I WAKE UP SLOWLY, to the sound of chirping birds just outside my window, as if I’m living in a Disney movie, which I know is completely untrue.
More like I’m living inside a nightmare, one I can never seem to escape.
The curtains are still open and sunlight floods the room with way too much light. I crack open my eyelids and immediately close them, slinging my arm across my face, desperate to avoid the overly bright room.
It’s too much. My eyes hurt. My head pounds. My entire body aches. I feel hungover, and I didn’t even drink last night. Shifting beneath the covers, I realize I’m still naked, and my thighs are sore.
The memories come back, one after another. Last night. The storm. Elliot threatening me. Tackling me. Whit unexpectedly coming to my rescue. Until he was beaten. Bloody. Broken. Bringing him back to my room. Stripping naked for him. Watching as he stripped for me. Hating him. Wanting him. Waking up to him touching me. We took it further. I always knew we would. It was inevitable. It was also amazing.
Of course it was.
It feels like what happened between us was a dream. As if it never happened at all. He’s not in my room. I don’t know when he left, but he’s gone. If he were still here, I would sense his presence. Feel him in the bed with me.
I slowly remove my arm from my eyes and open them, staring at the ceiling, thinking of last night. His head between my legs, his mouth on my pussy, licking and searching, leaving no part of me untouched.
My core clenches just thinking about it.
What Whit and I share isn’t normal. I don’t know how to define it. I also didn’t know you could feel so much, being with someone you hate. Become aroused by someone who says such horrible things. It’s as if he has complete control over my body, how it responds, and I’m not mad about it.
Not at all.
It’s as if I crave him.
As my mind runs over what we said to each other, what we did, I start to feel sick. Maybe I should be ashamed of myself. I let him use me. He was essentially fucking my mouth, like some sort of porn clip come to life, and while I didn’t mind at the time, now I feel nothing but shame.
We shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have let him go down on me either. But oh, that orgasm had been amazing. I swear I lost all function of my body for a moment. I was flying. In the air. Soaring above. Just before I came crashing down.
Reaching between my legs, I touch myself there. I’m sticky. Wet. I tentatively rub my clit. It’s swollen. Still sensitive from last night.
I don’t stop touching myself, reliving the dirtiest moments Whit and I shared. It’s like I can’t. I remember at one point last night, when I opened my eyes to find Whit watching me, his mouth on the most intimate place of my body. I couldn’t look away and he knew it. He stuck his tongue out, the gesture almost obscene as he thoroughly licked me.
A shudder moves through me and I squeeze my eyes shut, Whit’s face haunting me. I’m coming. Oh God, I’m coming so hard. Not as hard as last night but the tremors move through my body and I stifle the moan that wants to escape.
I just think about him and I can make myself come.
What have I done?
Once I’ve composed myself, I climb out of bed, my steps tentative, the floor cold beneath my bare feet, despite the shining sun. I see the crumpled white shirt on the floor and I pick it up, realizing it’s Whit’s.
I slip it on over my naked body, doing a couple buttons. It still smells like him and I breathe deep, wishing he were still here.
But what would I do if he was? How would I act around him?
The bigger question: how would he act around me?
There’s what I want to happen, and what will most likely happen. Knowing Whit, he’ll probably make a mockery of the entire evening. To him, it was just a one-off. It means nothing. I’m nothing, especially in his eyes. He’d make me feel like absolute shit, break me apart with his words and his sneers and his angry glares, and then leave me alone to pick up the pieces.
My skin suddenly crawling, I undo the buttons as quickly as I can, shucking the shirt off my body and flinging it onto the floor. I grab my robe hanging off the hook on the back of my door and slip it on, tying it around myself, and go to my desk.
I need my journal. I need to write down everything that happened between us yesterday so I don’t forget. The library. Detention. Me finding Whit and bringing him back here…
I open the desk drawer where I keep my journal, but it’s not there. Frowning, I dig through the drawer, the stack of notebooks and journals I love to buy and never use, but it’s gone. I search the other drawers. The top of my desk. My backpack.
It’s not here.
Dread consumes me as I look around the room. I know what happened. I know.
That bastard took it.
My hands clench into fists, and it takes everything inside of me not to scream as loudly as I can. But that will only draw people’s attention, and that’s the last thing I need right now.
