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Camile helps me to my feet. I keep my head down, allowing my hair to fall over my face. I’d use my sleeve to wipe away the blood, but I can tell by the tension on my skin that it’s dried already.
Thankfully, we get back to my room without bumping into anyone. Camile guides me to my bed, which I sit on the edge of, and she gets me a facewipe to clean off the blood. Then she goes to my bathroom to get me a glass of water. She presses it into my hands, and I take a tentative sip.
“You going to tell me what’s going on?” she asks as she perches on the bed beside me.
I owe her at least some explanation. “I’m epileptic. It started when I was twelve, just when I hit puberty, I guess.”
She places her fingers to her lips. “Jesus, Zee. I had no idea.”
I shrug. “I prefer to keep it that way. I don’t want to be treated differently than everyone else.”
“Still, the people around you should know. They should be taught what to do if you have a seizure so they don’t do something to make it worse.”
“Maybe you’re right, but I’ve normally got things pretty under control. It’s just that coming here, and…what happened before has thrown my routine all out of whack.”
“What about the blood? You said it wasn’t yours.”
I stare down at my hands. “It’s Dom’s.”
“Dom’s?”
It’s like everything I’m saying is taking her one step closer to disbelief.
I squirm awkwardly. “We had sex.”
“You what?”
I hurry on. “It wasn’t intentional. It just kind of happened.”
“Okay,” she says slowly, “I don’t get how you accidentally just had sex with that douchebag, and it still doesn’t explain the blood.”
Her words are not angry, but I can tell she’s disappointed in me. Maybe if she understands Dom a little more, or at least how I found him, she’ll get how I let it happen. I can’t stand to lose a friend over this.
I let out a long sigh, debating how much to tell her. Can I trust Camile with someone else’s secret? If I’m going to offer her any kind of explanation, I don’t feel like I have much choice.
“You have to promise to keep this to yourself.”
“Of course, babe. Whatever you want.”
“You swear?” I insist.
“I swear,” she parrots back.
I let out another breath and slump down. “Okay. Dom cuts himself.”
“What? Like self-harm?”
I nod. “Yes. He cuts the inside of his thighs. That’s where the blood is from.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Do I want to know what you were doing with him to get blood from the inside of his thighs on your face?”
My cheeks burn hot. I don’t normally share this kind of intimate detail with anyone. My relationship with the professor was a secret, so it wasn’t as though I could even tell my best friend what we got up to between the sheets. Lola thought I was basically a frigid virgin.
“He-he kind of branded me with it.”
Her eyes practically pop out of her skull. “You have got to be fucking joking.”
“I found him cutting himself, and he was still bleeding, and then somehow we ended up having hate sex, and then he put his blood on my face and told me I was his now.”
