But also that I was done being the other woman.

I wanted to be the only woman.

Yes, I had slept with someone else while trying to move on with my life. But that had been my choice. Did I wish I had known the truth? Yes. Would knowing it have made me wait for Knight? Maybe. But I hadn’t done anything wrong, and he couldn’t keep holding a grudge like it was the end of a cliff he was dangling from. He had to let go. He had to. For our happiness.

I wanted to kiss him again. To open my legs for him—again. Let him lick and bite and taunt me. Let him punish me and cherish me. He was my everything. My only sin was fighting what we had because I’d thought I wasn’t worthy.

When I arrived at the treehouse, I dropped my backpack against the trunk and toed my Vans off. As I climbed up, I realized the light inside was on. Knight was here.

Chipped bark dug into my nails as I grasped the trunk hard, knocked back by the sight in front of me.

Knight.

Knight and Poppy.

He’d brought her here.

To our spot.

Not only had he brought her here, but they were both naked. Completely naked. He was lying on top of her, removing locks of hair from her neck, kissing it softly, his glorious, tan body enfolding hers. His triceps and broad back bulged with perfect muscles, and his tousled, brown hair fell across her face. She arched her back, her breasts full and lily white, meeting his pecs.

They looked like a beautiful dream and my own ugly nightmare. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. He was losing his virginity. To Poppy.

He was giving to her what he didn’t want to give to me.

He wasn’t done making me pay. At this moment, I wasn’t sure he ever would be.

“You feel so good,” Poppy moaned into Knight’s mouth.

I shivered. I wanted to throw up. I needed to throw up. God, make it stop. They couldn’t do this. It was wrong on so many levels. He didn’t love her. He cheated on her. With me.

“I want you inside me.” She rolled her hips toward him again, and I didn’t dare look down and see him bare, aligning himself with her.

“Sunshine,” he croaked.

Of course—the sun was stronger, bigger, and more important than the moon.

Knowing when to accept defeat, I’d learned, was an art. Giving up too fast was cowardly. But not giving up when all the signs pointed to long-lasting heartache was dangerous, too.

I could no longer afford to put my heart on the line.

Once upon a time, Knight had been my protector.

But nowadays? Nowadays, he was the very thing I needed protection from.

And the person to shield me from him was myself.

Years of being noiseless had taught me how to slip into places without making a sound. I could be eerily quiet. The irony was, the same silence that had helped me go up undetected also helped me climb down from that tree without making a sound. When my feet hit the soft ground, I wobbled to the farthest corner I could find, deep in the woods, and threw up against a tree trunk, ripping chipped bark off of it with my fingers.

I didn’t stop until my stomach was empty and my fingernails were gone.

Knight (Two days ago): When are you leaving 4 Boon?

Knight (Two days ago): Sup with you, L?

Knight (One day ago): Someone call ghostbusters, Moonshine just learned how to ghost.

Knight (One day ago): insert five emojis of a ghost

Knight (Three hours ago): Your dad just told me you flew to Boon yesterday. What the fuck? Are we playing this game again?

Knight (Three hours ago): Fuck you, Luna. Fuck you.

I hadn’t meant to pick up her call.

Unfortunately, life was hell-bent on fucking me in the ass, sans lube, the day I answered.

And in the great scheme of things, did it really matter?

Also, at least Dixie was alive. Val wasn’t.

Also, I was in no position to make a decision about my next meal, let alone my long-lost biological mother.

Also, was this an earthquake, or had I really drunk enough to make the world spin like the teacups in Disneyland?

Mom had been taken to the hospital again, and after spending two nights in a row under harsh florescent lights watching her wasting away, I took the Aston Martin for a ride. So far, so normal—only I did it with a bottle of my old, destructive friend, Jack Daniels.

The bottle was empty by the time I reached the beach.

It was cold, windy, and well past ten at night. I was pretty much alone, which was a relief and a lonesome curse. I threw the bottle into the ocean and screamed at the endless horizon until my lungs burned. How tauntingly beautiful and deceiving the world could be. With its palm trees and stupid oceans and Spanish villas and poisonous women who look like Nymphs rising from the water.

Woman. Not plural. Just the one.

I told myself the drinking problem I was unabashedly flirting with had nothing to do with Luna and everything to do with Mom. But that was bullshit, even to my own ears. First of all, I wasn’t flirting with the problem anymore. I’d moved in with the bitch, and put a ring on it.

Second, it had everything to do with Luna. Everything.

Fucking Luna, who’d just bailed.

Fucking Luna, who always went hot and cold on my ass, and I kept on coming back for more. After screwing FUCKING JOSH. After kissing Vaughn. And Daria, too. Shit, why was I so happy she’d let me finger her cunt? She’d probably seen more dicks than a public urinal.