” I yell. “But it’s clear as day that you need me to refresh your memory, since it’s fucking apparent you forgot every dream you ever had. Forgot how fucking talented you are. Too fucking talented to be writing anything that doesn’t come straight from your heart.”

“Noah—” she starts to stutter, my strangled name a plea on her lips, but I’m too far gone to turn back now.

Her whole body trembles with pent-up rage and shame as I start sorting through her books, making sure to pick the ones that mean the most to her.

“Let’s take this story right here, shall we? The one about Pirate Barbosa and his prim and proper captive, Lady Jane. On the surface, it sounds like every other pirate book ever written, but when you delve into its pages, you see it’s so much more than that. It’s about freedom and redemption. You were able to give Barbosa something to aspire to that didn’t include lining his pockets with stolen gold—the love of a good woman will do that to a man. Then, if that wasn’t enough, you gave a gilded-cage aristocrat like Lady Jane something she never dreamed possible—the freedom to use her own voice in a world where a woman was forbidden to have one.”

I go into a tangent, pulling book after book from her bed, and doing a fucking synopsis of all her stories, before I throw them back onto the forsaken pile.

“You…you…read my notebooks…,” she stammers, her eyes starting to water. “You…you…you had no right.”

I shake off the tinge of guilt that accosts me with how vulnerable and raw she looks right now. Like a piece of fragile glass ready to shatter if I so much as touch it. In her mind, I’ve crossed some invisible line reading her notebooks without permission, completely unaware that her words were the only things that kept me going all these years. They were the precious gifts she left behind that kept me from losing myself entirely.

They gave me solace when her absence only ever gave me despair.

“Why shouldn’t I have?” I rebuke callously. “You didn’t take them with you. You discarded them like day-old trash.”

“That isn’t fair. I didn’t have time to—”

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot. You didn’t have time to pack up your most prized possessions because you were too busy running away from your problems like some coward. The same coward who is now hiding behind other people’s names instead of being brave enough to use her own. You’re right. I’m the asshole here. A fucking idiot for thinking you’d ever change.”

“That’s not fair! You’re why I left! You’re the reason why I had to leave everything I loved behind! Don’t turn my actions against me when you were the one who provoked them in the first place,” she reprimands with such loathing that I feel the full brunt of her hate in that one arctic stare.

“Is that what you tell yourself?” I scoff sardonically. “That I’m the reason why you chicken out? Spare me, Sky. You alone made your choices. I had nothing to do with them. You were given a chance. A chance to be something great. And you fucking took the coward’s way out. Sacrifices were made for you to be goddamn extraordinary, like you were always meant to be, and you just pissed all over them.”

“What sacrifices?!” she yells at the top of her lungs, no longer caring if we’re heard or not. “I’m the only one who sacrificed EVERYTHING! I left my family because of you! I left a sister who I adore more than anyone in this whole world because of you. I destroyed my relationship with my mother because of how I left. Because of you, she can’t even look me in the eye anymore. To have suffered all of that, only to have to come back home to face you… don’t talk to me about sacrifice, Noah. You have no idea what that word even means.”

“You think I don’t know sacrifice?” I shout, blood pumping furiously in my veins.

“I don’t think. I know,” she snarls with balled fists at her sides.

Nostrils flaring, I charge at her, making Sky quickly backpedal away from me until her back is flush against the wall.

I grab her throat and pin my chest against hers.

“You have no idea what I sacrificed. You have no clue.” I breathe out heavily, my eyes scanning every inch of her perfect face. “You could have brought the world to its knees, but instead, you waste your talent with this superficial drivel. Why? Just tell me why?”

She scowls at me, turning her head to the side, but like hell I’ll let her evade the question. I grip her chin and force her to look me in the eye, her gaze throwing silver bullets in my direction.

“Was it all because of the money? Is that why you did it?” I ask, needing to make sense of it all. “Because that isn’t you. It never was.”

“You don’t know me,” she spits out, her chest heaving up and down, panting for breath. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”

“But that’s just it. I do know you, little stalker. I might be the only one who truly does. And that fucking kills you.”

Eyes locked, we both gasp for air, the electric tension in the room stealing all the oxygen out of it.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” I whisper, gently strumming the back of my knuckles on her cheek.

“Fuck you.”

“You first.”

And before I can stop myself, my lips brutally crash with hers.

Sky lets out a wanton moan as my tongue dives into the deep crevices of her mouth, desperate to swallow up all the hate she has reserved just for me. She wraps her arms around my neck, tugging at my hair as I reacquaint myself with her ardent kiss. In our crazed, frenzied state, our mouths devour each other’s, needing to suck out the venom from our lips, until all that is left is the agonizing truth neither one of us wants to voice.

Fuck.

Her lips are still the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted.

I deepen the kiss as I pull her leg up to nestle around my waist, needing to press my hardened cock into the heat in between her thighs. Her pliant body eagerly follows my every command, molding beautifully against mine. Fantasies about fucking her right here against her bedroom wall torment me, tempting me to give in to my desire, and fuck the consequences. My hand gently tightens around the softness of her throat, needing her to stay still just to keep me tethered. If she so much as touches me in any way, I won’t be responsible for my actions.

I want to taste every inch of her body, mark it with my teeth and cum. But if my lips leave hers, even for a little bit, I risk us both coming to our senses and stopping whatever this is before it’s even begun.

So I just kiss her.

Kiss her like I’ve dreamt of doing for the past seven years.

And with each kiss, I divulge all my silent secrets.

How I fucking missed her.

How her name is branded on my heart.

How my world doesn’t make sense without her.

But Sky is too lost in her lust-filled desire to hear the subliminal message my heart is so desperate to divulge.

I have to stop.

I have to.

Because if I don’t stop this now, then when she leaves at the end of the summer, I’ll be right back to that cold unforgiving place—where darkness rules and bitter loneliness prevails. I’ll drift away, completely lost at sea again, because when she leaves… she’ll take with her the only light that ever showed me the way home.

Because no matter what she was led to believe, Sky is home to me.

She always will be.

Begrudgingly, I break away from her and take two wide steps back, not trusting myself with the temptation still laced in her hooded gaze. We just stand there staring at each other, our heavy breathing a testament to what we let transpire. Hating the stilled silence between us, I open my mouth to say something, only for Sky to beat me to the punch.

“You should go.”

I swallow dryly and give her a clipped nod.

“Right, because why stay and fight when it’s so much easier to walk away?”

The words feel like poison rolling off my tongue as I march out of her bedroom, fully aware of how unfair I’m being to her right now.

Sky didn’t run away—she was pushed.

I fucking pushed her.

So why am I so surprised Sky has chosen to play it safe in all areas of her life, when I’m the reason behind such decisions.

I sacrificed my happiness, thinking it would give her the world.

But in the end, all it gave us was a world filled with regrets and withered potential.