Page 106 of His Pretty Little Duet

But the sound of their pleasure lingers inside the cells in my brain, a broken neuron on repeat. A sound that imbeds itself in deep.

“I’m bleeding.”

No. No. No. Bile rising in my throat, I throw my head to the side, expelling the entire contents of my stomach: three meals, cake, and ice cream.

A stomach full of lies.

My eyes are dragged back to the screen again as the fat one pushes the handsome one onto the glass table before taking hold of the girl again. Slamming her face down on the couch, he starts to fuck her again while she watches the other boy slowly bleed out all over the carpet.

My lungs shrivel inside me. Oxygen impossibly thick. I feel dizzy. Hazy. Airless. She looks just like me...

No.

It's not me on the screen.

It's not me who was raped.

It's not me.

"Fawn!"

The grunts from the screen, in my head—in my cells—and the pounding between my ears are all interrupted by a weak, useless name being called. Someone is callingmyname from outside his office. I look up to see the office handle shake and shake and shake, but it's locked and I'm alone in here. With her. And them.

My body keels over, and I drop to my knees, press my palms to the carpet, and heave for oxygen.

It's not me.

Fawn

Someone kicksthe door from the lock, splintering the plasterboard, dusting the air in small white fragments.

"Fawn, are you sick?" Henchman Jeeves says, panic an ever-ready entity, making his words pitch higher. Am I sick? Am I sick?

As I stare at the carpet, sucking in air—sharp, hot, thick air that doesn't want to be inside my tiny, shrivelled lungs, I see him kneel beside me. He reaches for me—his hands and skin and warmth hurdling me further into despair, and I jolt away from the horrible feeling.

"Don't touch me," I gasp, my mouth filling with tears around each sharp desperate draw for air.

He sinks back. "Fuck. Talk to me, Fawn."

I hate the tears. I fight them, but the wrestle forces a broken groan from my throat. I don't want to cry in front of him, in front of them, for them or because of them, but I can still hear the grunts that are now a part of my soul. A blemish in my brain.

Fuck.

My shoulders.

My fucking shoulders and chest won't stop shaking, and air won't flow freely into my lungs.

"Fawn? I've called Mr Butcher. He's on his way."

When I curl my fingers into the carpet, fending off the tremors, shooting pain rushes beneath the nailbeds like electrical currents, warning me they are bending the wrong way. I revel in the pain.

It's real.

Pain is truth.

Undeniable. No one can keep the pain from me, and I'll decide what is too much, what is enough.

It's my body and I'll decide!

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