Page 46 of Fear Me, Love Me

“I can fill you in on the rest,” I tell him quickly. “I’ll say it out loud so you can enjoy my complete and utter humiliation in person instead of from my diary. I…” I swallow hard, because even though I have to say this, I really, really don’t want to. “I touched myself thinking about you,” I say in a rush. “The first orgasm I ever had, I was thinking about you. I came home from seeing you beat the shit out of those men and it turned me on.” Heat erupts in my cheeks. I’ve never admitted that shameful secret to anybody. I wish the ground would swallow me up, but I force myself to look at Tyrant. “Now you know every demeaning thing about that day. Are you happy? Are we done?”

Tyrant studies me through narrowed eyes for a long time. In his hands, my diary starts to close. Only by a millimeter at first. Then another and another. Relief washes over me. He’s losing interest, or I’m making him realize how disgusting he is to peruse the sexual fantasies of a teenage girl.

“Most teenage girls fantasize about pop stars and tortured werewolves,” he says. “What made a good little girl like you crush on a violent asshole like me? It wasn’t pretty what I did to those men. You should have been throwing up. Did you even wince? Feel a little sick?”

Not once, but why is none of his goddamn business.

Tyrant waits, eyebrows raised. “Nothing to say? Then I’ll keep reading.”

My heart leaps into my throat. He can’t keep reading. Hecan’t. I’ve kept what’s written in that diary buried so long that I’m more terrified of it than anything Tyrant could do to me. His fingers move to turn the page, and I lose my last shred of self-control. With a cry of desperation, I run across the boathouse and try to snatch the diary from his fingers.

He holds it up out of my reach, his expression mystified. “You’re panicking, Vivienne. What could be on these pages that’s worse than what I’ve already read aloud? What you’ve already told me? Did you become my stalker and I didn’t know it? Did you steal my trash? Wipe your pussy juices on my front gate?”

If only it was something stupid like that. Tears spring into my eyes as I attempt to snatch the diary from his fingers, and my voice cracks. “I already told you everything. There’s nothing else that’s even about you. Why are you doing this to me?”

The diary is hopelessly far over my head. I cling to the sleeve of his suit, trying to drag his arm down, but he doesn’t move even one inch. It would be easier to snatch a star from the sky.

“Why? Because I’m having so much fun.”

A sob rises up my throat.Fun.

I look around for a weapon through tear-blurred eyes. Something sharp, or something heavy and blunt. Anything. This is a boathouse, but there isn’t even an oar I can hit him with over the head. I have nothing to stop Tyrant, so I can only turn away from him, squeeze my eyes shut, and cover my ears. If he wants to read, then I’m not going to listen. I’m not here. I’m far away, sitting on my dorm room floor with something beautiful and silky in my lap that I’m sewing with a needle and thread.

A strong hand seizes my wrist and drags it away from my ear.

“You’re going to listen,” Tyrant snarls. “You broke into my home. You invaded my privacy. It’s your turn to know what that feels like. Stop being a fucking baby and acting like I’m destroying your life with the nonsense you wrote about me four years ago.”

I can feel the bones of my wrist grinding against each other in his grip. I try to pull away, but it’s useless. I’m leashed to him.

“Where was I? Oh, yes.”

He reads aloud my detailed description of how I masturbated to thoughts of him. What I thought it would be like to be kissed by him. Touched by him. Fucked by him. Most important of all, adored by him.

“Stop, please,” I whimper, twisting my arm as I struggle to get away.

Tyrant continues without mercy. “I think what I like best is fantasizing about him hurting Lucas. Maybe I shouldn’t, but seeing Tyrant defend the girl in the coral dress makes me wonder what he’d do if I told him what happened.”Tyrant slows down, his gleeful expression fading as his brows draw together. “He’s the only one who would believe me.I would never ask anyone to hurt Lucas, but thinking about it isn’t so terrible, is it? I don’t know what hurts me more, that it happened, or that Dad didn’t believe me.”

All the malice has vanished from Tyrant’s face, and he’s frowning at my diary. He’s not going to stop now. He’s going to read every last word. The fight goes out of me, but he’s still holding on to my wrist. I slump in his grasp, a marionette held up by a single string.

“He said that I must have misunderstood Lucas, but later I heard him talking to Samantha, and he told her I was lying. He’s known Lucas for years, and Lucas would never do anything like that. Besides, Lucas is good-looking and he’s always got women falling over him, so what would he want with me?

“I cried and cried when I heard that. My insides felt like they were on fire. It was worse than all the times that Mom forgot about me. It’s worse than finding her dead body, cold and covered in vomit. I thought I couldn’t feel more alone than I did at that moment. I didn’t think there could be anything more terrifying in the world than that.

“I need to stop thinking about all this and writing it all down, but I can’t make myself stop. Lucas came around again tonight. I need my box to make the pain stop. There are already so many cuts. Sometimes when I catch sight of myself in the bathroom mirror, I’m terrified by what I see. I don’t know how to stop. I feel like I’m going to cut and cut until there’s nothing left of me.”

Tyrant trails off into silence, but his eyes are still moving, absorbing every humiliating, painful thing that I poured onto the page. The silence is excruciating. He knows everything about my secret, and he’s the only one who does. I should have burned that diary so no one could ever find it.

As he keeps reading, he slowly lets go of my wrist. I flee to the other side of the boathouse, slump against the wall, and slide down until I’m sitting on the floor with my arms wrapped tightly around my knees. I want the world to end. I want to die.

Tyrant drops his hand so my diary is dangling by his side. He stares straight ahead for a moment. Then he turns to me. “Lucas who?”

When I don’t answer, he walks over and stands in front of me. I stare at his large feet in their polished shoes.

“I said, Lucas who?”

“None of your business.”

Tyrant hunkers down to my eye level. He lifts my diary and reads aloud, “I want Tyrant to cut me and let all the ugliness out. Deeper than I cut myself. I’m such a coward. He could do it so much better than I could.That sounds like my business.”

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