Page 9 of Dare To Fall

Pulling free out of his grip, I scoot away from him across the bed. “The diary he stole. You twisted all my fantasies up. You did it to humiliate me.”

“Yes … No.” Eli shakes his head.

“You hate me. You’ve always hated me.”

“I can’t go back and change the past. I wish I could, but I can’t. You felt something for Sin. You felt safe with him. With me—”

My head is a mess, and I can’t think straight. I snatch up a pillow and hug it to my chest. “Sin isn’t real. You made him up. He is a lie.”

“Ari, no matter which way you look at it, Sin is me.” Eli’s voice is soft and steady. “You had feelings for me.”

I loved him. Something I’d told Sin in my texts when I thought he’d abandoned me.

I stare at him, raw piercing bleakness clutching my heart. “I didn’t know it was you.”

“You felt good with Sin, didn’t you? He gave you the confidence to be strong. He told you to fight. He made you feel alive.”

“Yes, but—”

“It wasn’t a trick, Ari. I swear it wasn’t. Not after Halloween. I liked being with you. Touching you.”

“Sin left me.” I hug the pillow tighter, pressing my cheek to the top of it. I’m so confused. From day one, Eli has set out to destroy me.

Why would he change his mind? Why would he help me?

“I couldn’t fuck you.” Eli’s voice is low and raw. “Not like that. I wanted you to know it was me. Eli, not Sin. That it was me inside you, giving you pleasure. That it was me you were begging. I wanted to hear you cry out my name when I made you come.”

“You were so shitty to me during school.” My whisper is soft, fragile, threatening to break.

“You were accusing me of things. The photograph telling everyone you were my stepsister.” He rakes a hand through his hair. “And then things changed again at Thanksgiving.”

“You took my virginity.”

He narrows his eyes. “You were not drunk.”

“I’d been downstairs, and I wanted something to numb my feelings. Miles told me vodka didn’t taste of anything, so I had it with a can of Coke.”

“Fucking Miles,” he growls.

“It’s not his fault.” Kellan moves from his crouch to sit on the edge of the bed. “Then the video was leaked, and you ran away.”

“I-I couldn’t face anyone,” I stammer. “They were already teasing me about you.”

“We didn’t leak that video either,” Kellan tells me. “We haven’t shared anything. The cloud was supposed to be secure, but someone hacked into it and stole everything.”

Eli looks at me for one long minute. “We called a truce over Christmas. You smoked your first joint, and we got to know each other better. We had sex and, no matter what you claim, it wasn’t just fucking, Ari.”

My bottom lip trembles. “It wasn’t real.”

“You lashed out at me at the Christmas Eve party. You were happy with me until that night.”

He’d been the boy who held my hand. The one who made me feel good. He had made me smile. I recall my fear of coming back to school. How angry I was with him for reading out my diary in class.

“But then another photograph was released.” Kellan breaks the silence. “And you came back to school. When did they start blackmailing you, Bella? Was it straight away?”

My chest grows tight at his words. “I—”

Eli reaches out and gently strokes my bare thigh. “We figured out what was happening a few days ago. I’m so fucking sorry we didn’t see it sooner. You wouldn’t have been all alone. You can tell us. It’s okay to talk.”

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