Monday mornings were an absolute bitch.

Technically, they were a bitch on a good day, but on a day after a bone rattling nightmare and mental breakdown? That's where the 'absolute' in absolute bitch came in.

The scalding shower I'd immersed myself in did nothing to scrub away the memories of the nightmare, what could've been a repressed memory itself, but I needed to know more before I made a snap judgement.

This was my only family left, and I had to tread carefully. I couldn't lose them, too.

After the accident, my grandmother and grandfather on my mom's side ceased all contact with my father, and since I was my father's daughter, well... I was forbidden from contacting them much like he'd done to me with Jared and Eli.

Although, after last night, I wasn't sure where that no contact rule stood with Eli, but still.

My dad's parents were both dead, alcoholism killing my dad's father's liver and subsequently himself, and my grandmother on my dad's side passed away only about three years ago from heart failure. That one still stung my eyes with tears when memories of her pierced through my carefully constructed veil of protection against the harder emotions to deal with on any given day.

With grief, one learned how to cope in many different ways. There was compartmentalization, my favorite, which included not thinking about things you didn't want to think about at that moment, distracting yourself with more pertinent issues and then never thinking about them again (or trying to, at least).

Then there was the other option, the actual dealing with grief option. That one was still a little hard to grasp for me, but I promised myself that by twenty-five, I'd have it all handled like a well and true adult, feeling the feels for real instead of pretending they didn't exist and then hoping it would all just go away.

Okay, maybe that was denial, not compartmentalization, but hey- I was only eighteen. I still had seven years to master the art form of handling grief and its after effects.

With my mom, I used my dad as my anchor, and I guess he used me, too. With me gone for school, Kara and Sara had become his anchor and I was...adrift, I guess? Lost in the tide of students and the monotony of schoolwork, my only reprieve being singing and performing.

Thunder rocked me out of my thoughts, the light patter of rain beginning to pebble the roof with its footprints and picking my outfit of the day: jeans, a t shirt and sneakers, since my rain-boots were back home, nestled between my old Crocs and my formal heels.

"Hey, are you okay? You came in really late Saturday night and you hid under your covers all day yesterday and didn't really say a word. I figured I'd give you your privacy but I'm just hoping you weren't planning on skipping classes to mope again..."

I faced Hazel and her mop of red hair scooped up into an artfully mastered messy but atop her head, dressed in an outfit similar to that of my own to face the rainy day ahead.

She was right. Sunday had been wasted with Netflix in bed with a pint of ice cream in my mother's favorite mint chocolate chip flavor, which had subsequently become my favorite, naturally.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Promise. Just some family drama I don't want to bore you with. We still on for practice this afternoon? I have to leave early to make my five o'clock shift at the gym, so that gives us about two solid hours in the choir room."

"Yeah, sounds good to me. I think Bea wanted to go over her song and make sure we were keeping it on the setlist for our next show."

"Okay. Want to walk to first class together?"

Hazel agreed to walk together and share an umbrella in the monsoon that had decided to drop its unholy tons of water upon Miami, but just as we made it to the exit of the dorm building, my phone lit up with a call.

It was Jared, strangely enough.

I wanted to badly to ignore it, to send him to voicemail and then block his number completely, but then I grew worried that something could be wrong with my dad, and Kara was too caught up in helping him to be the one to call. His health had been falling at a considerably fast pace, and I would've killed myself if something happened to him and I just ignored everyone trying to let me know what happened.

"Hello?"

I motioned for Hazel to go ahead of me, pointing to my phone.

She waved goodbye just as Jared answered.

"Hey, are you okay? You seemed really...weird the other night. You're not...pregnant, are you?"

"What did you just ask me, Jared? I think something is going on with my phone, because I just know for a fact that my ex boyfriend who got with my cousin that lives with me and spread lies about me to my own family, then preceded to disrespect me further by staying at my house with said cousin did not just ask me what the fuck I thought you just asked me."

"Um...it's just that you never got sick once the entire time we were together. And the last time we, you know, was a few months ago and-"

"Let me stop you right there. You can keep your opinions and ideas about me out of your head. In fact, you don't even have to think about me at all. You made it clear what your agenda was after you lied about me to my family, so I don't see the point in continuing this conversation, and I am not even dignifying that with a response. Goodbye."

"Wait!"

I cut him off with the big red 'End' button, effectively blocking his phone number afterwards. There was no point in giving him that kind of access to me. I had no idea what he was playing, but I was no longer a pawn in whatever twisted scheme he'd cooked up with my cousin.

I had half a mind to block her ass too, but she was flesh and blood. She'd have to do something worse than tattle on me with falsehoods for me to completely disown her.

I definitely needed to do something about my weekend situation, though. There was no way I'd be returning if Jared was going to be staying the night there. I also needed a firm conversation with my father and Kara, because Sara couldn't get away with what she'd done to me.

I stared out into the courtyard filled with students rushing to their prospective buildings, rainwater collecting in splattering puddles and desperately dashing to find cover.

