She placed her foot on the edge of the tub and bent over, running the loofah down her leg slowly and playfully, knowing what she was doing to me with her fake, innocent little smiles.

The rainfall shower fell over her body, but her hair wasn’t wet, since she had it tied up in a loose bun. And despite my growing erection under the sheets and the smell of her body wash filling the room, I stayed put, just watching her.

The reward for my patience would come soon enough.

Sometimes, I just had to watch her. I had to keep my eyes on her, because it was still so hard to believe that she was real. That she was here and mine.

I’d asked myself a thousand times how we got here. How we found each other and made it here.

She would say that it was Devil’s Night.

Without the events of that night, I wouldn’t have challenged her. She wouldn’t have learned how to be strong and fight back or how to own who she was and save herself.

We wouldn’t have been locked palm to palm, trying to push the other one down, and we wouldn’t have made each other the people we were now. Everything happens for a reason, she would say.

She would say that I built her. That I created a monster, and that somewhere during the blood, tears, struggle, and pain, we realized that it was love. That all sparks lead to a flame.

But what she failed to remember was…our story started long before that night.

I stand outside my new G-class, leaning back against it with my arms folded over my chest. I have shit to do and places to be, and I don’t have time for this.

Turning over my palm, I look down at my phone and the text from my mom again.

Stuck in the city, and Edward is busy. Pick up Rika from soccer practice, please? 8 p.m.

I roll my eyes and check the time on the phone. Eight-fourteen. Where the hell is she?

Kai, Will, and Damon are already at the party, and I’m late, because why? Oh, yeah. I guess being sixteen and finally getting my fucking license means playing chauffeur to thirteen-year-olds whose mothers can’t get off their drunken asses to pick them up.

Rika walks out of the soccer complex, still dressed in her red and white uniform and leg pads, and stops, seeing me standing there.

Her eyes are red as if she’s been crying, and I can tell by the way she stiffens that she’s uncomfortable.

She’s scared of me.

I hold back my smile. I kind of like how she’s always aware of me even if I would never admit it out loud.

“Why are you picking me up?” she asks softly, her hair pulled back in a ponytail with fly-aways floating around her face.

“Believe me,” I shoot out sarcastically. “I’ve got better things to do. Get in.”

And I turn around to open my door and climb in the car.

I start the engine, shifting it into gear as if I’m not going to wait for her, and I see her walk hurriedly around the front and open the passenger door, climbing in.

She puts on her seatbelt and stares at her lap, remaining silent.

She looks upset, but I don’t think it has anything to do with me.

“Why are you crying?” I demand, trying to act like I don’t care if she answers me or not.

Her chin shakes, and she puts her hand to her neck, touching the fresh scar from the accident that killed her father only a couple of months ago. “The girls were making fun of my scar,” she says quietly.

And then she turns her eyes on me, looking hurt. “Is it really that ugly?”

I look at it, feeling anger. I could get those girls to shut up.

But I push down my emotions and shrug, acting like her feelings don’t matter.

“It’s big,” I answer, pulling out of the parking lot.

She turns back around, her shoulders slumping in sadness as she drops her head.

So fucking broken.

I mean, yeah, she lost her dad recently, and her mom is caught up in her own misery and selfishness, but every time I see Rika, she looks like a feather that will blow away with the slightest breeze.

Get over it already. Crying’s not going to help.

She continues to sit quietly, so small next to me, since I’m nearly six feet now. And while Rika isn’t short, she looks like something that has melted and is about to disappear altogether.

I shake my head, checking my phone again for the time. Damn, I was late.

But then I hear a horn blow, and I pop my eyes up, seeing taillights race for me. “Shit!” I bellow, slamming on the brakes and jerking the steering wheel to the side.

Rika sucks in a breath and grabs the door as I spot a car stopped in the middle of the country road and another one swerving up ahead of me and then speeding off. I come to a screeching halt off to the side, both of our bodies pushing against our seatbelts with the sudden stop.

“Jesus,” I bark, seeing a woman kneeling in the street. “What the hell?”

The taillights of the other car grow smaller and smaller in the distance, and I look over my shoulder, not seeing any other cars coming.

Opening the door, I step out of the car, hearing Rika do the same behind me.

I walk over to the middle in the road, and as I get closer, I see what the woman is hovering over.

“I can’t believe that asshole just drove off,” she fumes, turning around to look at me.

A dog, barely alive, lies in the road, whimpering as it struggles for short, shallow breaths. There’s blood spilling out of its stomach, and I can see some of its insides.

It’s just a little guy, some kind of Spaniel, and my stomach rolls, hearing its strangled breathing.