Page 7 of Hired Help

I don’t want to meet her eyes, don’t want to stare at the girl I thought was my future, but I do.

The gaze that used to burn so hot for her crackles as ice shards splinter across the surface of my corneas. Her expression is pure misery, pain scored an inch deep; past her skin, past her subcutaneous fat, gouging deep into muscles and nerves and tissue.

She falters, swallowing instead of speaking, and for the first time since Alicia’s dreadful revelation, I experience a smidgeon of satisfaction. Nice to know there’s a heaped serving of pain for both of us.

When she clicks that I’m not going anywhereprivatewith her, she tries, “I just wanted to know—”

I snap my gaze away, lifting to stare blankly over her shoulder, scanning for anything, anyone, to distract my attention.

In reaction, she talks faster, babbling. “—if you could share why you don’t want to go out with me any longer. Because if it’s something I could fix, could work on…”

She trails off, her face blushing a furious red. Her complete insincerity riles me.

There is no way she doesn’t know why this is happening. I mightn’t have told her, but Alicia could never keep a secret. It would have taken Brooke all of ten seconds to extract the truth.

She could have come to me. Apologised. Even if I could never forgive her, we might have worked towards a future where we could tolerate each other inside the same school.

Instead of that, she’s trying to save face with her friends. Lying to them the same way she lied to me.

It’s cruel.

It makes me want to be cruel in return.

My voice drops low, becomes husky as I ask, “You really don’t know?”

And as I expected, she can’t hold my gaze. Brooke’s eyes flicker to anything except me while her chest heaves in a breath.

I step closer, crowding her. The same height she used to appreciate, find reassuring when we were out on the town for a night, gets turned against her until she hunches her shoulders, shrinking even smaller.

“I really don’t.” Her diminutive voice whines like a blood-sucking insect, hungry to feast. “One minute we werefine…”

So fine she pouted at a camera, writhing in ecstasy with someone else, smiling, laughing.

Laughing at me.

Anger chokes my air passages until they’re so narrow my field of vision shrinks, the edges dark grey and ragged.

I reach for her, not sure until my hand lands on her shoulder if I’m going to fondle her or strangle her. My body bends down, so far down, until my lips are close to her ear, her hot panting breaths scalding my cheek. “You seriously want me to tell you?”

Guilt flashes in her eyes as I pull my head back far enough to read her face.

“Yes.”

I grab her hair, lacing my fingers through the strands until I can snap her head back with a vicious tug. Her eyes search mine like she’s desperately seeking answers, but Brooke always was a good actress.

Does she truly expect me to give public voice to my shame? Admit to my inadequacies by detailing her infidelity.

Fuck off.

“You’re terrible in bed,” I say in a mocking voice, loud enough to carry through the open door to the cafeteria, stuffed full of watching peers.

The wince isn’t enough. Nor is the dimple that means she’s biting the inside of her cheek.

My volume increases as I continue, “The thought of touching you again revolts me. Your clammy skin and flabby arse and the stupid noises you make. I hate having these memories crammed in my brain of fucking your body while you lie like a gutted fish, not even bothering to move. And thesmell.I’d try to come as soon as possible in self-defence, so I could be done before I puked my guts out.”

From the corner of my eye, I see Everett has his phone out. When I shift my gaze for a second, I see others, their Monday morning gloom gleefully banished by the juicy gossip.

“If you didn’t like it, why d’you keep doing it then?” Her voice is low, a venomous whisper. “It certainly wasn’t for my benefit.”

---