Awake (Reflections Book 3) Read online

  Awake

  Copyright © 2021 by A.L. Woods

  All rights reserved.

  Photography: Boyko Viacheslav

  Cover Design and Interior Formatting: Ana Beatriz Cabús Rangel, instagram.com/_yumenohana_

  Editor: Bettye-Lynn Underwood, Red Pen Edits

  redpeneditsbyblu.com

  Proofread by: Maggie Kern – Ms. K Edits

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ISBN-13: 979-8714798900

  Also by A.L. WOODS

  Mirrors

  Shattered

  Playlist

  “Again” by Sasha Sloan

  “Reciprocation” by Whale Bones

  “Auld Lang Syne” by Chloe Adams

  “Wasted” by Decade

  “Last Year” by Gavin Jones

  “Better” by Jordy Searcy

  “Ready Yet” by Sasha Sloan

  “I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)” by The 1975

  “Quite Miss Home” by James Arthur

  “Memorials” by LAUREL

  “Fuck” by Bring Me The Horizon

  “Break My Heart Again” by FINNEAS

  “What If” by Rhys Lewis

  “hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have - but I have it” by Lana Del Rey

  “You Be Tails, I’ll Be Sonic” by A Day To Remember

  “Runaway” by Sasha Sloan

  “You & Me” by Memphis May Fire

  “Time Won’t Wait” by DEADTHRONE

  “Another Life: Motion Picture Collection” by Motionless In White feat. Kerli

  “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac

  “Open Water” by blessthefall feat. Lights

  “you were good to me” by Jeremy Zucker and Chelsea Cutler

  “Always” by Saliva

  “I miss you, I’m sorry” by Gracie Abrams

  “Long Night” by With Confidence

  “Don’t Cry” by Emarosa

  “Save Yourself” by Make Them Suffer

  “Boston” by Augustana

  “Sleep” by Citizen

  “To Fall Asleep” by Holding Absence

  Scan this code to access the playlist on Spotify

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Everyone treats you differently when they think you’re broken.

  Staring at the open wounds in my palms, I stood under the abrasive hot stream of water in the shower. Every time I opened and closed my hands, a shock of pain would shoot through me. Water settled into the recesses of the cuts. I let it build there like a dam, only to tilt my hands upward and watch the water run rivulets down the length of my arms.

  What a fucking mess the last couple of weeks had been.

  I was being forced to take a leave of absence till the end of the year. I didn’t think my boss, Earl, had it in him to swing down the axe, but I was wrong. I was still bleary-eyed from the impromptu nap I had taken, when on our way out of the building, Earl had pulled me aside and issued the sentence. The implication hadn’t dawned on me until today, four days later.

  Despite the care he exuded in the boardroom, Sean hadn’t spoken to me much since. We were so far out of the honeymoon stage, we may have been teetering on that fine edge of Splitsville. I didn’t like to think about it, and out of instinct, my palm curled shut, the tips of my nails digging into the wound. I welcomed the spearing pain that shot through me, the sensation dulling the urges in my mind to think about all the things I didn’t want to. When I concentrated on the pain, everything else turned into white noise in the background.

  Still, it felt weird to not be working every day. Not having a purpose, or something to do. Being at the mercy of someone else. After the nightmare reveal, I had spent the first two days in a catatonic state, alternating between staring at the ceiling and staring at a small scuff on the wall of Sean’s bedroom. He flitted in and out of the room, sometimes staring at me from the threshold of the door. Other times, he crawled into bed with me and melded his body against mine, whispering things to me in Portuguese not meant to be understood. Most of the time, though, it felt like there was an ocean between us on his king-sized bed. On the third day, he told me to shower; I didn’t. On the fourth day, he threatened to put me in the shower himself.

  I considered defying him just to see if he would, but given he said it with no mirth, I realized doing so would simply be an infantile way to try to garner his attention again. I was a mess, and while he assured me for days that things hadn’t changed, I couldn’t shake the feeling that they had.

  Ducking my head into the stream, I welcomed the hot barrage of water against my scalp that felt more like bullets. I hoped like hell it would clear out the anxiety-induced cobwebs from my mind. I didn’t like that the ground beneath my feet felt like scaling uneven terrain with sandals, my ankles in jeopardy of rolling.

  There was so much uncertainty in what was next. A week ago, I thought I was closer to having it all figured it out. Now, I wasn’t so sure.

  I barely heard the soft rap of knuckles on the bathroom door, having thought I was alone in the house. Startled, I stepped out of the stream of water, sticking my head through a sliver of a crack between the tiled wall and shower curtain.

  “Yeah?” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d said more than a few words. My vocal cords felt rusty, the sound garbled.

