Book 17: This Isn't Wonderland

Posey

I lean on the door and take several aching breaths as Aris’s muffled voice replies to Morgan’s incessant questions.

“I wanted you, and you didn’t want me.”

I close my eyes against the memory of his omission, but the words bounce through my skull, funneling deep into my gray matter, where hurt blooms into regret.

To make matters worse, knowing what I know now… I hear Aris say, “What can I do to please you, Morgan?” and it wrecks me more than anything I’ve ever felt or ever known. He sounds so defeated. So tired and broken, and it’s my fault.

But I can’t tell him the truth. It would hurt us both even further, and I don’t think I’m strong enough for that.

I slink away from the door, carefully gliding down the stone steps in the thin, slipper-like sh