Chapter 30 : Injured heart
HAYDEN’S POV:
I didn’t look back.
I knew if I did, I’d see her standing there under the oak tree with that shattered expression on her face, and I didn’t trust myself not to walk back and undo everything I had just said.
The dirt path felt uneven beneath my shoes as I made my way down from the cliffs. My knuckles throbbed with every heartbeat. I flexed my hand once and pain shot up my arm, sharp and grounding.
I deserved it.
The party noise was faint now, just a distant hum behind the roar of the ocean. The wind cooled the sweat on my skin, but it did nothing for the heat crawling under it. I could still see Stephen’s face when my fist connected with his jaw.
The word ‘Captain.’ echoed in my head again, but it didn’t feel like a victory. It felt hollow.
I replayed what happened at the fight over and over. Stephen’s smirk, his comment about Ella. The way he had said her name as if he owned it.
I shoved my hands into my pockets and kept walking. My busted knuckles brushed against denim and I hissed quietly. Blood had dried across my skin in dark streaks.
I should’ve gone back to the party. That’s what a captain would do. Stand tall, smile for pictures, let everyone chant his name, and pretend everything was under control.
Instead, I felt like I was barely holding it together.
Ella’s face flashed in my mind again. The way her voice cracked when she said she’d lost everything too.
I hated that it got to me and that I still cared.
When she reached up and touched my chest, it was like every wall I had built cracked for a second. My heart had been racing so hard I was sure she felt it. I wanted to grab her wrist and pull her closer. I’d wanted to forget Stephen, forget Lilian, forget the competition and the stupid captain title, and go back to that night when it was just us.
But that night had wrecked everything. She said she didn’t make us fight, maybe not directly but we fucking with each other didn’t stop it either and neither did I.
That was the part that burned.
I wasn’t innocent in this. I’d gone to her and let myself get pulled in. I had told myself it was harmless, that Stephen didn’t need to know, that it wasn’t serious.
Then it got serious. And suddenly we were both pretending it wasn’t.
The closer I got to the streetlights, the louder the party music grew again. My phone buzzed in my pocket. I ignored it. It buzzed again.
It was probably Lilian.
She’d grabbed my arm earlier like she had some kind of claim, as she belonged next to me when everyone was chanting my name.
I didn’t even know how that happened.
Somewhere along the line, she had just… been there. She was steady and easy. She was nothing like Ella. Ella was chaotic. She made everything louder, brighter, and way fucking harder.
She made me feel like I was winning and losing at the same time.
I stopped walking for a second and leaned against a lamppost, tilting my head back toward the sky. My jaw ached from where Stephen’s punch had landed. I ran my tongue along the inside of my lip and tasted metal.
“You don’t get to bounce between two fucking brothers.”
The words I had thrown at her replayed in my head.
I meant them. Didn’t I? I squeezed my eyes shut. The truth was, what scared me wasn’t that she had been with Stephen.
It was that part of me that still wanted her anyway.
Even after knowing she had played both sides, even after watching my brother look at her like she was something to win, I still felt that pull in my chest when she was near and that made me weak.
And I couldn’t afford weakness, when Stephen and I were already hanging by a thread.
Growing up, it was always a competition. Who got the better grades, who was better at sports, who had the most friends, who Dad praised more, who got blamed less? It never stopped. The captain thing was just the latest battlefield.
But fucking Ella turned it into something else.
When I reached the edge of the street, a group of guys from the team spotted me.
“Yo, Captain!” One of them jogged over, grinning. “That punch was insane.”
I forced a tight smile. “It’s over.”
“You good? Your hand looks wrecked.”
“I’m fine.”
They clapped me on the back as I had just won something important and I should feel proud.
I didn’t.
Across the street, I saw Lilian step out from the party house. Her eyes locked onto mine immediately and relief crossed her face as she hurried over.
“You disappeared,” she said, scanning my face, my hands. “Oh my God, Hayden.”
“It’s nothing.”
She reached for my injured hand carefully. Her touch was gentle, controlled. “You need to clean this.”
I let her guide me toward the porch steps. She grabbed napkins and a bottle of water from inside. The team lingered nearby, still talking about the fight, replaying it like it was entertainment.
Lilian dabbed at my knuckles. I didn’t flinch, not because it didn’t hurt but because I didn’t feel much of anything right now.
“Stephen’s pissed,” one of the guys muttered behind us. “He left.”
Of course he did.
I stared past them, toward the dark stretch of road leading back to the cliffs. She wasn’t visible from here, but I imagined Ella still standing there under that tree, alone.
A flicker of guilt twisted in my stomach.
Lilian noticed where my eyes drifted. Her movements slowed. “You went after her, didn’t you?”
I didn’t answer.
She pressed her lips together but didn’t push. “You can’t keep doing this, Hayden.”
“Doing what?”
“Letting her mess with your head.”
I almost laughed at that. “I’m not,” I said flatly. I was not going to be explaining myself. But even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t true.
When Ella leaned in to kiss me and I stepped back, it wasn’t because I didn’t want to. It was because I wanted it too much and I knew if I let myself, there would be no coming back from it.
Not with Stephen, the team or with Lilian sitting right in front of me now, trying to take care of me like she always did.