Page 62 of Violent Cravings

A sharp sting pierces my heart.

"Why are you telling me this? You don't have to, you know that, right?"

She shakes her head.

"No, sure, I know that," she says. "But I wanted to tell you."

"It doesn't matter," I say. "If you want to tell me something, tell me what else you've been up to. Tell me something other than about having a boyfriend who you claim you didn't fuck-"

"I didn't!" she insists, widening her eyes in a mix of panic and frustration. "You have to believe me! I couldn't! I didn't want to, so I-"

"It's fine," I interrupt again, pinching the soft cheeks of her ass. She jerks up at the burst of pain, but it stops her rambling right away.

"Tell me what else you did? I couldn't find out anything about holding a job or attending college."

She furrows her eyebrows in shock. "Did you stalk me?"

I let out a mischievous chuckle. "Doll, how do you think I found you? Of course, I stalked you. I had to find you, and I have my ways."

The frown stays on her face for a few more seconds before she decides to let it go, searching fruitlessly for an answer to my question.

"I paid off my debt," she says. "All of it. It was quite a lot."

I remember her telling me about her mother and how she quit college to be with her, to care for her, just to see her wither away and die. She's as motherless as I am, but her loss somehow seems more profound, even to me. I lost my mother long before I even had a chance to remember her. I was way too young when she passed, and I never knew a life with her in it. Laura knows such a life, what it was like to have a mother, but she's been robbed of it.

She told me that she's okay, but I know she isn't. No one is such a short time after losing one's mother so tragically. No one. Not even my doll, the little warrior.

"What about college?" I ask her. "Did you go back to California to give school another chance?"

She sighs. "Maybe. I don't know. I didn't do it, though. To be honest, I didn't really do anything."

A pause fills the air between us with tense silence. I don't know what to tell her, and I don't know if there's anything else she wants to tell me. Was she about to make a drastic change in her life, but my appearance kept her from doing it?

"I'm sorry," she whispers eventually, surprising me.

"You're sorry? For what?"

She shrugs.

"I feel like I've let you down," she says. "Like... I should have done something meaningful with your money."

"It's your money," I insist. "And doll, you don't have to worry about letting me down. You didn't. I don't think you ever could."

The smile that appears on her face carries with it a shade of sadness. "Thank you, master."

The idea of her letting me down seems so absurd that I can't even grasp it. It's beyond my comprehension.

Me, on the other hand? I may very well be the one letting her down.

Big time.

---