Rain's POV
I watch them from across the street, parked in the backseat of a sleek black car I didn't pay for, clutching the steering wheel with nails bitten to the quick. They don't see me. They never do.
Ava's laughter rings out—loud, bubbly, too sweet for a girl who was born of betrayal. She's clinging to Sebastian's arm like a kitten, practically climbing up him, and he lets her. He smiles. That terrifying, rare smile that used to flicker for me once in a blue moon—he gives it to her like it's candy.
She kisses his cheek. Again. Again. As if she owns him.
She wears that ridiculous oversized hoodie like it's armor. His hoodie. She's sixteen. She should be awkward, uncertain, bratty. But no. She's magnetic. People are staring—some whispering, some confused. I can read their lips even from here.
"Is that his girlfriend?""No way, he's too young to be her dad.""Sugar daddy, maybe?"
If only they knew. If only they saw the poison inside that girl.
He used to hate being called Seb. The first time I said it—smiling, in bed, thinking I was being cute—he turned to me with cold eyes and said, "Don't call me that."
But now?Now she shrieks it across public parks.Seb! Seb! Seb! Like it belongs to her.And the worst part?
It does.
He lets her. No—he adores it. Every second. Every clingy hug, every over-affectionate, syrupy sweet "Did you eat, Seb? Did you drink water? Are you sleeping well?" Like she's his little wife, not his daughter.
It makes me sick.
Because I know what she really is.
I've seen her, out there. At night. Leather jacket, motorcycle, cigarettes dangling from glossy lips, grinding on strangers at some godforsaken club. I watched her giggle her way into some British boy's car last week.
She's a liar.
But Sebastian doesn't believe me. Even when I show him proof, he shrugs, silent and impassive. Because he chooses her. Over me. Always.
He even saw her like that and still forgave her just because she cried and said sorry.
Pathetic.
Not sebastian
Never sebastian
Her, Ava.
That bitch.
That slut.
I should hate him for it. But I don't.I still love him.Obsessively. Violently.
I had him first. Before she existed. Before she breathed her first breath and wrapped her tiny, undeserving hand around his soul.
And I know what he's forgotten:She stole him from me.She was the reason I walked away. I couldn't take it. The way he looked at her. The way he softened. She rewired him into a man who only exists for her.
It should've been me.
Not her.Never her.
She calls him Seb like it's a prayer.I tried once. Just once.He looked at me like I was filth.
I wonder if she knows how deep his love runs.
that's the real horror.
Not that Ava lies.Not that she sneaks out, smokes, drinks, sins.
But that even after everything…
He still loves her.
And maybe that's what I hate most of all.