Never Together

Tamara's POV

The sob escaped before I could stop it.

Lucas's head snapped up first. His hands were still in Mara's hair, frozen mid-caress. His eyes found mine across the darkness, and I watched something move through his face, something fast and calculating.

Not guilt. It was never guilt.

Mara turned slower than he did. Took her time, like she already knew who was standing there. When she saw me, her lips curved into a small, satisfied smile. The kind that said she'd been waiting for this.

She knew, I realized. She always knew.

I turned and walked away as fast as I could. I didn't run, no I refused to run. My legs shook, my chest burned, my eyes pouring out tears but I kept my spine straight and my steps even. The gravel crunched under my sneakers.

Behind me, I heard murmured voices, then footsteps like someone was sprinting after me.

"Tamara."

He called my name using that voice of his, the one that used to make me feel special.

I kept walking.

He caught up before I reached the main path. His hand closed around my wrist gently, which somehow made it worse.

Like he was handling something fragile. Something he'd already decided to break.

"Tamara, stop."

I stopped. Not because he asked me to. Heaven forbid that, I was literally shaking with rage.

It was because I needed to see his face when I asked the question that was already clawing up my throat.

I turned.

He was close enough that I could smell his cologne. The same one he'd been wearing when he kissed me an hour ago. When he'd told me he'd been thinking about me all day.

I've been a fool. I've been a…fool.

"What are we, Lucas?"

My voice came out quiet and steady. I didn't know where that came from, I was expecting the rage and pain.

He let go of my wrist and took a deep breath. I could see him choosing his words the way I'd once chosen my silences, carefully, deliberately, for his own protection.

The pause stretched.

"We were never together," he said. "You know that."

No apology. No flinch. At least even a wince to maybe convince me that he didn't want to say this.

He just said it like it was already decided. Like I'd agreed to terms I never signed.

I stared at him. He stared back at me, his eyes full of nothing, just empty and cold.

I looked away, the tears burning my eyes.

Behind him, the path was empty. Mara hadn't followed. Probably didn't need to. She'd already won whatever game this was.

We were never together.

Four words. He'd spent months pulling me into empty corridors, whispering my name in the dark, making me feel like I was the only person in the world. And now those words were supposed to erase all of it.

I looked at his face, the sharp jaw, dark hair, those grey eyes I'd drowned in more times than I could count. And for the first time, I saw him clearly.

He wasn't confused. He wasn't torn.

He just never intended to choose me.

"Okay," I said simply and I turned away from him.

I left. He called my name once. I didn't stop.

************

The next three days was a blur for me.

I went to class, sat in the front row. I took notes I didn't read. Professor Bondo asked a question about sedimentary layers and I answered without hearing my own voice.

We were never together.

Having lunch was worse. I kept my head down, pushed food around my plate, smiled when Elena sat across from me and demanded to know why I looked like death.

"I'm fine," I said.

"Bullshit."

"I'm fine, Elena."

She stared at me for a long moment. Her sharp dark eyes, that saw too much scanned my face like she was reading a language only she understood.

"You'll tell me when you're ready," she said finally. It wasn't a question. I knew my best friend.

I nodded. She squeezed my hand and let it go.

Paul found me in the library on the second day. He sat down next to me without asking, close enough that our shoulders touched.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine."

He didn't push. But he didn't look away either. Instead he just studied my face with that quiet expression I still couldn't name, the one that made my stomach feel strange and unsettled.

"You're a bad liar, Tamara."

I laughed. It came out hollow. "Since when?"

"Since always. You just never noticed I was paying attention."

Something flickered in his eyes. It looked like hurt. Then he smiled softly and changed the subject to the upcoming game.

I let him, just held it together. Smiled when I was supposed to, answered when someone spoke to me.

While I kept replaying that scene from that night in my head.

**********

Friday arrived quickly before I even knew it.

Elena had plans, some goth night thing off-campus, she'd invited me, I'd said no. Paul was at an away game, his bus already gone by noon. My dorm room felt like four walls pressing in on me.

I couldn't stay there.

I grabbed a bottle from Elena's stash, something dark she'd left under the sink, I didn't even check the label and walked outside.

The courtyard on the Fornon side of campus was empty. Far enough from Ashford that nobody who knew me would walk past and safe enough from Fornon.

I couldn't risk anyone knowing I was from Ashford pack. They had this rivalry thing going on.

The benches were cold, and the sky had that heavy grey feeling like it might snow or might just stay grey forever.

I hoped it would. It'd make a good music video.

Me in the rain with a tear streaked rather mascara face and holding a drink.

I sat down in the dark, unscrewed the cap and took a long drink that burned all the way down.

I'd held it together for three days. I smiled, nodded and survived.

But alone, in the dark, with no one watching?

I let myself fall apart.

The sob came up from somewhere deep, the place I'd been locking since freshman year, since I learned that being invisible meant not being hurt.

It tore out of my chest and I didn't try to stop it.

Tears ran down my face and I sobbed.

My shoulders shook. I pressed my fist against my mouth to muffle the sound, but there was no one around to hear.

Just me. The cold bench and the dark sky.

I didn't hear the footsteps.

I didn't see the figure approaching until a shadow fell across me, blocking the streetlight.

I looked up, bleary-eyed, tears still wet on my cheeks.

A man stood over me. Broad-shouldered and tall. His face was half in shadow, but his eyes which were unreadable held mine like he was just checking every broken piece of me.

"Are you lost?" he asked.

His voice was low and cold. But something underneath it made my breath catch.

It was quite familiar but my muddled brain couldn't bring out anything useful.

I opened my mouth to answer. Nothing came out.

“You're not Fornon”.