Chapter 13: Crossing Lines
1590 Words
Brey:
I yawned behind my hand as the professor droned about derivatives. A surprise quiz at eight in the morning — as if calculus wasn’t punishment enough.
I was barely listening. My mind wandered somewhere between exhaustion and irritation.
Cleo sat two seats away, eyes dark and unreadable. There was something in her silence — heavy, sharp. I tried asking her earlier, but she brushed me off. That alone told me enough. Red, on the other hand, was doodling nonsense on her paper. Typical.
I used to envy her ability to stay light, to make everything look easy. But not today. Today, I just wanted the room to stop spinning.
The professor stood. “Pass your papers.”
I was up first. The sooner I got out, the better.
By the time I stepped into the hallway, my brain was already begging for caffeine. I could almost taste the coffee — until a hand gripped my shoulder.
I turned, slow and sharp.
The guy standing there was smiling like an i***t. “You changed your name,” he said, tilting his head slightly. “Didn’t know what to call you anymore.”
I stared. No reaction.
He chuckled awkwardly. “Should I be offended? You really don’t remember me?”
“I don’t remember being your friend,” I said flatly, moving past him.
But he followed. Persistent.
“Seventh grade. Class B, number thirteen,” he said quickly. “Jay Bret Corpuz — best friend of Raider Allen. I was the one who courted you for a year… before you chose him.”
My steps froze for half a second. Then I turned my head slightly, just enough to look at him. “That’s supposed to mean something to me?”
His smirk faltered.
“That only means,” another voice cut through the tension, “she was never into you.”
JA.
He walked toward us, slipped his arm over my shoulder like it belonged there.
I didn’t move. Didn’t need to. His arm was warm, steady — but it didn’t thaw anything.
Bret’s jaw tightened. “You don’t have to cling to her like that.”
I sighed through my nose. Men and their fragile egos.
Before either of them could puff up their chests, I placed my hand on JA’s waist and pulled him with me. The movement was controlled, deliberate. People stared as we passed — probably wondering why the girl with dead eyes looked like she was dragging her boyfriend to his execution.
We reached the parking lot. I turned and shoved JA lightly against the wall. He didn’t resist, just looked at me, calm but wary.
“Come with me,” I said.
He blinked. “Where?”
I didn’t answer. I walked to the car, started the engine, and waited.
He took a few seconds before opening the passenger door. The engine’s hum filled the silence when he finally asked, “Where are we going?”
“Maybe to your grave.”
He didn’t flinch — points for that.
I pressed the accelerator. The gates disappeared behind us.
I didn’t know where I was driving, and I didn’t care. I just needed distance — from the classroom, from the noise, from the version of me that almost remembered who Jay Bret Corpuz was.
Because if I stayed one more second in that building, I might’ve done something I’d regret.
And I was already too good at regret.
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I thought she was taking me somewhere else.
Turns out, she brought me back here — the same view deck where I took her the other night.
From up here, the city breathed in soft flickers. She stood by the railing, motionless, watching the world from above as if distance could make it quieter.
I leaned beside her, keeping my hands in my pockets, saying nothing. She’d been silent the whole drive here — eyes empty, thoughts somewhere far away.
When she finally spoke, her voice came out low, cracked around the edges.
“Every time I remember him,” she said, “or even just hearing his name… I feel like I’m dying. Again.”
It was the first thing she’d said since we got here.
And somehow, it pulled something from a place I thought I’d buried.
A memory — faint, jagged, but it still bleeds through sometimes.
A voice.
More than a year ago.
“s**t— I’m bleeding!”
The echo of feet slapping wet concrete. Three girls running — panic sharp in their throats. One of them clutching her stomach, another dragging her by the arm, the third aiming a trembling gun at the dark behind them.
Streetlights flickered. The smell of iron. The sound of someone gasping.
I crossed the road before I even thought to.
The weight of a hand — small, cold — when I caught her wrist to stop her from collapsing. The metallic warmth spreading through my shirt when I carried her on my back.
Someone was shouting behind me, but all I heard was the rhythm of her breathing — shallow, uneven.
She touched the scar on my neck. Reflex took over before reason.
“Don’t touch that,” my voice was sharp enough to cut through the chaos.
A second later, her hand slid down. Her head fell against my shoulder.
And then — silence.
It ended there. But the image stayed. The weight of her. The blood. The strange familiarity that shouldn’t have been there.
That girl was her.
I didn’t realize it until that night — when I kissed her again, here, in this same place.
The same air. The same scent of rain and metal.
She doesn’t remember any of it.
And maybe that’s for the best.
Because if she did, she’d start asking the kind of questions I don’t want to answer.
Her family and mine go way back — business ties that run deeper than they should. So learning that she’s the Davisons’ daughter was a shock. We never heard they had one. Or maybe, I just wasn’t supposed to know.
“Every time I remember him, or even just hearing his name… I feel like I’m dying. Again.”
I remembered she’d said that earlier — and before I knew it, I was asking,
“The name Bret mentioned earlier?”
Her head turned, eyes narrowing slightly. “You heard what I said?”
She didn’t even realize she’d spoken out loud.
I nodded once. Her gaze flicked away, fingers tugging at the hem of her sleeve — a small, unconscious movement, too human for someone who hides behind walls this high.
It’s strange. For someone so hard to reach, she’s too easy to read when she thinks no one’s watching.
And maybe that’s why I can’t stop looking.
She cracks — just a little — and I follow.
I don’t mean to. But something about her draws out every part of me I thought I’d sealed shut — the anger, the softness, the urge to understand what makes her burn the way she does.
Being near her is like standing too close to a fire. You tell yourself to step back, but your body doesn’t listen.
“Don’t cross the line, JA,” she murmured, eyes still fixed on the city below. “My life’s a mess.”
I looked at her profile — the curve of her jaw lit by the city glow, the steady rise and fall of her breath.
Too late.
“I already crossed that line a year ago,” I said quietly.
But only the wind heard it.
Out loud, I told her, “It’s hard not to. Especially when you’re this close.”
Her eyes flicked toward me — sharp, unguarded, almost soft — before she sighed, a bitter sound swallowed by the hum of the city.
“You saw the fight I had at UB, right?”
“You mean the one where you flattened that guy twice your size?” I smirked. “Yeah, kind of hard to forget.”
“That’s just a glimpse of my life.”
“Why? Because you kill people?”
Her glare was instant — cold enough to slice through humor.
I raised a hand in mock surrender. “Relax. Kidding.”
But deep down, I wasn’t. I’ve seen eyes like hers before — eyes that have looked death in the face and learned to stare back.
Even after realizing she’s the girl from more than a year ago, she’s still a mystery to me.
The corner of my mouth lifted.
“You’re impossible,” she muttered, shaking her head. “You ignore me half the time, then suddenly—”
“Now I’m here, talking. Smirking. Smiling.”
A short laugh escaped me — low, disbelieving. “For some reason, AJ, I keep forgetting the walls I built… because of you.”
Her gaze stayed on me longer than I was ready for.
It hasn’t been long since we met, but she’s already undone something in me. The silence I once lived in doesn’t fit anymore when she’s around. The control I prided myself on cracks whenever she looks at me like that — curious, broken, and still brave enough to stand.
She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s the girl I carried that night.
The girl who forgot me.
And the one I can’t stop remembering.
Maybe that’s why I can’t walk away — not yet.
Because for the first time, forgetting her feels harder than crossing the line.
- Writer
