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Fuck.
I squeezed my eyes tight and my asshole too, still feeling the burn where Kyle had roughly shoved inside.
Luke’s rules spun through my head. If I told him about this? If Isaid what’d happened, that Kyle had gotten into my throat and my ass, would he believe me if I said I hadn’t wanted it? That it wasn’t me breaking our contract? Or would he leave me behind? Good riddance to stinking trash. Adios to the difficult little liar?
And what good was beinglikedreally if that kind of abandonment was still possible?
Being liked was stupid.
Being raped was more my speed.
I pulled the pillow over my head, that final thought sinking in like a tattoo on my brain. Permanent, indelible.
My heart and head were lost in a haze of feelings, disjointed thoughts, imagined accusations, and horrible memories—and none of it gave way to anything except scattered sleep.
I stayed in bed for the next two days. I didn’t eat. I got up only to pee and grab a sip from the hallway water fountain. I didn’t go to class.
And I sure as fuck didn’t answer any phone calls.
Chapter Seventeen
‡
Luke
“Have you everput yourself out there, Bets, and then had the person reject you?”
“Rodney didn’t reject me,” she said, giving me a silly wink.
“No, I guess he didn’t.” I tweaked her hair, and she rolled her eyes, batting at my hand.
“Why?” She tilted her head, looking me up and down. “Do you have a boyfriend, Lukey?”
I smiled, taking hold of her hand and squeezing it. We sat by the big fountain out in front of Riverwoods. It was another beautiful fall day, and we’d assembled a picnic from food our mother had provided.
“Do you?” she prodded, poking me with her finger and giving me her big, wide grin that never failed to make my heart feel a little lighter.
“I thought I might,” I admitted. “Believe it or not.”
“Does Mom know?” she asked, giggling.
“No. It never got serious enough to tell Mom about him.” Not serious enough, huh? Then why was my heart aching like Minty had stepped all over it in red high-heeled shoes. I was sure he had a pair in a closet somewhere.
“She said she doesn’t care now, remember? About you liking boys?”
I nodded. Mom hadn’t handled my initial coming out as well as she could have, but she’d come around in the end. Dad had struggled even more, but this post-stroke father of mine couldn’t accept me at all. The last time I’d had dinner at their place, he’d lamented again that they’d passed their genes on to two dead ends. Which was a fucked-up thing to say, but that’s how he was now. Dad was fucked up.
Even though Mom was accepting, and I tried not to care what this version of my father thought of me, I couldn’t imagine going home with Minty on my arm. He was gorgeous, sexy, and stunning in so many ways. But those same ways would leave my parents’ jaws hanging open. I hadn’t even begun to think about how I’d introduce him to them before he stopped answering my calls.
Now I wished I’d never taken him out on that date, never tried to ‘make love’ to him. I kept thinking back to how I’d sensed the next morning on my way out the door that something was bugging him, that I’d gone wrong somehow. Now I knew I’d definitely gone wrong by not staying and asking him about it then and there.
But I’d decided to let it go. And now what? Was he letting that asshole Kyle tear him apart again? With no class or caution, no caring or skill?
I wiped a hand over my face.
“What’s wrong?” Betsy asked. “Did you love him a lot? Like how I love Rodney?”
“No,” I said, but my gut twisted in a way that called me a liar.
