LOGINShare
Chapter 12: The Carnival Lights
publish date:
2026-05-04 09:00:11Saturday night smelled like sugar and engine oil. That was my first thought when I pulled into the muddy field beside the travelling carnival and killed the engine. The whole place had been set up on the edge of town where the council usually hosted markets and seasonal fairs, but under floodlights and music and the constant mechanical groan of rides, it looked transformed into something louder and stranger. Strings of coloured bulbs looped between poles. The Ferris wheel turned slow and brig
Latest chapter
Denial before Surrender Chapter 20: The Things I Heard in the Dark
I should have left the closet. I was acutely aware of how small the closet was. There was barely enough room to stand without our chests brushing. Shelves pressed in on both sides, cardboard boxes stacked high overhead, and hanging clothes dragged across my shoulders every time I breathed too deep. The door had barely clicked shut before Tyler had me backed against the wall, one hand planted beside my head, the other already sliding low on my hip like he owned the space between us.And fuck, he did. I was already breathing hard, pulse hammering in my throat. Not from the stairs, or from the party downstairs. From him. From the week of constant teasing, the locker room brushes, the library table stares, the way he’d smirk like he could see straight through every lie I told myself about Clair. From the fight still burning under my skin and the sudden, humiliating certainty that I’d followed him up here anyway.Tyler looked down at me, blue eyes dark in the thin strip
Denial before Surrender Chapter 19: The Part of Me That Let Go
I left the bedroom before I said something I couldn’t take back. The hallway outside felt cooler, darker, easier to breathe in than the room I’d just walked out of. Behind me, I could still hear the tail end of Clair’s voice sharp, offended, furious that I wouldn’t just do what she wanted and stop making everything difficult. I didn’t look back. My jaw was tight enough to hurt. The whole argument was still burning through me in ugly fragments. I hit the stairs too fast, one hand brushing the wall as I took them, and nearly walked straight into someone at the bottom. A hand caught my shoulder before we collided properly. “Easy, Hayes.” Of course it was Tyler. I looked up too quickly and found him standing right there in the half light of the hall, one hand still on my shoulder, expression already halfway amused. “You trying to break your neck?” he asked. “I’m fine.” He gave me one
Denial before Surrender Chapter 18: The Party You Shouldn’t Go To
By Friday, I had made the mistake of thinking I understood how bad things were. That was on me. I had my grades pulling back into line, or at least wobbling in the right direction. Leonard had stopped looking at me like I was one badly formatted spreadsheet away from collapse. Tara had gone from calling me haunted to calling me “annoyingly mysterious.". Even Clair had been easier with me for a couple of days. Less sharp, less suspicious and more openly affectionate in the hallways like she was reclaiming territory she thought had started slipping. It should have felt like relief.Instead it felt like standing on thin ice and hearing cracks under the surface every time Tyler came too close.Which was often enough to be a problem. He’d brushed his hand against my back near the lockers that morning when a crowd of juniors jammed the corridor, and my body had reacted so stupidly fast that I’d had to pretend I was coughing just to cover the hitch in my breathing. Later,
Denial before Surrender Chapter 17: Too Comfortable
For all the damage Tyler had done to my internal stability, he’d also done one deeply inconvenient thing. He’d made me laugh. Not once, either. Repeatedly. In the library, in passing, in those stupid little moments where he’d look at one of my colour coded revision sheets like I’d handed him evidence from a crime scene and then say something just sharp enough to get through my mood before I could defend against it.I hated that. I hated it because it felt good. And I hated it even more because Leonard and Tara noticed almost immediately.“You look less haunted,” Tara said on Thursday at lunch, dropping into the seat beside me with the kind of energy that suggested she’d either had too much sugar or slept a full eight hours, both of which I found suspicious.“That’s a rude thing to say to someone before he’s finished eating,” I replied.“It’s true,” she said. “Last week you looked like the ghost of a Victorian schoolboy who died under mysterious ac
Denial before Surrender Chapter 16: Studying with the Enemy
I took my father’s threat seriously. Not because I wanted to, but I had to. By Wednesday, I’d built myself a schedule so rigid it looked like the planning grid for a military operation. Library after school Monday through Thursday. Practice tests on weekends. Flash cards for economics. Revised chapter notes for business studies. No parties, no unnecessary trips out, no wasting time pretending I could afford to drift. It almost worked. Almost.The problem was that trying to regain control of my grades didn’t magically fix the rest of me. I could sit in class and take perfect notes. I could answer questions and hand in assignments and keep my expression neutral when teachers looked at me a little too closely, like they’d noticed the dip and were waiting to see whether I climbed back out of it.But the second Tyler crossed my line of sight, all that careful control still went unsteady. He wasn’t helping. Not by doing anything obvious. That would’ve been easier. It's e
Denial before Surrender Chapter 15: The Warning at Home
By Monday afternoon, I had convinced myself I could keep everything contained. That was becoming a habit. A bad grade? Recoverable. One disastrous night with Clair? Explainable.The constant, humiliating fact that my body kept reacting to Tyler like it had developed a personality disorder? Temporary.I told myself all of that while sitting in business studies, writing notes that looked neat and organised and completely unlike the inside of my head.The problem with pretending everything is under control is that eventually someone notices.Mr. Calder noticed first. He handed back a short in class assessment ten minutes before the bell and paused at my desk just long enough to place the paper face down in front of me. That, more than anything, told me it was bad.I turned it over. Seventy one. Not a disaster, not to anyone else. To me, it felt like proof. Proof that whatever had gone wrong inside me wasn’t staying private anymore. It was le
Denial before Surrender Chapter 13: The Haunted House
The line moved faster than I wanted it to. That was the first problem. The second was that Clair had gone strangely bright and sharp beside me, talking more than usual without really saying anything. Pointing out decorations. Mocking the fake blood on the sign. Laughing a little too loudly whenev
Denial before Surrender Chapter 9: Watching the Court
Friday should have felt better. That was the worst part. I’d made it through the rest of the night after the shower without having a total breakdown, which, considering the circumstances, felt like an achievement. I got maybe three more hours of sleep in broken, miserable pieces. By morning I was
Denial before Surrender Chapter 2: Hallways and Glances
I liked routines because routines made promises. If I got up at the same time every morning, packed my bag the night before, checked my deadlines twice, and kept my notes in order, then things stayed manageable. Predictable. The world didn’t exactly become easy, but it became something I could sort
Denial before Surrender Chapter 1: The Life I Thought I Wanted
If you’d asked me then, I would’ve told you my life made sense. Not perfect, because nobody’s life at eighteen is perfect, no matter how polished it looks from the outside. But it made sense. I had grades good enough to keep my parents off my back most of the time, a clear plan for university, two
You may also like
Puck Me Hard
Midnight Riggs28.4K viewsThe Alpha King's Pet: His Omega Slave
A. Leilani23.1K viewsClaimed by three Alphas
Ozioma15.2K viewsFalling for my Vampire Captain
Roshni17.9K viewsThe Devil Who Claimed Me (M x M)
Skye Black500 viewsDaddy's little agent
Playtime Mistress 88 viewsYou Were Always Mine, Omega
🌙✨ InkAfterMidnight42 viewsReborn as the villain's obsession [MM romance]
Bluebutterflywrites4.1K views
