Your Eyes Tell

15 / now

Kaia Porter wakes up with a jolt, the last of his scream in her ear.

She pants, catching her breath, skin hot and flushed. Her heart is still racing, and she crawls back up against the headboard and hugs her knees, rocking back and forth to calm herself down.

It's been a year. It's been a year and—and she still hears his screams.

She keeps her eyes open because if she shuts her eyes, she'll see Nick on the ground, glass piercing his eyes, bleeding red and shaking from the torturous and excruciating pain of love.

Her boyfriend stirs beside her, and Kaia freezes, holding her breath.

He's been deprived of sleep because he wakes up with Kaia screaming after a nightmare, and he has to hug her to calm her down and kiss her hair and rock her while she sobs.

And then she saw a therapist, and it was hard to—to talk about it, to talk about him, but it helped. She stopped screaming at night.

But the dream still comes and goes. Kaia thinks Nick's agonizing cry will forever haunt her.

That's what she gets. That's what she gets for what she did to him.

(Her therapist said it was never her fault. Nick didn't tell her, and he chose not to.)

(But how is she supposed to believe him when it was her name he was screaming?)

Her boyfriend doesn't wake. Kaia doesn't go back to sleep.

*

"You look dead."

Kaia manages a small smile, rolls her eyes, and sips on her milkshake. "You could say that. I'm busting my ass off at work."

"Babe," Cassia says, pouting. "The last time we saw each other, you promised me you weren't going to be a hermit."

"I'm not!" Kaia defends herself, furrowing her eyebrows. She gestures to herself and slaps the table. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"A weekly catch-up with your best friend doesn't count. And I know you haven't been leaving the house."

Kaia clenches her jaw and bites her straw, leaning back against the couch. "You can't use your boyfriend to spy on me."

"He's not spying, he's only worried about you," Cassia says sweetly, grinning. Her phone lights up on the table, and her entire face lights up, too, reading the message. "Ah, he's here."

The glow on Cassia's face is unmistakeable. Kaia rolls her eyes, sighs loudly, and shoots her friend a here we go again look.

The brunette doesn't care. She stands up and kisses Yves on the mouth when he reaches them. He grins at Kaia. "Hey, doll."

"Fucking stop calling me that." She throws a napkin in his direction.

He dodges that and takes the seat next to Cassia, spreading his legs wide open, one arm around her shoulders. "Now why would I do that if it gets you riled up so easily?"

"Babe," Cassia says sternly.

"Fine," Yves says, picking up Cassia's fork with the steak and shoves it in his mouth. He raises his eyebrow at Kaia. "Aren't you joining civilization again? We're throwing a party for O this weekend."

Beside him, Cassia's face shifts uncomfortably, but it's so, so subtle that Yves doesn't notice it.

Kaia catches it, though.

A few weeks after Nick was shipped away by his family, after finding out about his condition, Cassia told Orion about Yves.

And he only said, "I don't mind if you can't love me the way I do, Cassia. The way you love Yves. I'm already blind, anyway."