#3
“Goodnight.” I don’t bother turning back to the rest of my family.
I don’t kiss my mom on the cheek or hug my dad.
I don’t hit Mav, though physically assaulting one another is basically how we express love.
I simply stride into the hall and pray Scarlett hasn’t figured out how to open my bedroom window yet.
If she’d gone out the main doors, the silent alarms would’ve alerted us already.
But the window… that’s a loophole I haven’t told her about yet. Just like I haven’t told her about that time I read, in real time, her words to Lincoln.
I hate it here, Linc.
I just wanna go home.
I’d rather not tell them it’s my birthday, because them not knowing is better than them knowing and not caring.
Every girl wants a pony for their birthday.
Would Tank protect me if bullets were flying and shit was going bad? Sure. Assuming his mother says it’s okay.
I walk the hall just as eagerly as prisoners walk toward scheduled death. My stomach jumps with nerves, and my veins burn with dread. My head throbs with an ache somewhere in the very back of my skull, but right there at the front, I cling to her promise.
She won’t assume the worst without giving me a chance to explain.
Stopping at my door and glancing back along the hall, I flatten my lips and wave Koda’s curious gaze away.
The instant he dives back into the kitchen with a silly giggle, I open my door and prepare for…
fuck, I don’t even know what. An open window.
A loaded gun. A suitcase, already packed and stacked on my bed.
Stepping into my room and closing the door behind me, I find Scarlett lying on the bed. Her dress is gone, and in its place are a pair of pyjama shorts and an oversized hoodie.
Not mine.
Her shoes are gone, her face glistens with a fresh layer of moisturizer, and her eyes focus on the phone she holds between her hands.
She’s texting… Lincoln, likely.
I know when she hits send, because my phone buzzes in reaction. As does Mav’s. Mom’s. Dad’s. The whole fucking security team’s.
Swallowing, she glances across and shows off a face splotchy and red in some spots. “I meant to come back. I’m sorry.” She goes back to staring at her phone. “I have cramps tonight, and I really needed to lie down.”
“Cramps?” I wander across my room and study each surface and space for signs that she already started packing. I look toward the window, but not only is it still closed and locked, but her notebooks are still exactly where I last saw them.
Bending while I walk, I unlace my boots and step out of them, so as soon as I reach the bed, I crawl on and lie on my side, my head on the pillow and my hand on her lower belly. “You’re in pain, Princess?”
“Yeah.” She places her hand over mine. It’s brief, but it’s comforting. It’s quick, but at least she doesn’t push me away. “I’m due for my period in a few days… I always get a sore belly leading up to it.”
Lies.
Not about cramping leading up to her period. But about her period being due.
All lies. Because she already skipped her period by skipping the sugar pills that come with her birth control.
She’s lying to me.
“I’m sorry if my mom asking about Linc felt like an interrogation. She didn’t mean it like—”
She flicks screens on the phone and peruses the games until she settles on Tetris. “Didn’t feel like an interrogation. Everything is fine.”
Back when I asked her to promise not to assume the worst, I should’ve made her promise not to lie, too.
We both know she defers to everything is okay, everything is fine when she’s scared to admit otherwise.
“I snapped at my mom after you left.” I curl closer and drag her into the hollow of my body. “I called her out for interrogating you.”
“You shouldn’t have done that. I never said I was upset with her.”
“She said she would apologize,” I push on.
“That she swears she didn’t mean to scare you off.
She said she knows you love Linc deeply, so she was prompting you to talk about him some more, because when you do, you smile.
And when you smile, you have two really beautiful, really deep dimples that make her heart happy. ”
Okay, well, that last one was me.
“I’ll tell her tomorrow that no apology is necessary.
” She sets her phone aside and meets my eyes, and since we’re so close, she presses a kiss onto my lips.
Then a second. She turns to her side and hitches her leg over my hips, and because I’m a slave to her, I don’t even stop her when she slips her tongue into my mouth and her hand into my pants.
She’s spent every single day for years convinced she’s weak. Convinced she’s less than, because men scare her, and her body’s natural instincts make her freeze sometimes. But right now, in this stark reality, I have no choice but to admit: of the two of us, it’s me who’s weak.
I’m the one who turns onto my back and allows her to crawl onto my lap.
I’m the one who lets her peel my pants lower, and her shorts to the side.
And it’s my weakness that condones this, our bodies joining in silence, not because she wants to, but because she thinks having sex will convince me everything is fine. Everything is okay.
Fuck.