Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 131789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
“Casey.”
“If you’re worried about Sloane kicking your ass, we don’t have to tell her.”
I have done terrible things to this world. I will do terrible things again. But few will be as awful as what I’m compelled to do now.
“We hooked up,” I say flatly. “Me and Sloane.”
She cracks a disbelieving smirk.
My tone becomes firm. Unmoving. “I’m not kidding. I had sex with your sister.”
All humor dissolves from her expression. I have to avert my eyes before the shame knocks me over.
“I’m sorry.” I swallow hard, staring at my feet. “I want to be your friend, Casey. But I’m not interested in being your boyfriend.”
Even when I tell the truth, I’m still a liar.
Chapter 48
Sloane
In war movies, when the main characters meet in basic training, there’s always the one guy who catches the drill sergeant’s attention. The recruit they’re determined to crack and grind into powder to be poured into brass casings. For Sister Ana Louise, I am that recruit.
Wednesday after class, she does needlepoint at her desk with her severe glare admonishing me from across the room. Short of dousing me in holy water and taking scissors to my ponytail, she’s once again invited me to join her in after-school detention.
“I can’t believe you told a nun to eat your ass,” Eliza whispers. She sits beside me in the last row of desks, filling in the blank flesh of her arm with a black ballpoint pet. The flesh-canvas artworks started about a week ago. They’d made her stop wearing combat boots to school, so Eliza mounted a counter-protest. Any day now I suspect we’ll be attending an assembly to witness the sisters scrub her skin bare with steel wool.
“Technically, I was talking to Nikki. The sister got caught in the crossfire.”
Sister Ana Louise smacks a ruler on her desk to shush the room.
“Either way.” Eliza winks at me, revealing a pot leaf drawn on her eyelid. “You showed impressive gusto.”
“I’m missing track practice for this,” I grumble.
But I guess that’s par for the course. I woke up this morning with not a fuck to give and went into the red from there. I’ve been drawing from a negative balance of fucks all day. Up to my eyeballs in fuck-giving overdraft charges.
That’s what happens when you’re completely numb inside.
“Your sunny mood have anything to do with hacker boy? You two get back together yet?”
“No,” I say weakly. “He’s ignoring all my texts.” I pause, a jolt of pain stinging my heart. “Actually, that’s not true. He responded to one of them.”
“What did he say?”
My tone is flat. “Unsubscribe.”
Eliza’s jaw drops. “Harsh.”
Oh yeah. Harsh enough to reduce me to tears, although I luckily got the text in the middle of watching some nature documentary with Casey and our father, so I was able to pretend I was weeping for a poor injured gazelle and not because the guy I love wants nothing to do with me. Then again, I don’t think Dad and Casey even noticed my wet eyes. Casey’s been acting weird the past few days. Quieter, more subdued. Dad thinks it’s the nightmares again, which means he’s been extra attentive toward her. Which means I’m once again an afterthought.
And while I know I should be following his lead and tending to my sister to figure out what’s wrong, I’ve been an emotional wreck since RJ ended things.
I should’ve never let Fenn convince me to support his lies. I hadn’t told RJ about the hookup because he didn’t need to know all the gory details of my hookup past. But once he asked Fenn that question, all bets were off. I should’ve just told Fenn to man up. Should’ve pulled out my phone, called RJ, and told him the truth right then. He probably would’ve still been pissed at Fenn for telling that initial lie. But at least he and I would be good.
And I wouldn’t feel like someone scraped my heart with a dull blade dipped in battery acid.
“I don’t know how many more times I can apologize,” I mumble, as my eyes start stinging again. God, if I cry in detention, Eliza will never let me hear the end of it.
“Hey.” She grabs my arm and scratches DESTROY MAN into my forearm in bold black letters. “If he doesn’t know what he’s lost, he didn’t deserve it in the first place.”
Sure. She’s right. It’s what a good friend tells you. Even when it doesn’t help. Because the damage is done and the heartache won’t pass for days, like food poisoning that needs to get a lot worse before it gets better. There’s that hour or two in the middle of the night when you think it’s all out of your system. Then you’re doubled over in agony swearing to any god that will listen to just make it end.