The winds howled, palm trees swayed and bent, lightning coated the cloud covered sky and thunder shook the ground beneath my feet.

Here goes nothing.

Two steps outside and I was soaked to the bone, drenched and in desperate need of a shower. Classes were going to be a nightmare...

And they were. As was practice with the band. Shivering in damp clothes with my hair stuck to my back in thick clumps, I almost preferred being outside in the rain because at least then the warm humid air didn't freeze dry my clothes to my skin, the air conditioning a blessing and a curse all at once.

One final mad dash across campus was all it took to make it to the gym, but it wasn't like I could stop in between buildings. Straight ahead and in the open was my only option.

Halfway through the trek, footsteps sounded behind me, a steady thump and splash, thump and splash of shoes in the puddles.

I turned my head just in time to see Eli directly beside me, dark hair coated in rainwater slicking its way down his tanned skin and if I wasn't already soaking wet from the rain, well...

More powerful than the shimmering and neon lights in the sky from the bolts of lightning ricocheting in all directions, his gaze on me even in the middle of a torrential downpour was impossible to ignore.

Was this what I'd been missing? All that time, wasted with Jared, and there was this...connection, this bond, this missing link that existed between the two of us like a glowing tether combining us into something that I was nearly terrified of exploring for fear that he'd hurt me just as much as Jared had, or worse- more, because I'd never felt for Jared half the things I felt for Eli, and I barely knew him.

What would happen if I let him in- really let him in, and he didn't like the monsters he saw hiding in plain sight, right underneath the surface of a sarcastic and easygoing facade?

"Hey," he shouted over the dull roar of wind and rain, eyes squinted against the storm's assault.

"Come on," he instructed, grabbing my hand and pulling me closer to the gym, stopping off under an alcove of the nearest building for a reprieve.

Panting, I attempted to catch my breath, but that was a feat all on its own, especially when in such close proximity with Eli, his head tilted down to catch my gaze as an easy smirk fell onto those lush lips, drips of rain sliding down his smooth skin, stuck in between the thick blanket of eyelashes, clinging onto his hair, the shade so deep when it was wet it was almost black, just like my own.

"What are you doing out here without an umbrella?"

His arms came around to my shoulders, rubbing them up and down almost soothingly, but in his touch's wake all that came from it were shudders of pleasure and delight that his skin was on mine and suddenly the atmosphere between us grew more intense, desire puncturing the veil of our carefully curated distance.

"Uh, Hazel had our only one. She didn't have to go to the gym, so..."

Breathy and weak, my voice embarrassed me, but there was a switch in Eli's temperament, like before, he was being very gentleman-like, but after hearing me speak, so did his intentions.

Maybe it was the way my eyes couldn't stop roaming up and down the sculpted perfection of his physique in the white t-shirt that practically molded itself onto his torso...

Or maybe it was the way his eyes did the same to my own body, because even in a dark blue t-shirt, the material stuck to me like cling-wrap, displaying every dip and curve and swell in achingly vibrant detail.

"You could've called me," he said, pulling me closer with his hands still on his shoulders and I obliged, knees like jelly under the weight of his touch.

"Yeah but..."

I couldn't formulate what I could've responded with, the rain seeping his cologne off of him and as I inhaled the perfect mixture of expensive cologne with a woodsy and clean scent combined with the weather, I was pure putty in his hands.

"But?"

His hands slid down my shoulders, resting lightly on my hips as his head dipped, forehead dipping down to touch my own.

The searing trail of fire his hands followed along my body could've burned my clothes entirely off of my body right then and there and I wouldn't have cared one bit.

His question. Right, I still hadn't answered his question...

"We hardly know each other, I would've felt w-weird asking you that," I responded, stuttering on my words while trying to keep my cool, even as one hand of his abandoned my hip and found its way to my chin, tilting it up so that my eyes were laser focused on his own.

"Well then why don't we change that? I'm free after practice. I can stay with you during your shift, if that's allowed?"

"I-uh, yeah...I can ask Maddie. That would be cool."

I gulped down the butterflies that threatened to escape my stomach through my throat at the sight of his gleaming grin up close and personal, and all because of the fact that I said it was cool if he could hang out with me.

"Good," he said, other hand returning to my hip while he pulled me directly into his toned and hard body, radiating warmth and electricity that couldn't be extinguished.

I had no idea what to do with my hands, not until I said fuck it and looped them around his waist, something he definitely approved of if the rumble of appreciation in my ear was any indication.

My head landed firmly between his peck muscles, and thank goodness for being on the taller side because had I been a foot shorter like my friends, I'd have been hugging his abs, not like that was a terrible place to be hugging but...

His muscles flexed under my touch, and I had never been so affected by a hug before in my entire life. What were we, in sixth grade again? But it was refreshing, because a simple hug with Eli was stronger in intensity than even going all the way with Jared had ever been, and I didn't know what to do about that, at all.

But when he tugged me close into his side for our last run to the gym, his hands all over me and drowning in all the new sensualities he had brought out of me, I knew that I was way in over my head.

🎵🎵🎵

💜