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“God, no wonder everyone in the goddamn school is half in love with you,” he whispers hard into my ear, huffing. “So fucking tight.”
I roll my eyes, but hum beneath him, gripping my nails into his shoulders like a minor punishment.
I wish he’d shut up.
“Yeah?” I mewl out like a kitten. Playing my part perfectly, flawlessly.
Completely iconic.
“Surprising,” he chokes out with a laugh, but it fades to a moan. “Considering the sheer number of guys you’ve let in here. Thought you’d be—”
“I’m gonna come,” I say, whining and high pitched and so fake it makes my skin crawl.
He starts thrashing harder now, sweat beading on his brow as he furrows it in concentration. It feels the same as it always does. Painful, like knives swimming deep through my skin to the middle of my chest.
Sometimes I grip my heart to check that I’m not bleeding, because it feels so much like I am.
For a moment, my head swimming, his brown eyes melt away into only blue. His body grows in size, covering me. Comforting me like a weighted blanket. And if I close my eyes and really try I can almost feel two-day stubble scratching at my cheek.
“Paloma.”
The whisper of my name on his lips is only a memory but it feels so real tears well up in my eyes.
I want out. I want this to stop.
But I do nothing, just let everything continue to crash over me in waves.
It doesn’t matter. I know that now.
I could scream for whoever it is on top of me to stop, and he’d probably think I was playing a game. And no one in this house would care if it wasn’t. If I was truly hurt.
No one cares.
No one except Bennett. And I destroyed him just like I do everything I touch.
So, I close my eyes and pretend.
He’s almost real in my head. Because I’m an expert at pretending.
• • •
Later, after I’ve made it back to my dorm room and showered off as quickly as I can while still feeling as clean as my brain will let me feel, I stand and stare into the dark, dingy mirror for a long time.
And I know that she is me—that the girl reflected is myself—but the disconnect I feel toward the blonde in the mirror . . . Black mascara stains across cheeks where she carelessly scrubbed her makeup into her skin. Peachy skin raw with the intensity of the fast and uncaring scrub she’s done to her own body. A few fingerprints across her breasts where she let someone pull and tug and hurt because she doesn’t care.
It’s not me, I swear. Only it is. And I’ve played this game before, pretending the things that happened to me were happening to someone else.
There’s a numbness to it, down to the unfeeling grip of my hands across my arms as I curve in on my own body, watching as the girl in the mirror mimics the movement.
If I closed my eyes now, I could almost feel him behind me. Combing my hair, touching my shoulder, kissing the side of my neck, my cheek, my forehead, my hair. Looking at me like I’m something worth his love-filled gaze.
Instead, I stare at the girl I’ve abandoned in the mirror. I smear her image with my hand on the condensation, like the blurred, messy picture will be easier to deal with. It’s only when Sadie knocks on the bathroom door that I even remember I’m not alone. I should be, I think, entirely alone. But I can’t remember if it was her or me who insisted she stay here.
There is a part of us that’s the same, that finds a relief in the way we do things together. Hers is different, though. Where Sadie seems lighter when we reunite after one of her quick hookups, my shoulders only feel heavier. I’ve paid my penance, but it only makes me feel worse. Maybe that’s what I deserve.
After Sadie showers, she lays in my small bed next to me, lightly snoring only seconds after her head hits the pillow.
Sleep never finds me, but pain keeps me constant company.
