Page 9 of Huge

My whole body is a big bundle of adrenaline spiked flesh and boneless panic.

He said, princess. It’s the nickname he always uses for me because he knows how much itpisses me off. But did he mean it directly at me because he knew, or does he just throw around that patronizing term of endearment to any girl that crosses his path? I feel sick to my stomach…in fact...

…I dash to my bathroom and only just reach the toilet before I heave. I hate being sick at the best of times, but now I’m shaking and crying because I don’t know what to do. If he knows it was me...if he guessed, then how can we pretend it never happened? I can’t go back to being his stepsister and sitting next to him at dinner, making innocuous family-style conversation. Ican’t hear him call me princess again without seeing him lying on that rug, jeans around his thighs and his hand covering up the evidence of what we’d done.

I retch again at the thought of having to go downstairs tomorrow and see him pour out his stupid sugary chocolate cereal like an overgrown five-year-old and pretend nothing happened.

This is a disaster of epic proportions.

At the sink, I wash out my mouth with a handful of water and then catch sight of myself in the mirror. My black lace bat mask is still in place, but my white face make-up is smudged, and my lipstick is nonexistent. I look at myself objectively, trying to work out if Harrison could have guessed. With my purple eyes and a lot of my face covered by the mask and my wig, I can’t see how he would have suspected. I kept my voice level different the whole time. I didn’t slip once. When I left the house before the party, I was totally convinced he would never guess. My heart rate normalizes as I begin to doubt my panic-inducedfreakout. Harrison can be a real charmer. I know this. He has a silver tongue. That must be what the ‘princess’ comment was all about. Just him rolling out the smooth moves.

Maybe I’m worrying about nothing. I take some steadying deep breaths, holding onto the edge of the sink. Then, when I feel more normal, I start removing my costume. Each layer that I peel away makes me feel better. I stuff the whole thing into a bag and hide it at the back of my closet in a large, white cardboard box that houses my memorabilia. I take out the contacts and use make-up remover pads to scrape away the remnants of the white face-paint and smoky black eyeliner. When my skin is clean, I peel down my holdups and panties and remove my bra. It’s lateto have a shower, and I know the damn pipes will groan loudly when I turn it on, but I feel like I need to wash if nothing else to soothe my poor lady bits. I find water really cathartic when I’m stressed, and it’s nice to wash my hair that has been squashed under the hot wig.

I towel myself dry and get into some cute pajamas that are made of silk and so soft against my skin. I’m thirsty, so I pop downstairs to get some water. The house is quiet, and I look around at my home that has changed so much over the past year. Lacey has been redecorating, which is great. The place had been getting pretty shabby. She has a bit of a thing about photographs and always insists we have ‘family’ pictures taken on any special occasion. There are five framed shots of me, dad, Lacey, and Harrison in the hall alone. We look kind of awkward in all of them, but I guess maybe that’s why Lacey has been trying so hard to unite our family. I stare at the most recent one and notice for the first time that Harrison seems to look at me. If I remember correctly, dad had been goofing around, telling one of his ridiculously unfunny jokes. I’m laughing, and so is Lacey, and I always thought that Harrison was looking amused in the picture, but now that I’m studying it more closely, his expression seems warm and kind of affectionate.

I shake my head, feeling ridiculous for overlaying my sentimental feelings into something that’s probably as innocent as I had previously thought it was. I’m reading too much into everything, and I know it’s my sex brain that’s to blame. It’s a girl thing, I think. We sleep with someone, and somehow, all these feelings are pumped into our bodies, and we become weak. I don’t want to be weak for Harrison. I need to be strong now so that I have the courage to move on and pretend everything is normal.

Back in my room, I close my door, turn off the light, and slip under my comforter. With my whirring brain, it’s hard for me to sleep, but I must fall into the dream-world at some point because it’s light in the room when I come around. I feel hotter than usual and push my arms out of the covers and stretch. I always go to sleep on my side facing the wall and have woken up in the same position. It’s a few seconds before my mind catches up with my body, and I realize what I did last night. I moan softly, remembering in flashes the amazing sex and that terrible moment when Harrison called me princess.

“That’s the noise I like to hear,” Harrison’s voice whispers from behind me.

I turn, scrabbling with the covers to find him lying on the other side of my king bed, hands behind his head as though he’s exactly where he’s supposed to be.

“What the fuck, Harrison,” I stutter, pulling the comforter around my neck to protect my modesty. It’s a stupid reaction bearing in mind what we did less than twelve hours ago, but what can I say? I’m running on gut reactions here.

“You’re a strange girl,” he says, still looking up at the ceiling with a stupid grin on his face. It’s his panty-melting one. I can tell from the little dimple he has on the cheek closest to me and the crinkles around his eyes that I love so much. ‘Strange girl’ is what he called me last night when I was dressed as a vampire-goth.

He knows.

He fucking knows.

I bury my head under the covers and groan. The terrible sinking feeling I have in my gut is the same one I get when I have the college dream where I’m wearing only my granny pants and an old sports bra, and everyone is pointing and laughing except that this time the only person laughing is Harrison, and suddenly I’m angry.

Who the fuck does he think he is coming into my room dressed in his sexiest tight black boxers and laying himself down on my comfortable sheets, looking like a total sex god? Stupid question. He thinks he’s Harrison Stone, and he knows…he really, absolutely knows it was me he fucked at the party.

Before I have a chance to whip out from under the covers and confront him with my angry self in full red-rage flow, I feel the bed shift as if he’s rolled towards me. Then I feel his heavy hand take hold of the covers and peel them slowly back. I peek through my fingers and find him looking down at me with his gorgeous eyes all soft and gooey, as though he’s looking at something or someone he really, really likes.

He’s looking at me, and it’s not with anger or disgust. Harrison has come into my room wearing nothing but his underwear and is gazing at me as though I’m the sweetest, pinkest cupcake he’s ever seen and he wants to lick off all my frosting!

“You know,” I whisper, hiding behind my fingers again while I wait for the ground to swallow me up and take me straight to hell.

“Of course I know, princess,” he says, gently easing my hands away from my face. I stare up at him and feel ridiculous for feeling like I’m suddenly in the sunlight.

“How?” I was sure my costume was the perfect cover.

“You think you’re such a master of disguise,” he laughs. “The costume was good and your voice, that was pretty different, but your laugh…” he shakes his head. “I’d know that laugh anywhere.”

“God,” I say, hiding again at how pathetic I am.

“Stop burrowing like some kind of deranged mole,” he says, tugging back the covers. “Why are you acting all coy now? You weren’t shy last night.”

“I was in character,” I say weakly.

He chuckles. “I noticed. That was a pretty amazing costume. You about blew my mind.”

I’m ready to shout at him for teasing, but he seems pretty earnest. And then it hits me. He knew it was me when I laughed, and the only chuckling I did was before we played hide the sausage. That means he wanted to have sex, even when he knew it was me under the disguise.

“You knew,” I say with a gasp. “You knew before, and you still did it.”

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