Page 55 of Scarred Crown

All logical thought vanishes, and I swoop down, sealing her lips with mine. There’s the briefest moment where I’m not sure she’s going to kiss me back, where I expect her to push me away and laugh, ask me what the hell I’m doing. Instead, she melts into me, and I pour all the frustration and longing I’ve been feeling for months into the kiss. She rises onto her knees and meets my kiss, pressing herself against me.

Fireworks go off inside me to rival the ones illuminating the sky. She hasn’t just met my kiss—she’s kissed me back.

Her blue-gray eyes are dreamy when she gazes at me with her arms loose around my neck, and then another firework pops in the sky, and her gaze widens.

“Oh shit. Oh, God. Oh, no.” She pushes off me and gathers her skirts, rushing down the narrow ladder without her shoes.

“Jules!” It’s the only word I can get out, and I sound desperate, deranged. One perfect, shining moment—gone.

Why would she rush off like that? Was the kiss that bad? I can take it back if I have to. Shove down my feelings.

I rub my face and stumble to my feet. My heart is weighed down by what I’ve just done, but I rush after her, determined to do everything to make us okay again. The kiss doesn’t have to mean anything. It can mean nothing. A drunken mistake. I just—I can’t lose her.

When I get outside the barn, I realize they’ve turned off all the lights on the estate. The fireworks are brilliant against the night sky. They’re also the only things lighting the way back to the ballroom. It’s so dark that I almost don’t see them at first. But who can miss her red dress when the sky illuminates her? Not me. Though I’ll wish every day after that I didn’t catch that glimpse of red.

Alex has her pressed against the side of the building, kissing her. I rush forward, prepared to tell him to back off. But when the next firework goes off, he breaks away from her and strokes her cheek. Her expression isn’t that of someone who’s been kissed for the first time. I almost trip over my own feet, and I gape at the sight.

At the next flash in the sky, Alex spots me, and he smirks. Julia is talking, but with the conversations floating out of the ballroom, I’m too far to hear her. Her back is to me, but she smacks him in the chest to make him listen, a gesture so familiar to me. He breaks eye contact with me to stare down at her, and the realization of what’s going on explodes in me.

Shrapnel embeds itself under my skin, behind my eyes, ensuring that every time I drift to sleep, I’ll see this moment on replay.

They’re together.

Jules and Alex.

My Jules and Alex.

Bile rises to the back of my throat, and I try to swallow it down. Alex glances in my direction, and he kisses Julia again, molding her to his body.

I can’t watch this. I can’t see this.

I can’t believe this.

I turn on my heel, snatching another bottle of champagne from the table outside the ballroom. I unwrap the top and let the cork fly across the gravel pathway. Another firework bursts to life in the sky while I stumble down the laneway, away from the party, away from them.

How long do I wander, mind blank, heart heavy? Hours? Minutes? The bottle of champagne in my hand is empty, and I let it tumble to the ground with a thud.

The fireworks are over. The pathway lights are back on.

Ahead, I catch a shimmer of silver, a glimpse of blond hair stepping out of the barn entrance.

My heart pounds in my chest. Alex and Jules. Alex and Jules are a mantra at the edge of my consciousness. I keep pushing the images away, denying their existence, but nothing is banishing what I saw from my memory. I want to forget. Pretend none of it happened.

I never kissed Jules. I never saw them together.

Tomorrow, I’ll wake up, and everything will be fine. No matter what, things between us have to be fine.

Except deep down, I realize nothing between Jules and I will ever be fine again. I kissed her, and she fled to Alex.

Alex.

I kissed her, and she chose Alex—has likely been choosing him for all these weeks when I’ve been so smug, so sure she’d never give him any opportunities to act.

So when Vicky calls my name from the barn door, I go to her, and I take what she’s offering, even though I shouldn’t, even though she’s not who I’ve longed for.

Because now? Now all I want to do is forget.

Julia