Page 100 of What Lies Within

Please. Pass soon. Make it quick this month. Fuck—I can’t do this.

“Rae?”

I jolt at the sound of the last goddamn voice I’d ever expect to call my name right now. “Yeah?”

Kane steps into the doorway. He studies me in silence, his frown still fucking there and a slight scowl on his lips.

“Look, I really can’t handle any more shit from you, so if you’ve got nothing useful to say, just go,” I snap. “If they forced you to apologize or?—”

“They didn’t.” He leans his shoulder against the door jam and folds his arms. “What’s goin’ on?”

"I don't know what they're doing outside, okay? I?—"

“I meant with you.”

Fuck.I don’t need this pressure. “I’m having that menty B you so eagerly wanted.” Tears crest my cheeks.Fuck it.

“I can see that.”

“If you want to ridicule me, now isnotthe time.” Not when my psyche only needs one more match…

"I don't." He draws a deep breath and glances over his shoulder as though concerned somebody might overhear him. “I’m sorry about giving you shit. I thought you were stronger.”

A jaded laugh barks from deep in my chest. “The fuck? That’s your apology. You’re sorry I wasn’t stronger. Not that you fucking showered me with your hate for no fucking reason other than to make yourself feel vindicated about some shit I bet hasnothingto do with me.”

He chews his bottom lip, glancing to the floor as I throw my hate his way. “Fair point.”

“Of course, it’s fucking fair,” I exclaim, hands tossed at my sides. “Anything else you’d like to get off your chest before I go kill myself?”

His head snaps up, eyes hard. I count the flares of his nostrils as his brow twitches into a deeper frown.

Shit.I didn’t mean to say that, but fuck, it is what it is at this stage.Welcome to my period cycle, asshole.

“Nobody decides when we die but fate itself,” he grumbles. “You don’t get to choose that.”

"No?" I sob, slumping against the bed. "Then why the fuck does my head try so damn hard every month to convince me?" Fuck it—let him see what this is.

Let him have a real reason to pity me.

It’s all I fucking do.

“What do you mean every month?” He edges closer, dropping to his haunches, hands slung between his knees.

"It doesn't matter," I mumble. "It's girl problems. It'll pass."

“Doesn’t look like it will.”

“Trust me.” I stretch my legs out and pat the puffy lump where my uterus tries to balloon out of my jeans. “It will.”

He curls his nose as though the revelation disgusts him. Yet he doesn't stand and leave like I expect. Kane damn well drops to his ass, too, turning to lean against the bed like I am.

We sit in silence for a long, painfully awkward minute before he speaks again.

“Look, I’m sorry for choking the shit out of you earlier.”

“Apology not accepted.”

He tips his head, eyebrows bopping as though to say,“Fair call.”He lets out a long, slow breath before licking his lips to speak. "When Mom left, I blamed myself for so long." He tips his head forward, longer shanks of his hair falling to partially shield his eyes as he rolls his jaw. "I thought I was the reason they split since I couldn't hide where she was from Dad. If I'd been stronger, bigger, I could have gotten her home all by myself, and he never would have known."

---