  I sensed hesitation through the bathroom door and over the harsh hiss of water from the shower head. “Can I come in?”

  Releasing my grip on the translucent curtain, I turned to the faucet and killed the water. I didn’t know how long I’d been in there, but I was inwardly grateful that the scalding water hadn’t run out.

  I cleared my throat. “Yeah.”

  The steam rushed through the door once it opened, billowing past him in hot plumes. Once again, my fingers curled around the shower curtain until I retracted the shower liner just enough to see him. I’d overheard Trina tell him he looked like shit yesterday from the bedroom. If looking like shit meant that he still looked edible in worn-in work jeans and another T-shirt snug around his biceps, then yeah—he looked abysmal.

  I knew she was referring to the bags under his eyes. The ones that hadn’t existed before my appearance in his life. Shame set off a slow burn through me, my gaze avoiding his.

  “I’m heading out.” From the corner of my eye, I saw his hands find his pockets. “Call me if you need anything.”

  “How…” I fought the raw sound from my throat. Drawing a fortifying breath that burned in my lungs, I attempted the sentence again. “How was Livy’s show last night?”

  The one I had planned to attend
so that today I could write my story and meet my deadline. I hated that I had to ask how it went, that I hadn't been there to see it myself. Never mind the awkward situation I imagined I had placed him in with his family with what would have been my noticeable absence. Perhaps I should have gone to the show as a spectator even if I wasn’t covering the story anymore, but until this morning, I hadn’t been able to extract myself from his bed.

  With nothing to distract my mind from the ineffable pain, my thoughts saddled me. Everything hurt too much.

  Sean cleared his throat, summoning my attention. “Before or after the level five meltdown backstage?”

  “Oh, no.” My stomach sank.

  He gave me a weak attempt at a half-smile. “She got it together. It was stage fright.”

  “Stage fright? She seemed so confident when we met.” I tried to match his smile, the corners of my mouth turning upward, my eyes searching his.

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “People always appear one way until we get to know them.” His smile slipped. We both sucked in a breath as the statement percolated between us. I couldn’t keep the wounded look off my face before he noticed. “Shit, that’s not what I meant.” He stepped forward into the bathroom.

  The shower liner slid from my grasp, drifting back into place like a defensive shroud between us. I could make out his tall frame through the translucent thin barrier. His exhale was sharp, his thoughts loud, even though he didn’t speak for some time.

  His fingertips grazed the sheer liner. “That’s not how I meant it, baby.”

  My eyes stung; my throat worked to clear the thickness rife with emotion. Not this shit again. No, I was over my quota of tears for the rest of the year. I flipped the faucet back on, the water drowning out the tremble in my voice. “You’re going to be late for work.”

  He sensed my tactic before the water could even get hot again. The shower curtain jerked back, catching me by surprise. My eyes mirrored my gaping mouth as I watched him step into the tub from over my shoulder, clothed.

  “What are you doing?”

  He concentrated his focus on me as he closed the small distance between us, getting caught by the rushing stream of water. “Fuck work.” He turned me around to face him, droplets of water beading at his eyelashes. His clothes were like cling wrap against his skin, hugging every dip and swell of his body. He brushed my hair away from my face, palming my cheek.

  His thumb found my lower lip, swiping it back and forth. “Are you upset with me?”

  Alarm colored my face when I caught the worry in his eyes. I shook my head, the friction of the pad of his finger against my bottom lip shooting currents of electricity through me.

  Well, there was one part of me that wasn’t dormant, even if the rest of me felt like it was offline.

  “You can say that you are,” he murmured. His eyes were half lidded as he found a steady rhythm of sweeping his thumb back and forth.

  “And if I was, then I would.”

  “I’d deserve it.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because you’ve been distant, and I know it’s because of the way I acted. I don’t know what you’re thinking about,” he said, his finger paused in the middle of my bottom lip. He tugged it down gently, only to release and watch it spring back into place. One of his hands slid to my hair, my body stiffening under the motion. I couldn’t help but think that the last person who’d touched my hair that way had used it to hurt me.

  My reaction didn’t escape his notice, his fingers easing my anxiety with a gentleness that set off a burn that misted my eyes with the tears I was fighting and refusing to let fall. The tips of his fingers massaged my scalp with feathery light motions that made my eyes grow heavy.

  Then his hand lowered, and I felt his palm against my chest, sliding until the thrumming of my racing heart was a pulse in his own hand flush with my chest. The gesture smarted an ache that invaded my body. I draped a hand over his, trying to dull the sting. “I’m not distant. I’m right here.”

  “Is this where you want to be?”

  I blinked the water away that lined my lashes, gazing up at him. That fraught worry was like a thick ring around the depths of his russet eyes, my heart sinking till I thought I felt it hit the porcelain of the tube. This is where I wanted to be.

