Eighteen.

I don't know what to do with the knowledge about Ben.

I know what I should do.

But I shy away from opening myself up to judgement like that, so choose to stitch myself back up and either pretend he's invisible, or severely injure him should he choose to ever speak to me again.

It's not long before I have to make that decision.

There's a house party on my side of town. Paul's cousin from the local college has ended up with most of his year—and mine—trashing his uncle's place. Cullen is here. So is Sam, mooning over Rose, and Angie pretending she's not into Paul. Something I think she should probably give up before it turns sour. He's infamous for once working his way through the alphabet of girls. He's likely back to the start, so Angie should beware.

Cullen is leaning up against the wall, can of Carling in hand. He's relaxed and laughing at whatever Sam is saying. I watch him as much as I can without it seeming weird. He's moving from the outside, slowly settling as part of our group. A fact I'm happy about, until shades of green jealously blur the edges. I covet the times where no one knew him apart from me. I don't feel like I've had him long enough for others to steal him away. I see the other girls, swaying with booze, eyes fluttering, sliding over to him, lingering and trying to catch his attention. He doesn't seem to notice them, but his attention falls on me every so often, as if he's checking I'm still there.

The music's too loud to think, a few decibels from the police being called. Bodies are crammed into the small room, simmering sweat and intoxication. I've gravitated back toward Cullen, we hold up the wall together while I fill him in on who is who. I'm not sure he cares, but it's making him dip his head down close to my lips to hear me, so I keep talking. I'm not drunk, but I feel it near him, every sway of bodies to the music presses us closer, his aftershave making me crazy enough to want to bury my face in the warmth of his neck. I steady myself by holding his arm, then a hand against the thin cotton of his T-shirt. I feel like a piece of jetsam being bounced about on the waves, but Cullen is an unmovable cliff face.

Ben's appearance at the edge of the crowd sends a tidal wave crashing from the sudden change in Cullen's demeanour. He's an elastic band stretched, a flicker of tension in his jaw as he stands taller. I don't want him to snap. I catch Sam and Angie's attention and widen my eyes, flicking them to the doorway. They both look back and forth between the two opposite sides of the room, frozen in place, trying to guess which is going to blow first. I try my best to put out Cullen's fuse.

"Let's get out of here." I take his hand and tug him out of the sliding door, on to the patio which is slick with rain. I didn't expect Ben to come to this side of town, it's not his scene. I wasn't his scene. Just the girl he loved to play around with but never one to take home to his mum.

"We don't have to leave you know." He drops my hand and stops, the empty clouds still dripping on us.

"I don't want to get into anything," I say, and wrap my arms around myself, my jacket still inside. "That's all."

"You won't," he says, but I don't like the singularity of it.

"Please, let's just get out of here. I'm tired anyway."

He throws one last glance back to the direction of the party, and concedes, following me around the side of the house and out past the drunk and drunker, friends and strangers on the front lawn. A gang of lads have gathered around a red car, it's raspy engine purrs and pours acrid smoke, which obliterates the smell of fresh rain. Base from the backseat rumbles through the soles of my feet and the pit of my stomach.

I keep walking past, not even giving them a second thought, until the one who's leaning up against the driver side with night-black clothes and even darker hair, whistles long and low in my direction. I pretend I didn't hear, and his interest dances over me and lands on someone else. "Whoa." He laughs but it's not friendly. "Long time no see, E."

I've already got six or seven paces away when I hear Cullen respond. "Could've been longer, Jay. What you doing here?"

I stop and turn around as Cullen leans in to talk to the catcaller. They drop their voices below the music, and the group seems to shift and change, enclosing them both like the jaws of a monster. It's this that keeps me from returning to his side.

Hushed whispers with sharp edges escape into the cold night. I shiver, the raindrops on my skin sharpen like icicles in the wind. A minute or so passes, before their attention turns back to the girl hovering in the dark. The dark stranger tilts his head to me with a wolf's smile, muttering something. Cullen's laugh is acid as he gives a dismissive shake of his head. A gesture that makes my bones feel weighed down with cement. "She's just one in a long line." He shrugs, and they all laugh.

"She likes bad boys? Send her over my way when you've finished." They all laugh like hyenas, and I want to rip them apart.

But I've lost all my energy. I've put too much in him.

'Screw you," is all I can muster, but it falls flat and breaks on the pavement under more laughter.

I take a step back, dragging my leaden feet, finding it difficult to remember how to make my lungs work. I turn my back on them. Cullen shouts; his words slam into my back like stones. "Not today, sweetheart."

I dash across the lawn, walk through the front door of the house, push past Ben and his gang, and find Rose pressed up against the wall with a random sucking on her neck like a vampire. She pushes him away as soon as she sees my face.

"I need to go." I can't suck the air in fast enough.

"Okay, okay."

She tells me to wait by a tall pot plant that hasn't been watered in months. I stare at its browning and curled up leaves imagining my insides reacting the same until she returns with Sam and Angie. They ask me over and over what's happened, but I shake my head. Not because I don't want to talk about it, but because I don't know.

I should feel something—anger, disappointment—but all I get is the ache of a bruise where expectation used to be.

Turns out he's a carbon copy of the rest of them.

I should have seen straight through him.

AN: Thank you for reading xx

Kim and Choc drop everything to read over these chapters for me. I can never be thankful enough for them. They're gold stars. x