IT’S BEEN a week since I moved back into my apartment—or rather, since Asher and I moved in together.
He brought his clothes and laptop and has taken up space in my closet without asking for permission.
Not that I want him to.
Honestly, I don’t think I could’ve done this without him. Being on my own scares me more than I’d like to admit. That’s when the gloomy cloud strikes, filling my head with all those somber thoughts.
I listen to Lucy and Prescott’s discussion about some moves the coach has added to our routine. They’re bickering, and while it’s adorable to watch, my mind isn’t with them.
It keeps wandering back to Reina. While Alex promised he’ll let me know as soon as his insider gets in touch, I’m still antsy.
I have to repeat to myself that Reina is stronger than me. She survived this long in the midst of monsters. Surely she can keep doing it.
Aside from my sister, something else keeps occupying my mind.
Asher.
He’s been acting strange, to say the least.
Every day, he cooks me dinner, nothing fancy, but it’s always delicious and he usually feeds me, making me suck his thumb after. Then he joins me in the shower and orders me to take him in my mouth before he empties down my throat or on my breasts.
After that, he carries me to my bedroom in his strong arms and eats me out or finger-fucks me. Other times, our sexual encounters end up in a sixty-nine. Yesterday, he fucked my tits, making me grab them as his length thrust mercilessly between them. While doing that, he ordered me to open my mouth so his cock hit my tongue with every thrust. I can still taste his cum all over my lips as he came with a harsh grunt.
I haven’t been as turned on as I was last night in my entire life, so when he fingered me, I came in seconds.
Then…the end. I kid you not, he stopped as soon as I orgasmed, just as he does every night.
Oral sex is the only thing we’ve done.
Asher has never gone all the way with me or attempted to.
While he sleeps beside me, he always disappears before I wake up, and I find him in the kitchen preparing breakfast.
What is all of that supposed to mean?
He can’t possibly not want me, because he gets so hard the moment we’re done. He also watches me like he wants to fuck me in the most ruthless way possible, like he wants to choke me and cum inside me.
However, he’s not acting on it.
Seriously, if he continues stimulating my body in that unapologetic, wild way, I’ll end up begging him to fuck me already.
For some reason, I don’t think that’ll work with him, though.
Asher has impressive self-restraint, which is all part of his intense dominance. He thrives on control and applies it to himself as well. It’s nearly impossible to bust his walls down unless he leaves some sort of opening.
Eye for an eye.
Those words he told me keep bouncing in my head. Revenge, or rather justice. That’s what they mean, right?
Whenever I touch his tattoo, he closes off completely. He might still sleep beside me, but he turns stone-cold, like the Asher I met when I first opened my eyes at the hospital.
He’s here beside me, but sometimes, he’s not. A burst of loneliness hits me whenever he cuts me off and disappears inside his black castle with high towers and metal gates.
My chest constricts at the thought that he might never forgive me.
Every castle has an opening; I just need to search closer to find it.
I need to figure out what he thinks I did and fix it somehow—or at least hope it’s fixable.
Because I don’t want to have parts of Asher while he keeps the others hidden.
I want the light and the darkness. The sanity and the madness. The beauty and the ugliness.
I want everything.
Just like I need him to accept me whole.
With a smile, I tell Lucy and Prescott to tell me about their decision after lunch, then I leave them alone.
Fine, I might have started helping Prescott in his quest with Lucy. She’s obviously interested in him, but she’s always backed off, thinking he had eyes for Bree.
Speaking of which, I make my way down the hall. I don’t bother with greeting the students who laugh in my face and write nasty comments on that shady Instagram account.
I don’t owe them anything. If they don’t like me, get in freaking line and stop being hypocrites.
Bree grabs her books, lowering her head. Since she was kicked off the cheerleading squad last week, she’s been the latest gossip around campus.
Naomi made it clear Bree’s not welcome to sit at our table at lunch, and everyone else on the squad has been steering clear of her.
Blackwood-Black-Book posts about her more than me now.
As soon as she sees me, she glares and brushes past me.
“Do you want your place back?”
She stops in her tracks and turns around as the last of the students trickle outside. It’s only her and me now.
“Is this some trick?” she snarls.
“A trade.” I face her and cross my arms over my chest.
Asher doesn’t like it when I do that, but it doesn’t matter when I’m with other people. Besides, I need all my forts to face the enemy.
“What type of trade?” she asks slowly.