  “Hemingway...” He hesitated. He licked his lips through a small opening in his mouth. We stood there suspended in silence, with nothing but my heartbeat against his warm palm to fill the void. “I thought…I was…”

  The depth of his unspoken guilt was palpable, making me wrench away his hand from my chest. Confusion hit his eyes as his arm fell back to his side. I didn’t need him to touch me if he was about to issue a punishing blow. The contact would have me unraveling at his feet, and I would not let it spur another breakdown. I straightened in my spot, drawing in a breath that didn’t quite reach my lungs.

  “You thought what?” I asked.

  His brows bent inward. “I thought I was going to lose you.”

  That wasn’t what I thought he was going to say. “Lose me?”

  His lips flattened, his nod faint. He flicked his gaze toward the eddies that swirled near the drain. Discomfort etched itself into the small lines of his face, as if he was digesting a thought he didn’t like beyond the shackled confines of his own mind.

  “Sean?”

  His gaze landed on mine. His jaw worked back and forth. “What?” he gritted, sniffling. I reached for his hand, scissoring our fingers together.

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  His laugh was dry, an incredulity decorating his face. “You sure about that?”

  “None of this has been about you,” I hedged, my fingers finding the hemline of his soaked shirt, his body warm under my touch. His nostrils flared under the contact, his gaze dropping to watch. He felt so hard under my roaming hands, and a sense of safety enveloped me under each drag of my palms against his stomach. “I’m just working through a lot of shit in my head.”

  His throat contracted into a swallow as he swept my hair off my shoulders, his knuckles brushing against my temple. “And you can’t let me know what’s going on in there?”

  I dropped my gaze. How did I admit that what happened with Cash had broken my heart without him misinterpreting it for being something else? How did I tell him I was ashamed that I’d been so blind? That I’d trusted Cash. I got into bed with the devil, and in turn, he got into bed with my sister. My mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out. The gnawing burn returned behind my eyelids, floating downward until it radiated behind my chest. My next breath came out in a sharp inhale that he hadn’t missed.

  “Just say it.” He swept his wet hair back, sending droplets of water into the air. “Whatever it is.”

  “I never thought he was capable of this, or that I…”

  Sean’s expression hardened, but he didn’t fight me. His hands settled on my shoulders, the friction of his thumbs raking back and forth a balm on my mind.

  “That I could be so willfully blind to what everyone else saw before me,” I completed. I was grateful for the harsh flow of water from the shower head that beat down on my back. I tucked myself under the heavy current of water, letting the stream lave over my thoughts and take the tears I had been fighting with it. It would never wash away the shame, though.

  “Stop hiding from me.” He pulled me out from under the cascade I tried to hide in. “Let me see you.”

  Gravel lined my trachea as I lifted my eyes to meet his. Every time I looked up at him this way, it was like looking at him for the very first time. It overwhelmed me.

  “People we believe are loyal disappoint us.” Sean’s thumbs swept across my cheeks. How he knew what to wipe away was a mystery to me. “Sometimes, our hearts want to trust them so much that we ignore what’s going on to protect ourselves.”

  “That makes me pathetic,” I said.

  “No, baby. You’re not weak at all,” he gently replied. He searched my face, uncertainty tingein
g his expression.

  I’d had enough disappointment to last a lifetime. I didn’t want any more, and I didn’t feel like thinking any more, either. My fingers curled at the hemline of his shirt, pushing it up. The wet material squelched when it bunched together. He tracked my movements until his hand came upon mine. He pulled the sopping T-shirt from over his head and tossed it on top of the bar that kept the shower curtain upright.

  Rivulets of water rolled down his chest, breaking through the smattering of dark hair on his skin, and raced down the contours of his abs until colliding with the waistline of his jeans. Reaching for his belt, he caught my hands in his. His eyes were as tight on me as his hand was, as if reading my mind. “Let’s give it a few more days.”

  Chagrin overtook my expression, my shoulders rounding to my ears. “Why?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut, expelling a breath that sounded pained. His hands found my waistline, guiding me until I felt the solid warmth of the tiles against my ass and spine. His hard body framed mine, bracing himself with one outstretched arm against the shower wall, the other wrapped around my middle. I could feel the wild charge of his heartbeat behind his chest, his head dropping to a rest on my shoulder.

  My voice was nearly lost in the rushing of water from the shower head. “You don’t want to fuck the broken girl, right?”

  “You’re not broken.” He deepened his hold on me, as if he could suffocate the thought out of me. “That’s not what I’m saying.” The bass in his tone was a low grumble against my shoulder blade, the pads of his fingers digging into my side like he was exerting his control. “And you know that’s not what I’m saying.”