One week later
Christian lurked in the corner behind my mother’s gardening shed, the same place he always hid when he needed a cigarette break. We’d never discussed why he helped me, or what his motivation was in risking my father’s wrath to give me the outlet he did.
Slipping my shoes off, I crept around the corner behind him. Keeping my body as still as possible, other than my toes that dug into the ground with every step, I restrained the breath in my lungs.
Crouching low quickly, I swept a leg at his feet, groaning my frustration when the bastard hopped over it. ‘What the fuck!’ I exclaimed with a laugh, straightening as he turned smiling eyes my way.
‘You still breathe too heavy,’ he chuckled. I pursed my lips at him in a pout, straightening my dress as he put out his cigarette against the edge of the gardening shed and tucked it away in the vase he kept tucked beneath the shrubbery. ‘What do you want, Monster?’ he asked with a sigh.
‘I need a favor,’ I said, holding my head high as I prepared to ask for the one thing I thought even Christian wouldn’t give me. If anyone ever discovered the truth, which seemed like it would take careful planning on my part to avoid, he would be punished right alongside me. He’d pay the consequences with his life.
Guilt consumed me at the thought, making me hesitate to voice the favor. It’d be stupid and selfish, and pointless in the end.
‘What is it?’ he asked, his brow furrowing in concern.
‘Nothing,’ I said with a smile.
‘Thalia,’ he said, reaching out a hand very slowly to take mine in his. ‘You know you can ask me for anything. If it’s within my ability, I’ll give it to you.’
‘I want a night. To be free to choose who I want for my first time,’ I said with a swallow. ‘If there’s a way to do it without getting caught, then I have to try. But I need to find a way to do that without involving you. I won’t let anyone else suffer for my choices.’
He leaned back into the shed wall, crossing his arms over his chest and staring at me with wide eyes. ‘You want me to help you get laid?’ He swallowed as if the thought was insufferable, and I pushed down the old hurts of being an awkward girl who nobody ever looked at twice.
‘No. I want to choose for myself. I think I can manage to convince one man to fuck me.’ I laughed. ‘I just need the window for it to be possible.’
He sighed, running his hand over his face. ‘Okay. Give me a week or two to figure something out and make the arrangements. I can’t guarantee anything, but I’ll see what I can do,’ he said, nodding back toward the house where Lydia poked her head out to look for me. ‘You get your ass back to the house and act like you didn’t just ask me to help you commit suicide. Fuck,’ he groaned.
I flung my arms around him for a brief hug before making my way back to the house, keeping with the shadows until I could come up into the still-living gardens at the side of the manor and pretend I’d been sitting among the flowers.
Nobody could know.