“Tell me what I want to know and I’ll allow you back in.”
She holds her books close to her chest, unable to hide the spark of excitement in her eyes. While a bitch, Bree’s a good asset to the squad, and she must’ve realized now that she’s nothing without the cheerleading team backing her up.
“What do you want to know?” she asks.
“Back in high school, when Arianna was alive, what was our actual relationship like? And I’m not talking about what the others think. I need facts.”
Whenever I’ve asked Bree about this, she’d usually back off. I think Asher has told her not to breathe a word about the past to me, or maybe she did it because she’s always had eyes for him.
Now, she has no choice but to answer. It’s the only way she can leave college life with honor, and someone like Bree would never miss that chance.
When negotiating, always have the upper hand.
Dad’s words echo in my head as if he said them yesterday.
“She…” Bree clears her throat. “She was really clingy. There are best friends and there are parasites, and Ari was definitely the latter. She practically sucked the life out of you.”
“How so?”
“She was always there, you know. Always. Like your fucking shadow. You never had alone time with Asher, and you liked the bitch a bit too much to tell her off.”
“Can you talk nice about the dead?”
She lifts a shoulder. “I never liked her, okay? She gave off vibes. I swear I saw her put the bra in Asher’s bag that day.”
My brows furrow. “What bra?”
“Right, you don’t remember. Well, you had a huge fight with Asher senior year after you found a bra in his sports bag.”
“And you saw her put it in?”
“I did and I told you but you didn’t believe me. So whatever. It’s not like I have any reason to lie now.” She readjusts her purse over her shoulder. “Besides, it’s not a coincidence Asher caught you sucking off the history teacher soon after.”
My eyes almost bulge out. “What?”
“It was the talk of everyone at school. Asher and I walked in on you sucking off the history teacher. You were hidden under the table, but the teacher was saying things like, ‘Yes, more, Reina. You’re such a good girl, Reina.’ It was like so gross.”
No, no. I wouldn’t have done that, right?
Even Old Reina wouldn’t stoop to that level.
“What did Asher do?”
“What do you think? He walked out. I’ve never seen him as angry as he was then. I’m sure he’s the one who attacked the teacher that weekend and forced him to quit.”
My mind reels from the amount of information being thrown my way. How could I do that to him?
Am I really the monster he said I was when I woke up in the hospital?
“As I was saying, that incident and the bra incident were so close. It was really bad between you and Asher.”
“Bad how?”
“Super bad, like you could feel the tension in the air whenever you were in the same place. No one knew if you were going to fuck or shoot each other in the head.” She lifts a shoulder. “But you always had shitty communication with each other, so whatever.”
Shitty communication with each other.
Is this even a case of communication gone wrong? The evidence was all there. I thought he cheated on me, and then he witnessed a disgusting scene.
Please tell me I didn’t do it for revenge. Even teenage me wouldn’t be that immature, right?
“Then, soon after those incidents, Arianna committed suicide. It killed your relationship once and for all,” Bree murmurs. “At least, I thought it did.”
This is my ex-best friend saying in no uncertain terms that she always had eyes for Asher.
Well, not on my watch.
An ugly green monster rears his head at the thought of any other woman putting their claws on him.
Hell, I don’t think I can even give him back to Reina if she returns and asks for her life back.
How could I stay calm all those years ago after knowing he’d cheated on me?
I shake that thought away and focus on more important things. “How did those incidents relate to Arianna’s death?”
“Beats me. All I know is she was a little creep and Asher left you and Blackwood right after her death.” She pauses. “Can I get my position back now?”
“Sure. But you’re no longer a sub-captain.”
“What?” she snaps.
“That position belongs to Prescott and Lucy now. If you’re coming back, it’s only as a normal cheerleader. Take it or leave it.”
“Fine!” She hits my chest on her way out. “You’re such an unfeeling bitch, Rei. No wonder Asher left you. Who wants to be with a cold stone like you anyway?”
Her words remain with me even after she stomps out.
No wonder Asher left me.
No wonder he’s planning to leave me again.
It’s all because of Arianna.
My muscles tense and my heart skips a beat as I rear back from the force of a flashback.
THE NERVE.
The fucking nerve.
How dare he accuse me of cheating on him when he did it first?
How dare he yell in my face as if I’m wrong and he’s always Mr. Right?
I jump backward three consecutive times and land hard on my right leg.
Fuck.
I kick it against the ground. Useless leg. Useless everything.
