Read Online Hardcore Volume 3 by Staci Hart - Free Book Online

sun was high that afternoon and even though there was a chill, I’d pulled off my hoodie and stuffed it in my pack as we ran. I followed Erin around air ducts on a cluster of roofs where we’d been playing, mimicking her movement as she wound and tricked around them, flipping and posing. She dove between vents and rolled, took off to run up a wall and into a backflip. I skidded to a stop, laughing as I tried to catch my breath, and pulled my water bottle out of my pack.  
    She smiled as she paced around, waiting for me with her hands on her hips. She took off again as soon as I was ready to follow.  
    “Let’s hit Pier 84, yeah?” Erin called over her shoulder.
    “Yeah.” We took off toward Chelsea, spanning block after block until Erin slowed to a stop at a ledge, chest heaving as she looked across the street. I stepped to the edge and froze when I saw what she was looking at.
    Workers in cherry pickers were hanging banners on the light posts for an art show at a nearby gallery, an urban art collection featuring artists from all over the city. But that wasn’t what hit me in the chest. It was the billboard that hung on the building across the street.
    It was one of the photos from Van’s gallery, one of him, I knew. His features were shrouded in shadows as he hung off a building, hundreds of feet over the city, but I could feel him, recognized every curve of his body. My heart ached at the sight, kicking up everything that had happened just when I thought the dust was settling. That fifteen-foot image of him was just more than I could handle.  
    I shook my head and bolted. Erin was on my heels as we ran through Chelsea, though my joy had been stolen, my mind agonizing over the past, over the things I couldn’t change, the mistakes I’d made in a sick loop as I ran my body into the ground.

    Erin didn’t ask me to talk about it, and I was grateful. I spent the rest of the day in virtual silence, participating as minimally as possible without calling any more attention to myself, but I’d retreated into the gnarled mess of my mind.  
    During dinner, I grabbed another piece of pizza from the box and leaned back in my chair as I took a bite, listening to everyone talk. Laughter rolled through everyone, and I watched Jill, smiling and happy, maybe happier than I’d ever seen her. She had a lightness about her, like the weight of our past had fallen away to let her shine. Seeing that made everything worth it.
    I was still shaken from the run and swallowed the pizza like a stone. I thought I was better. Getting over it. But he drifted in and out of my thoughts as he always did. The longing for him — and my regret — kept me hanging on. Everyone said it would just take time, though part of me never wanted to get over it. It was a reminder of what I’d done, a scar to ache when it rained. But I couldn’t keep going on this way.
    There was too much left unsaid, the unfinished business of my full confession. I wished I’d begged. But by sparing him, I punished myself to the point that I couldn’t move on.  
    I picked up my plate, and Jill and Erin tracked me as I laid my dish in the sink and ducked out of the room, though neither of them followed or spoke to me. When I stepped into my bedroom, I closed the door behind me and sat in bed, folding my legs under me. I reached for my notebook and pen on my nightstand, opening to the first blank page.
    There was so much I wanted to say to him. The truth of our circumstance. The apology in my heart. But he said to stay away, and I did. If it were me, I would expect the same respect. But I had to tell him without telling him, had to get the words out of my heart.
    When my pen touched the paper, it flew, the words coming fast and heavy along with my tears. It was a purge, the emotion slipping out of me, down my cheeks, across the page. It was for me just as much as it was for him. Maybe more.  
    I signed my name and laid down my pen, eyes squeezed shut as I dropped my