What They've Done To Us

56 ➹ sad, beautiful, tragic

"I—"

She cuts off whatever I'm about to say with a chilling truth. "You're going to be miserable, Atlas. Maybe if it isn't tonight then tomorrow and if not then next week," her words are calculated, her gaze deadlier than the bite that's clung its way to the cadence of her voice.

"Don't think that'll happen," I breathe out, offering her a half-shrug. "Can you leave now?"

Please, go.

Her rage mindsets itself into sadness in a second and I catch as the tears that had been quick to dry up, reappear. "You'll hate yourself for this."

"Nah," I shake my head and ignore the hollowness that's settled where it'd once been, long before. "I think you'll hate me enough for the both of us."

"No," she says through the quivering of her bottom lip that does something devastating to the pit of my stomach. "You've got that covered." With that, she turns around and I get a real look at how she looks in her dress.

The green material is like a second skin and illuminates every crevice that Nayelie has as it hugs her every curve. It shows off the depth of her tan skin, the beauty mark on the right side of her back and even draws attention to her unblemished shoulders where her sweet spot is.

My heart swoops down to my chest and I feel so light-headed I think I might vomit.

Oh fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I do already hate myself. I don't think she could ever comprehend how much I fucking do.

My self-deprecation is a decade-long stream and started the moment I found out that not only did I have a brother, but my pure existence was one that fueled his lack of.

Finding out that if you hadn't been born your dad would've claimed his first son is one hell of a discovery. Feeling like you're living someone's life, eating the food that's supposed to be on their plate, reaping all the benefits they should've all sucks. It's worse when you're only ten.

"Oh, Nayelie?"

She's almost entirely out of my room now, but she still turns. She still searches for something that doesn't exist.

I feign a small grin to split at my lips. "Do you like the colour of my tie?"

I don't know what's worse, living with what I've done or the wounded sound of air that expels out of her mouth the second the door closes.

🂡 🂡 🂡

She's wearing a red dress when I enter her dorm room. It's lighter than the merlot red that the guy at the suit shop allocated as my tie.

A perfect match, he'd called it before ringing me up for it. I'd felt it then — the murkiness of my actions, of what I was about to do.

The green one is still folded inside my bedside table.

"Did you break her heart?" Cassie asks, swatching a scarlet red shade across her lips with no regard for what she's just asked.

I nod but start speaking when I realize she isn't looking at me in the mirror but herself. "Yeah."

Her blue eyes meet mine over her shoulder. "Did she believe it?" She's got some smoky kind of look packed onto her eyelids which makes her eyes pop more.

I've always hated the colour blue. I'm unsure now, whether my hatred for the colour began with the girl seated in the pristinely polished white chair, or if I was a seer in a past life.

My teeth are practically bared when I answer, "Yes."

Cassie raises from her position, dropping the golden and black tube of lipstick on her desk. "If I find out you're two-timing me and have told her the trut—"