Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
HANNAH
Fuck Rye Rowan.
Fuck the way his touch made me feel like I was floating.
Fuck the way he damn near had me begging for that release.
Fuck the way he made me think of him trapped in my own house with my hands between my legs until I came gasping his name.
My phone chimes for the tenth time. It only exacerbates the pounding in my head.
Opening my eyes, a sharp pain rips through my skull.
At least I can hear again, silence taking over the lake house.
I don’t know how long the party went on.
I do know it took me another bottle of champagne and a Xanax to get to sleep after my “punishment.”
A look at my phone reminds me it’s Saturday, and I don’t have to face the music right away. It should bring comfort. It should bring relief. But what appears on my screen when I unlock it sends my gut spiralling.
Ryung: Thanks for a memorable night
The following message has a photo attached. Me on that throne. The same one he used to torture me. To punish me. My legs spread, that silk belt between them. My cheeks flushed as hell.
I’ve never felt humiliation like this. I sure as hell have never found pleasure in it. And now I have a souvenir of just that.
Hannah: we need to talk
I'm pathetic, staring at the screen, waiting for those three dots. I'm even more pathetic when I call him and it goes straight to voicemail.
Slamming my phone into the sheets, I let out a loud groan. After last night, this is way too much. I need to reclaim this home.
When I finally push my ass out of bed and open the bedroom door, sweet silence greets me. With a big breath, I let the stale air fill my lungs.
“Hello?” I don’t get an answer, my headache lifting when I realize I’m alone. No Crowns. No giggling students. No fake friends. No parents.
Just me.
When I get to the living room, I’m reminded of the chaos that ran through the halls last night. It looks even worse in the daylight. The throne is still where he left it, and so is everything else.
Empty bottles. Feathers. Napkins. Popcorn.
My eyes move back to the empty ‘throne,’ my fists tightening. I’ll need a whole team to clean this up, but all that’s left is me.
“You look like you could use this.” A paper cup comes in front of me, shaking me out of my haze. “Earth to Hannah?”
I don’t even know who it is before fiery red curls block my view of the quad. “Christ, Ember, you’re like if Annie was a giant.”
“The words you’re looking for are ‘thank you’.” She pushes the coffee cup towards me again. “You’ve been standing here like a zombie.” ‘Here’ is on top of the steps of the arts building. “You okay?”
Some girls walk by, entering the building with a few glances at me. They giggle, whispering something under their breath. I shoot them a look, hoping they'll back off, but they don’t even care. They carry on giggling.
Taking the coffee, I know Ember’s right. I spent the last two days cleaning up Rye’s mess. Thanks to my blocked cards, I couldn’t even call a service. Carrie wasn't an option. If I told her to make a special call to the lake house, she’d bill my father. He can’t find out about this.
The first sip of coffee brings warmth to my cold insides. “Thanks.” Then my body stiffens before popping off the plastic lid. “Wait, did Rye send you? Did he put something in this?” It looks like a typical cup of coffee. Brown liquid, the smell of smoky chocolate rising to my nose.
I don’t trust it.
“It’s safe, I bought it,” Ember says. “He’s really getting to you, huh?”
“No.” Moving away from her, I take a seat on the steps. “Why would you even ask that?”
Ember sits next to me. “You mean to tell me after Friday night, you, Hannah Alfonso, are just cool with what he did?”
“Did he say something?” I squeeze my eyes shut when I hear my question, the grip on my cup tightening. "Never mind. It doesn’t matter.” He still hasn’t answered me, and that shouldn’t matter either.
My breath stills.
It definitely shouldn’t matter when Rye and his fellow Crowns come into view.
My eyes fix on Rye as he runs his hand through his thick hair, shining under the sun.
He doesn’t look my way, sauntering through the quad with his other hand in his pocket like he didn’t humiliate me in front of our classmates.
Again. Krystal follows behind him, tapping on her phone in a Saint Laurent leather mini.
She pairs it with a black crocodile beret and platform boots.
All black. All expensive. Together, they look like gothic royalty.
Chloe and Marisol follow behind them, all in black, too.
My eyes narrow on their matching berets.
“Shit!” I don’t realize how tight I’ve gripped my cup until coffee burns my skin, spilling over the top.
