Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 91560 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91560 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“What?”
“You heard me. Take your clothes off. Now.”
“Why?” I fold my arms over myself, searching his face, searching for a way out of this. What am I supposed to do? Let him chase me through the house? Because it’s not like I’m going to get through the door with him blocking it. I could run out to the patio, but he would catch me before I could unlock the door and open it.
He’s so damn fast. One moment he’s staring at me with his back to the door. The next, he launches himself my way, grabbing me by the arms the way those girls did earlier. “I drove you home. Now I get what I want. Understood? I want to see them again.”
I don’t have to ask what he means. “Why? What is wrong with you that you would ask me something like that?”
“What’s wrong with me?” There’s something vicious in his glare, in the tone of his voice. “The girl who cuts herself wants to know what’s wrong with me? Do you hear how that sounds?”
He’s right. I have no business basically accusing somebody else of being broken when I am the most broken person I know. What difference does it make anymore? His grip is hurting me, but he could hurt me a lot worse.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, his glittering eyes crawling over my face, his fingers pressing against my flesh. My heart is pounding hard enough that I can barely hear his voice, now lowered closer to a whisper. “I bet you wish you could cut yourself right now, don’t you? You’re wishing you could be alone so you could drag something sharp over your skin. Because you can’t process shit on your own, can you? I know that’s why you do it,” he tells me. “I looked it up. I wondered what could fuck a person up enough to make them wanna do that. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that why you scar yourself that way?”
I’m fully clothed, but I might as well be naked. Totally exposed to his penetrating stare. “It’s none of your business why I do it,” I mutter.
“Stop stalling.” His hands tighten until pain works its way through the fog around me, sharpening my senses. “Where do you do it? Your bedroom? You would want to have privacy, right?”
I can’t believe this is happening. That he’s dragging me up the stairs, ignoring the way I squirm and try to work my way out of his grip. “Which door is yours?” he grunts once we reach the upstairs hallway.
“Stop this,” I warn, even though I know my words fall on deaf ears. I have to try, don’t I? I can’t just give in.
“I’ll just start going through each room, then.” He’s that determined, pulling me by my arm, ignoring the pained breath I suck through my teeth. He’s like an animal, completely absorbed by what he wants at this moment. No regard for me or anything else.
“In there!” I gasp, nodding toward my bedroom door. Anything, so long as he lets go before he breaks my arm.
He doesn’t let go until he flings the bedroom door open, then pulls me inside. He doesn’t even stop to look around. “Show me.”
You’re fine. Don’t feel it. Go away. For the second time today, I disconnect, watching myself follow orders. Walking to my bathroom, digging into the back of the drawer for the razor blades, going through the motions of joining him in the bedroom, kicking off my flip-flops, pulling down my pants. I don’t care. I don’t care about anything. I’m not even here.
“You already did it today, didn’t you?” Hell, I had forgotten cutting myself in the bathroom. Shallow, I could barely feel it. It was just enough to relieve the pressure and help me move on… until I got to the parking lot and found my tires flattened. It already feels like a lifetime ago.
He doesn’t deserve an answer. I don’t bother saying a word, standing in front of him in nothing but my T-shirt and panties, picking up a blade and holding it between my thumb and forefinger.
“You won’t have any clean skin left after a while,” he tells me, his voice a throaty growl. I feel the weight of his stare, but it means nothing. Like when my foot falls asleep and goes numb. I can feel pressure, but no actual sensation other than that. I’m used to it.
“So what do you do?” he asks, sitting at the foot of the bed, staring at the metal gleaming between my fingers. “Just press the edge to your skin and drag it?” He glances up at me, our eyes meeting, sending a sizzle of anxiety rippling through me.
Rather than answering in words, I show him, touching the tip of the blade to a clean patch of skin. Pressing slightly, the familiar sting makes my nerves dance, filling me with a certainty that I have to continue. I must.