Zero

Chapter 10

Calum's POV

Blaze slowly pulls the mask away from her head, revealing her face to me. I suck in a deep breath, unsure of whether I want her to be Molly or not. I open my eyes and come face to face with a stranger. My heart drops as I realize she's not Molly. Her nose is too narrow and her lips too thin. Her cheeks aren't chubby enough, and there's a prominent mole beside her bottom lip, a feature Molly didn't have. I bite down on my lip, my heart racing. I glance up and see what almost looks to be a pained expression on her face.

"I-"

"I need to go," Blaze interrupts, retying her mask quickly. I watch as she hurriedly grabs her crop top and jacket before pushing past me and exiting through the window. I hear a muffled thud as she hits the ground below, then it's silent. I take a shaky breath and fall back onto my bed, staring at the blank wall.

What would I have done if she was Molly? The ache in my chest grows more painful as tears start to slip down my cheeks. Before I know it, I'm shaking as sobs rack through my body. I push myself over to my nightstand, searching for my necklace. I find it and grasp it tightly in my hand, finding comfort in the pain from Molly's engagement ring pressing into my palm, leaving deep indentations in my hand. My vision is blurry as I grab my phone and call Ashton, not wanting to be alone right now.

~

Thirty minutes later, Ashton is squatting down beside me, a frown on his face as he tries to get me to tell him what's wrong.

"Come on Cal," he pushes, visibly confused as to what's wrong with me, "You gotta talk to me, buddy. What's wrong?"

"I-" I stop myself, kind of disgusted by my own actions. He bites back a groan, clearly thinking that we had made progress.

I force myself to take a deep breath, calming down a bit, "I slept with Blaze-"

"You did what?"

"And afterwards, she was asleep and I was just kind of looking at her-"

"Without the mask?"

"No with. She wouldn't take it off."

He nods, "Kinky."

"Ashton!" I snap, "Not the fucking point." He ignores me. "Anyways, I was looking at her, and noticed that she and Molly share a lot of the same mannerisms. Then I noticed that she and Molly both have the same deformed heart-shaped birthmark behind their left ear. I tried to untie her mask while she slept to see what she looks like, but she woke up and got dressed. I tried to apologize, but then saw that she had a scar just like Molly's in the exact same place from when Molly slipped at the beach on one of our earlier dates."

"Holy-fucking-shit," Ashton breathes out, seeing where this is going, "Blaze is Molly?"

I sigh in defeat, shaking my head no, "She's not. I accused her of being Molly, but she's not."

"So that's good right?" Ashton takes a seat on the edge of my bed beside me.

My chin trembles slightly, "I don't know. I still miss Molly so much. I'd do anything to see her one more time, even if it was just to say goodbye. And if Blaze isn't Molly, that means I just slept with someone whose name I don't even know, who I met earlier today. And the only reason I did it was because she reminds me of my deceased ex-fiancee, which is selfish and not me."

"What would you have done if she had been Molly?" Ashton inquires, his voice softly, asking the question I've been both asking myself for the past thirty minutes and dreading the answer to.

I swallow hard before answering, "I don't know."