Ember hands me a napkin as she laughs. Looking up at her, she looks amused, her gaze moving to the Crowns while I try to dab at my white cashmere pants.
“Hannah, it looks like you care,” Ember says. “Even Friday was—”
“Nothing I couldn’t handle.” My eyes move back to the Crowns, taking their place on the fountain. Rye sports the same silk robe he wore at the party over a black tee. “He just always knows where to press and it’s always fucking sharp."
“Sharp like the glass he broke at my gallery?”
“Why are you bringing that up?” My head whips to hers, my cheeks burning.
“Does he hurt you?”
“Why?” My brows knit. “Are you worried?”
“Should I be?”
“No, he didn’t hurt me.” She’s one to talk. You should’ve seen Ember and Mac last semester. “He never actually carved into me, he just told me he could.”
“So he threatened you.”
“Not really.” My head drops to the side, my gaze moving back to his.
He lights a black cigarette, and it makes me reach for one of my own.
A pink one. “It’s like I knew he could hurt me.
But I also knew he wouldn’t do it?” My bedazzled lighter brings me back to the night in his mom's studio. Coach’s office.
Lighting up, my confused feelings tighten my chest. “He does a hell of a better job at humiliating me.”
“And? Do you like it?”
A sharpness hits my chest. “No!” My mind flicks between the broken glass, the letter opener, the scissors… the skate. My stomach spins before I take a long pull, speaking through my exhale. “I’m not like him or his friends. I don’t get off on pain. No offence.”
“None taken because you’re full of shit.” Ember leans back on her elbows, looking almost as smug as Rye and Krystal do right now. “You have that look in your eyes. You had that look on Friday. And at the gallery.”
“What look?”
“Like you’re replaying it in your head and you don’t hate it.”
Another puff doesn’t reduce the tightness in my jaw.
Does everyone see me this way? Does everyone know?
"I’m more focused on when my parents will let me stay at home again.” I try changing the topic. “The lake house is nice, but it feels…” Like The Crowns own it. “Weird. And the posse is no help.”
Marisol and Chloe laugh with Krystal about god-knows-what. Rye has his phone in his hand, and I hate how aware I am that he still hasn’t answered.
Like he knows I’m watching him, he looks up, right in my direction. And smirks.
My next puff of smoke clouds my view as another couple of girls walk by. They whisper too. When they notice me looking, they giggle to each other.
“What the hell does everyone keep giggling about?” I mutter, bringing my cigarette to my lips.
“Really?” Ember asks. My gaze moves to her. Did I miss something? How is she the one who knows something before I do? She winces. “To be honest, I thought you were standing here gearing up to face the music.”
“Why would I be gearing up?”
Ember reaches for her phone in her canvas tote. She swipes her thumb up her screen before she stops, wincing again. “It might be best you don’t know. You already look so tired.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“No, I just mean, maybe, for now, it’s best you—” Grabbing the phone stops her babbling, but she’s right.
This makes my morning much worse.
It’s a photo. One where I’m tied to that throne, my legs spread, my cheeks flushed. It’s the same one he sent this morning, except it’s on Ryung’s QuickGram and there’s a whole caption.
“Encore @ The Crimson Lake House. Tonight.”
Mother. Fucker.
My hand tightens around the phone, my eyes moving back to him. He still stares at me, like a fucking psychopath.
“Hey, so, there’s already a resident at the gallery.” Ember pries her phone from my hands. “But you can crash at Mac’s. We won’t be there tonight, so he won’t stop you.”
“Wait, you’re going to this?”
Ember’s shoulders drop. “Mac and I are in a really good place, Han.” I don’t miss the shortening of my name, like we really are friends. But it makes her next words land harder. “And the Crowns are like my brothers now.”
“I get it,” I groan. The one friend I have, and Rye knows how to get that too. My eyes move back to Krystal, soaking up the spot I worked so hard for. “Is she going to be there?”
“Most people will be.” Ember’s being honest, but I want to strangle her. “It doesn’t matter. You need rest."
“Thanks, but I don’t need Mac’s place.”
“Then where will you go?”
Rising from the steps, I narrow my eyes at Rye. He smirks. “I’ll see you all tonight.”