Whit stole my journal. The most private thing that belongs to me. I’d let him steal my body, my heart, everything I’ve got, before I’d let him even get a peek inside my journal.
And now he has it. It’s in his hands.
I collapse on the bed, my face in my pillow, and I wonder if I could suffocate myself with it. He could be reading it right now. I’ve kept that journal for years. Our first encounter is in it. Before I knew who he was. I found out pretty quickly after I wrote that entry, but it didn’t change how he made me feel.
Terrible. Wonderful.
Other things are in there too. Yates, and what we did. What he did to me. Those things are buried deep in the back of my journal where they belong, but they’re there. For Whit to read whenever he wants. I talk about the divorce. My issues at school. How my friends abandoned me when I needed them the most. My mother. Jonas. My real father, who barely acknowledges my existence.
All my damage is in that journal, and it’s not meant to be read by anyone else. I don’t even like to re-read it much. The past belongs where it is—firmly behind me.
And it’s in the hands of the boy who makes my life miserable every single day. A boy who will do whatever he can to ruin me completely. Including sharing my journal with others. I can only imagine him and his friends laughing over it as they read passages. He could make copies and share it with everyone. I would be the laughingstock of the school.
Worse? The authorities could be notified of what I did. I could be questioned. I could be…
Arrested.
I clutch the pillow to my face and scream and scream, the sound muffled. I yell until my throat is raw and aching. I yell some more, knowing it will hurt to talk, but not caring. What does it matter?
No one talks to me anyway.
After taking a shower, I spend the majority of my Saturday in my room, trying to do my homework. My concentration is shot, and I’m so tired. I end up sleeping the rest of the afternoon, only waking up to a sudden loud knock on my door.
I jolt up, pushing my hair out of my face, glancing around. The room is dark, and I see it’s dark outside as well. Grabbing my phone, I check the time. A little past six. I should go to the dining hall and grab some dinner.
The knock sounds again and I go to the door, my steps quiet, and rest my head against the door, as if that could tell me who’s standing on the other side of it. Saturday and Sunday the dorms are open, guests welcome until eight p.m. No one visits me though. I can only assume whoever’s knocking is bringing trouble with them.
“Summer! I know you’re in there,” says a vaguely familiar voice.
Slowly I unlock and open the door to find Sylvie standing there, a faint smile on her face. She’s clad in a pale pink oversized hoodie that swims on her thin body and black leggings, her feet clad in white Nikes. She offers me a little wave. “Your hair is a mess.”
I rest my hand on my head, feeling my still damp hair. “I took a nap.”
“I figured. Rough night last night?” She waggles her eyebrows, as if she knows everything that happened between me and her brother and I grab her hand, hauling her into my room and shutting the door.
“What did he tell you?” I ask, breathless. He talked about me with Sylvie, I just know it. That has to mean something, right?
“If you’re referring to my closed-mouth brother who doesn’t say boo to me, nothing,” she says, walking around my room with curiosity shining in her eyes. She turns to look at me. “You have nothing hanging on the walls.”
I shrug. I have photos in my desk. Of friends. My family. But my friends don’t care about me any longer, and my family is fucked up. Why would I want to look at them every day? It’s just a reminder of my old life. Was I happier then?
Sometimes. Sometimes not.
She drags her fingers along the edge of my desk, shuffling through the stack of notebooks there. Her obvious digging leaves me unnerved, but there’s nothing for her to find. The most important thing to me in the world is gone.
In her brother’s possession.
“I like your notebooks,” she says, her gaze returning to mine. There’s nothing deceptive behind it. She’s not looking for my secrets. My shoulders relax, but I’m still on edge.
“Thanks,” I say, defensive as always.
“I’m obsessed with them too, I have so many.” She continues as her searching gaze sweeps around my room. “There’s the cutest shop downtown. You should come with me sometime. You’d probably spend way too much money in there, like I do.”
“Why do you want to be my friend?” I ask her warily, cutting right to the chase.
She’s quiet for a moment, watching me. I do the same to her, noting yet again how thin she is. How her clothes hang off of her, the leggings only emphasizing how her legs look like narrow sticks.
“You intrigue me. I think you intrigue Whit too, though he’d never admit it out loud.” Sylvie hesitates for only a moment. “He asked me to cut the security cameras at your building last night.”
My heart bottoms out. I forgot all about the security cameras on us. Seeing me walk Whit inside. Watching as Whit left my dorm hall in the middle of the night.
