Page 11 of Vengeful Sins

“I’ll throw whatever the fuck I wanna throw your way.” Standing upright, I glare down at her, my fists clenching whenall she does is stare blankly back. There’s no fear, no anger, no resentment. There’s nothing but emptiness.

And it’s unnerving as fuck. A chill runs down my spine, but I shake it off.

Scoffing, I back away. She doesn’t move, staring at me, waiting for me to leave. There’s something broken about her. Something deeply wrong. Otherwise, how could she stand there so completely still and silent?

She doesn’t move until I open the door, in fact. A door I leave open, standing against it to hold it open so anyone passing by can see. If I can’t get a reaction out of her, maybe they will. “For fuck’s sake, Maya,” I call out, turning my face toward the hall so everyone out there can hear me. “Pull up your fucking pants. You look desperate.”

I don’t bother looking back at her to catch her reaction. Hearing the laughter and whistles from everyone nearby is more than enough for me.

6

MAYA

Ifeel nothing. Nothing can touch me. Nothing matters.

My body feels that way, anyway. I don’t know about my head. Even with the door closed, I hear them out there. Snickering, some flat-out laughing, all of them thinking they’re so clever. So much better than me. Well, maybe they are. Maybe I’m just the last one to know. Then again, how many of them basically killed their own mother?

Not here. Not now.

A layer of ice settles over me, numbing me the way I prefer to be. There’s no problem here. I’m going to pull myself together and leave this room. By then, everybody will have forgotten or at least moved on. They’re all a bunch of idiots, anyway. Most of them barely have the attention span of a goldfish. That’s what I cling to as I pull up my pants, refusing to look at the scars. He just had to see them, didn’t he? He has to strip me down fully, has to leave me defenseless. It’s like he lives for it. I will never understand what drives him or anyone who thrives on bullying.

It doesn’t matter right now. I need to focus on what matters in the moment. Getting the hell out of this room. Going somewhere I can breathe. It’s like the walls are closing in, wallsaround me, walls around my brain. The pressure is too much. Maybe it’ll kill me. Maybe part of me wishes it would.

Once my clothes are straightened out, I pick up my bag, treating myself to a few deep, shuddering breaths. I hear their voices out there. They’re still snickering, some of them waiting for me to come out. I can tell by the way they laugh, by the way they shush each other. Like a bunch of people hanging around, prepared to surprise the lucky person whose party it is. Only this is no happy surprise party. It’s anything but.

Since I know better than to think they’ll ever go away until I come out, I open the door, my head held as high as I can manage. They are not going to break me. Besides, I’m already broken.

“Nicely done, Maya!”

“If I only knew it was so easy to get you to drop your pants…”

“When do the rest of us get a turn?”

Ugly, all of them. Ugly people with ugly souls. I need to hold onto that and keep holding onto it, because it’s the only thing that makes it possible to put one foot in front of the other. Their snide laughter follows me out of the building, where a wave of heat immediately hits me straight in the face. It’s like walking into an oven, but I keep walking, ignoring the way the denim feels on my legs; how hot and sticky and uncomfortable it is once I start to sweat as I quicken my pace, my head down. It’s clear where I’m going before I even realize I made a decision. Rather than sit outside to clear my head before my next class, I duck into the library, where it’s cool and darker and nobody knows what happened back there. Word might spread—it usually does—but for right now, the people around here are busy studying.

Well, except for one other person. I hear her behind me as I swipe my student ID to go beyond the vestibule. “Maya!” Wren’s voice is a whisper, fierce and sharp and heavy with concern. Oh, wonderful. I should’ve known better than to think I could be alone.

This is your friend. Yes, she is my friend, and I’ve tried to be a good friend to her. There is no reason to feel so apprehensive when she joins me, falling in step beside me as I search for a quiet corner to duck into. Normally, the smell of so many books would stir comfort in my soul, the hushed voices of people speaking if they speak at all. It’s something familiar. It’s safe.

Though it doesn’t feel exactly safe, once Wren grabs me by the arm and pulls me between the stacks. If only I didn’t have to see the look of pain written across her face while her eyes search mine. She takes a scrunchy from her wrist and pulls her hair back, tugging at the neckline of her tank top like she’s trying to cool herself off. “It is brutal out there. Didn’t you hear me calling your name? I was practically running after you.”

“I guess I didn’t. Sorry.” I cross my arms over myself, feeling defensive. In front of Wren, of all people.

“You know…” Her teeth graze her bottom lip, and I’m wondering if she’s so flushed because she’s hot or because she’s upset. “I’m here for you. You know that, don’t you? I want to be, anyway.”

“I know that.” God, get me out of this, it’s too much. The way she’s looking at me, the little tremble in her voice.

“You have been such an amazing friend to me, and I love you,” she whispers. “I hope you know that, too. I really do. You saved my life.”

When I can’t help but shake my head—it’s sort of an overwhelming thing to hear—she insists. “It’s true. But now I feel like there’s something happening between us, and I think I know what it is.”

Shit. No, there’s no way she can know what’s weighing heaviest on me, so heavy I can barely breathe. I’ve worked so hard to keep it a secret. “You do?”

Her eyes shine with emotion as her head bobs. “I don’t want you to hate me because I ended up with Briggs. I knowit probably seems fucked up from the outside looking in, but it makes sense to my heart.” She places a hand on her chest, where the organ in question beats. “It just seems like when I got together with him, things started to get weird between you and me. I’m not trying to push you out of my life.”

“I get it.” Though now that we have started down this path, I’m kind of glad. The truth is, I have wondered more than once what she’s thinking. How she could want to be with somebody like him after the hell he put her through. “And I don’t hate you. Not even close. I mean, I have wondered,” I admit. “But everybody’s relationship is their own thing. Nobody understands when they’re looking in from the outside, like you said.”

“Look at me for a second.”

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