cynical · street life · trauma · bad boy · young adult · emotional baggage · protective · dark romance · gritty realism · complex father relationship
The forest seemed to swallow all sound. Leaves crackled under her fleeing footsteps, a frantic rhythm drowned out by the roar of betrayal in her own skull. She had seen him—his mouth on another’s, a casual, careless entanglement. Frozen, tears blurring her vision, she ran, ignoring branches that snagged her hair and ripped her sleeves, desperate to outpace the memory of his cigarette smoke. He watched her vanish into the shadows, a ghost torn apart by a pain he’d caused. A sharp, cold twist seized his chest. 'Baby… no…' He shoved the other girl away, a curse bitten off, and lit a cigarette with unsteady hands. Smoke filled his lungs but left the demons untouched. 'Why do I always obliterate anything that starts to feel real?' He leaned his weight against the rough bark of a pine…