Flopping down on the chair, I catch my breath and wipe my face with the towel. The outside pool overlooks the backyard where Asher sometimes works out with Owen and Seb.
Not today.
It’s not like I want to see him right now. I’m seething and boiling like a fucking kettle.
On the outside, it appears as if I’m practicing, my expression cool and focused. Truth is, I’m blowing off steam so I don’t combust.
Practicing is the only way I can do that. When I jump in the air, it’s like I embrace complete freedom, the type I’m not allowed on the ground.
People think I don’t feel. I wish I didn’t. If that were the case, I wouldn’t have the urge to jam my foot into a wall then break down in tears.
God, I feel so much like crying.
But I seal that urge in, hardening it with ice.
Mom said crying is for weaklings.
I’m strong, just like my mom, just like Reina, who I hope is also holding on.
After all, she seems to have inherited my mom’s genes more than I did. She’s the one who ran straight into danger, and I’m the one who left her behind and ran the opposite way.
“Rei.” Ari’s brittle voice pulls me back from my mind.
Plastering on a smile, I wipe the side of my face and turn toward her. She’s wearing one of her long skirts and a blue top.
Her jet black hair, the same color as Asher’s, falls on either side of her face in a short cut. Unlike me, she has no makeup on and is watching me with a kind, worried expression.
I tap the chaise lounge beside me, and she trips over her own feet to join me.
She’s warm that way, Ari. Sometimes, it seems too warm to be true.
Ever since I’ve gotten to know her, I’ve seen a similarity to my relationship with Reina. No one can replace Reina in my heart, but Ari comes close. I’ve loved her and taken care of her as a sister since we met six years ago.
“I’m so sorry about Asher. He can be so dumb sometimes.” She digs her teeth into her lower lip and clinks her thumbnails against each other.
Despite how close we’ve gotten, Ari has never actually lost her anxiety. Asher told me she developed it after their mother died. Ari saw it as some sort of abandonment and reacted hard to it. Her brother and I silently agreed to protect her from the harsh world surrounding her.
Well, as much agreeing as we can do. Asher and I are just…wrong. I don’t know if there’ll be a day when we’ll be right.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “I’m used to it.”
“Well, I’m not.” She lowers her head. “I’m sorry he doesn’t love you.”
Her words are like knives shooting straight to my heart. Deep down, I knew it, but to hear it out loud hurts more than I’d like to admit.
It’s like bleeding out—silent, but deadly.
Just when did we reach this phase? When did Asher and I stop holding hands and sneaking out to meet each other?
I know when.
When he first kissed me at fourteen. A real kiss, a kiss with sloppy lips and clinking teeth and wandering tongues.
I realized I couldn’t possibly live without this boy anymore, and it scared the fuck out of me because Asher isn’t mine. He’s Reina’s. I was only supposed to be friends with him, not decide I want to keep him for my selfish, backstabbing self.
Then Dad and Alex announced the engagement and I made the decision to stay the fuck away, bury my feelings, and pretend I had none.
That was the only way to keep away from someone who didn’t belong to me.
“I don’t think he has that in him.” Ari’s bright blue-green eyes meet mine. “He’s like my dad. I don’t think he ever loved my mom.”
Not finding words to say, I nod.
“I-I wish I knew that before,” she stammers.
“What do you mean?”
“I…I don’t want you to judge me, Rei. You’re like the only friend I have.”
“It’s okay, Ari.” I hold her hands in mine. “You can tell me anything.”
“You’re not going to judge me?”
“Never.” I smile. “Best friends don’t judge each other.”
She bites down on her lower lip so hard, I think she’ll draw blood. “I…I love Asher.”
“I know that.”
“No.” She meets my gaze then quickly averts it to stare at her lap. “I’m in love with him, Rei. Not like a sibling, but as a man.”
I freeze, my hand turning stone-cold around hers.
Oh, God.
“He doesn’t love you,” she blurts and goes back to clinking her nails against one another. “And you never loved him, so can you please leave him to me, Rei? You can find better, I know you can.”
For a long time, no words come out of my throat. I can’t speak or breathe.
I can’t do anything.
But as I stare down at her, I see it loud and clear. The pieces start falling together one after another. The miscommunications, the incidents, and the fights make sense now.
I can’t believe it took me this long to see it. How could I be so blind to the facts in front of me?
How could I let my emotions lead me?
This has to end. Now.
I need to speak to Asher.