“What do you mean?” I’m surprised I sound so calm. Inside, I’m quaking.
“He texted me last night around nine, asking if I would hack into the security system and cut the cameras on this specific building. The very one you live in. I did it for him, no questions asked. Anyone who was up to no good last night, they’re not going to get caught,” she explains, her eyes wide.
My face goes hot and I look away.
“This morning, I started to think. Why does Whit care about this dorm building? And why last night? I did a little investigating, and I saw you were one of the students who occupy a room. A private one.” Sylvie smiles, reminding me of a cat. “He also specifically mentioned the cameras on the west end of the building. And look at you, with your room on the west end.”
I say nothing. To protest would make me look guilty. Best to keep my mouth shut.
“I don’t want nor do I need any dirty details, but I’m going to assume you and my brother were together last night.” She raises a single delicate brow. Again, I remain mum. “And I have to admit, I’m impressed. Whit doesn’t usually dip his wick in girls that go to this school, especially newbies.”
“Who does he dip his wick in then, if not someone from this school?” I ask incredulously, wishing I could take the question back as soon as the words leave my mouth.
I shouldn’t care. I don’t care.
I do.
“Girls from families our family is close to. People we socialize with. Occasionally, girls he meets in town.” She laughs, probably at the shock on my face. “That was last year. He slummed with the townies a lot, claiming they never asked questions, so they were the perfect girls to hook up with.”
“He told you this?”
“He told his best friend, Spence, who told me.” Her expression turns mysterious. “Spence and I are—were—close.”
Interesting. “You like him.”
“He likes me. I don’t know how to feel about him. I’m dying you know, so there’s no point.” When my mouth drops open, she holds out a hand, laughing. “I’m serious. I’m in poor health, as mother says, and I’ve been on my deathbed already a few times in my life. I’m only sixteen.”
“You and Whit are very close in age.”
“Lina is fourteen. Mother had us, one after the other, like little chickens. Our eggs dropped, plop plop plop. Her and Daddy must’ve been very busy during that time in their lives. I suppose they were happy. I don’t know. Probably not.” Sylvie smiles. “She was hoping for all boys, so Carolina and I are a disappointment.”
“My father was disappointed I was a girl too,” I say, not knowing if it was true, but it feels better to think that.
“Men and their lineage. I don’t understand. Girls can continue the family as well, we just don’t continue the name, rendering us useless, I suppose.” Her assessing gaze drifts over my room one more time, as if she’s trying to find something in particular. “Want to go to dinner with me?”
“To the dining hall?”
“Ugh, no. How can you eat their dreadful food, day in and day out? Let’s go somewhere.” Her eyes dance and she clasps her hands together. “Please. There’s an Italian place downtown that’s my absolute favorite.”
I haven’t ventured out of here beyond the school, and the upperclassmen are allowed to leave on the weekends, with a curfew in place, of course. Besides, I didn’t know where to go, and had no one to go with.
Truthfully? I was scared to leave. Scared to go somewhere unfamiliar, and chance getting cornered by people who hate me. There are too many people on this campus who despise me. Why give them a chance to do their worst?
“Come on, Summer. Please?” Sylvie says when I haven’t responded. Her hands look like she’s praying as she holds them up to me, a pleading look on her pretty face. “It’ll be fun.”
“Fine,” I say with a sigh and she starts hopping up and down, just before she starts violently coughing.
I guide her to my bed and settle her on the edge of the mattress before I grab an unopened water bottle from my backpack and hand it to her. She cracks the lid open and takes a sip in between coughs. Then another. Until finally, she stops.
“I can’t overexert myself,” she says, wheezing. “Still getting over it.”
“What exactly are you getting over?”
“Pneumonia, and it’s not even winter yet. I usually get it a couple of times a year.” She smiles, but it’s weak. “You need to fix your hair before we go out. It’s a wreck.”
I touch my hair again, looking in the nearby mirror that hangs on my wall. It does look awful. I washed it and immediately fell asleep, so it’s a mess. And still damp. “I’ll braid it,” I tell her, turning to face her. “I’ll change too.”
“Don’t worry about dressing up. I’m going with this look.” She waves a hand at herself. “Oh, this will be so much fun. Be prepared. I’m going to ask you endless questions.”
I smile in answer, but it’s forced.
That’s what I’m afraid of.
