My mom didn’t need to see this. She didn’t need to lose another piece of my dad. I’d take the case with me to college like nothing had happened and pretend someone stole it. Better for her to believe someone had taken it and it lived a new life with them than that it had been destroyed.

I slid the lid on and dragged the trash cans to the front of the house. The garbage truck would pick it up before she got home from work in the morning.

Slipping inside the house, I peeled off my clothes and stood in the shower. The running water and spray of steam were barely able to drown out the choking sobs erupting from my throat.

As I wrapped a towel around myself, the phone I didn’t even remember bringing in with me skittered across the counter and fell into the sink. Messages from Piper and Knox blew up my screen, but none from Dare. He’d sent his best friend to try to do his dirty work.

I rushed back downstairs and grabbed the emergency key from under the flower pot before slamming the door, locking it and putting the chain on.

Dare-proofing the house used up the last of the reserves I had keeping me together.

In my room, I curled myself into a tight ball on my bed, clutching the pillow against my chest. I buried my face in it. A flood of musk, bar soap and the gentle hint of cologne flooded my nostrils. I jerked my head back. It smelled like him. Everything smelled like him. The pillows, the blankets, even my own clothes.

I ripped the sheets off the bed and shoved it all away. A pile of the offending fabric sat in the middle of my bedroom. Back on the bare mattress, still in my towel, I brought my knees up to my chin and wrapped my arms tight around them, rocking back and forth.

Dare wasn’t there. I’d looked into his eyes and it wasn’t my Dare. It wasn’t the one who’d touched me like he was afraid I’d break or stared down at me before I closed my eyes at night, tucking a stray piece of hair behind my ear. That wasn’t who I had been backstage with.

Or maybe I’d been lying to myself. Whoever he was, that was something I couldn’t repair. It would take all my strength to hold myself together, to make it through the next week of school and out the other side unscathed.

I prayed for numbness. I wished for someone, something to take this pain away and turn me into a zombie who could go through the motions of life without feeling like I was being sliced with each step. But I wasn’t so lucky. I fell asleep feeling every crack, every splinter, every break.

I’d played with fire and been engulfed in flames—first of desire, but now of pain.

All the little signs along the way pieced together to form a map to where I was now.