Page 198 of The Storm

Anger gives you something to do. It points a finger and places blame. With anger, every complicated feeling turns into a simple situation with a clear villain.

If you’re angry, you never have to admit that you’re hurting, and there will be no room for disappointment. You definitely don’t have to actually deal with processing the complicated emotions of hurt and betrayal. You can simply polish your grievances until they shine. You can put them on display and marvel at them, and then keep replaying the offenses every time you start to feel something other than anger, feeding it and nurturing it and keeping it alive.

It’s important to keep it alive.

Because anger protects you.

When there’s nothing left?

That’s when you’re officially in trouble.

I can’t makeit tonight.

That’s the text I end up sending Blue, and that’s the extent of my explanation. Then I throw my phone onto the couch before I change my mind.

It’s pathetic. The whole thing. The text. The reason for sending the text. The fact that I spend the next few hours staring at the ceiling thinking about him.

I need some space. Or at least that’s the conclusion I’ve come to after spending the last few days having a series of truly unpleasant, honest conversations with myself. So, space. Space sounds smart. Healthy, even. Reasonable, for sure.

The problem is that I don’t want space.

I want Blue.

Which is precisely why I need said space.

I get up from the couch with a huff and stalk to the kitchen. I make dinner because cooking usually gets me in the zone where I don’t think. Not today, though. Today, I think about Blue.

I turn on Callum’s game as background noise to drown out my thoughts.

It doesn’t work.

I go for a run.

By mile fifteen I give up. I fucking give up.

At one in the morning, I’m standing outside his apartment building, and it’s a terrible fucking idea, but I let myself in anyway, walk up the stairs—fucking run up the stairs, if we’re being honest—and pull out my key.

It’s a terrible idea, and it’s only once I turn the key that I remember Dia and Bridget also live here, so I might run into either of them on my way to Blue, and I didn’t exactly planfor that, but it’s too late anyway because the lock clicks and the door opens. The apartment is dark and silent. I toe off my sneakers and push them under the bench by the door. When I turn around, Blue is standing by his bedroom door, barefoot and sleep-rumpled.

Neither of us says anything.

His eyes find mine and stay there for a bit.

I feel exposed in a way I’ve only ever felt with Blue. Like he can read my mind. Like he can see every ugly, complicated feeling I’ve spent years trying not to acknowledge.

I’m sorry.

I tried to stay away.

I couldn’t.

His expression softens almost as if he heard all those unspoken words. He comes to me, and for the first time all day, the noise in my head goes quiet.

Blue’s thumb brushes the back of my hand. He holds his hand out. I take it, and he pulls me after him through the dark, silent apartment until we reach his room. He lets me in first and then closes the door after us, leaning against it.

He tilts his head to the side. He just looks at me and waits. So I go to him.

My fingers curl around his neck. He tilts his chin up the slightest bit, almost like a challenge. Not that I need one. I lower my mouth to his, and then our lips are glued together in a slow kiss more passionate than any other we’ve shared so far. Neither of us moves to turn it into anything more. We just kiss, and it’s overwhelming, and I let myself feel everything. It’s all too much, but this is Blue, which means I want it to be too much. It’s okay that it’s too much. But then, fuck, it’s also so fucking much.