Page 41 of Lessons in Cruelty

I sit up so fast I’m hit with a dizzy spell, but the pair has already disappeared behind one of the stacks.

No fucking way.

This hangover is making me hallucinate or some shit, because I swear to God that girl sounded just like Heavenly.

I take a sip of my energy drink and carefully slide out of the bench, heading in the same direction. There’s just a flutter of a printed skirt as the librarian rounds the corner of another stack.

I stalk after them and pause at the end to peek around the shelf of books.

“Here you go. And don’t forget your book.” There’s a soft thump, and I hurriedly retreat before the librarian can spot me. I wait to hear the rustle of her clothing pass, count a few breaths, and then stride down the stack again.

I stop when I see Haven.

She has her back to me, bending over as she plugs her phone into the charging station beneath the bench of the alcove the librarian led her to. This one has a window overlooking the garden, but there isn’t much light coming through. Guess it’s getting cloudier out there.

I lean against the shelf of books beside me, hooking my thumb into the pocket of my Brunello sweats as I watch her. The library is cool enough that I haven’t had to take off my hoodie, but Haven is zipped up like we’re in Alaska.

She slides into the booth and lets out a sigh as she shifts around to get comfortable.

With her sunglasses still on, the cap and zipped-up hoodie, she looks like she’s in fucking witness protection, but they haven’t moved her to a safe house yet.

That was me.

She felt the need to disguise herself, but she came back anyway.

Should I be impressed at how brave she is, or pissed that I didn’t scare her off for good?

It’s because I keep picturing us when we were kids. That cute, cheeky little girl who’d go trundling through the woods with me on a merry adventure, not this grown-ass, fucked-up fraud in front of me. I’m going at this half-throttle when it should be pedal to the metal.

Haven grabs the brim of her AHC cap and starts to pull it off, then quickly looks around like she first wants to make sure she’s alone.

But she’s not. And when she spots me leaning against the stack just a few feet away, she scrambles to the center of the bench, right by the window, like that’s her escape route.

Guess she realizes I’m too close. If she tried to run, I’d snag her like a rabbit in a snare.

Her legs are up, knees by her chest. She’s gripping the bench beneath her like she needs the support.

Those blue eyes are wide, fearful, but determined.

“I’ll scream,” she says bluntly.

I thought about a lot of things last night when I was slamming back shots of whiskey and working my way through a six-pack of beer. Like what if she came back?

I laughed it off, had another shot, and then remembered the feeling I had when I saw her last week, after warning her off the first time.

That initial shock, then the anger, then the cold, boiling hatred.

As much as it hurt, I forced myself to dig into the past, sifting through the sun-soaked, shade-dappled memories of our childhood together.

We’d known each other for years before I moved out of that trailer park in Riverside. We played our games, and we grew to know each other through the glimpses of pain and frustration we’d let each other see.

I understood Haven. And she understood me.

We gave each other what we wanted until what we wanted became too big of an ask.

I walk closer, and she opens her mouth, but there must be something on my face she doesn’t like because she remains silent, watching and waiting even as I lean forward and rest my palms on the table.

“You’ve missed me, haven’t you?” I murmur. “Is that why you can’t stay away?”