Page 67 of Sorrow

I’m a mess.

A beautiful, insane mess of pinks and reds and whites.

My dark hair is frizzy and wild, my cheeks permanently flushed.

I’m... marked.

“Will they scar?” I ask curiously, ghosting my fingers along the shallow cuts. “I hope they do.”

“You do?” His voice sounds awed. “They might, but I didn’t cut too deep this time. Next time I will.”

Next time.

Meeting his eyes in the reflection, I’m forced to admit that I want there to be anext time. Not for the money, not because I’m bored or just want to come.

I want to be good for him.

“Was it everything you thought it would be?”

“No.”

My stomach drops, but it was our first time. There are bound to be growing pains.

“WasI?”

“No,” he repeats. “You were better, and so was the whole experience.”

Turning slowly to face him, I reach up to cup his cheek. “Better be careful, Hayes. It’s starting to sound like you care about me.”

“Maybe I do.” He leans into the touch. “Maybe I always have.”

It doesn’t track. Maybe in the last year or so, he’s been mean because he wanted me, but before that? He... what, exactly? Ruined a dance, but that guy turned out to be an asshole. He picked on me, but it toughened me up, which I needed to survive a place like Cape Frost.

Come to think of it, he used to call me flat and then push food toward me when I hadn’t eaten in a couple of days. There was the year I ripped my only coat and my parents couldn’t afford a new one, but a new one ended up on our couch anyway. Thatcouldn’t have been him, could it? After what Boo told me about the money Hayes lent him to get a lawyer, anything is possible.

Fuck. Shaking my head slightly, I back up a step and run into the counter. “Please don’t lie to me,” I say quietly. “Please.”

“Shh,” he breathes, stepping back into my space to cage me there. “I gave you my word on that, remember?”

“Hayes,” I gasp, feeling more vulnerable than I had when he was straddling me with a knife. “Say it. Say the words.”

The second he offers me a lazy smile, I know he isn’t going to do it. “So bossy sometimes. Let’s take a shower, baby.”

He takes my hand and tugs me toward it, making me pout.

I don’t know what else I expected.

“Not bossy. Maybe needy, but not bossy.”

“You can be both.”

Once the shower is on, he lifts me up to carry me inside, and when the water begins to cascade down my body, Hayes watches until all the evidence has washed down the drain.

It isn’t until the water runs clear that he tentatively reaches out and begins to clean me.

The soft, gentle touches only serve to confuse me more. He hurts me, he cherishes me. He tears me down, he builds me up. I’m on a roller coaster with him, and if I’m not careful... one of these days I might end up in a freefall.

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