Page 7 of Deviant

I don’t want safe.

I don’t want security.

I want…

“Can’t your dad take one of the cruisers from the station instead?” He bats his long, blond eyelashes at me, successfully pulling me away from my melancholy thoughts.

“Not if he wants his deputies to have a car for patrol tonight. After Bobby wrecked his last week, there aren’t enough to go around. And you know that the sheriff’s department is tight on funds right now. My dad can’t just buy a new one that easily,” I explain, taking a seat on the bed beside him.

“Yeah, okay,” Aidan mumbles, disheartened. “I guess it’s a good thing that the Harvest Festival is just around the corner then. Your dad will be able to buy a new cruiser and then some after that.”

With the mention of the upcoming season events, I turn my face away from him and start putting on my chucks, just so I don’t have to stare at the hopeful glint that sprouted in his eyes.

When did he become so fucking cynical?

But just as the thought sneaks up on me, I push it away.

I mean, he’s not wrong.

After the Harvest Festival, everyone, including the sheriff’s department, will have enough money to burn. It’s a well-known fact that most people in this town count the days for whathappens after the festival since the kickback is usually their largest source of income—if not the only one.

Aidan’s mom, for one, could not survive without it.

Still… it feels wrong to eagerly anticipate such a ghastly event. Especially one that is shrouded with such misery and death.

My moral code might be on the fritz, but I know that no amount of money justifies taking a life.

But then again, who am I to talk?

I took the most precious life there was for free.

Not wanting to engage in a fight or let my guilty conscience do my talking—or thinking—for me, I continue to lace up my sneakers in silence. Once I’m done, I lean down and plant a chaste kiss on Aidan’s cheek, like the dutiful girlfriend he expects me to be.

“Call me when you get home later?” His eyes shine bright with that nagging optimism I once found so endearing.

“I’ll try,” I lie, forcing myself to kiss him again, this time on his lips.

Thankfully, it does the trick to subdue him, allowing me to walk out of his room without further argument.

Once I’m safely standing outside in the hallway, I lean up against the wall, needing a minute to myself, even if only just to breathe without anyone’s eyes on me.

But like always… When I’m alone with only myself for company, my breaths start to come out in painful spurts, like shards of glass ripping through my vocal cords.

Instead of breathing, what I really want to do is scream.

Scream out my agony and torment for everyone to hear.

But if I even dare start to scream now, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop.

I know I won’t.

So, instead, I take a note from this town’s handbook and keep my lips sealed shut, preferring to let my suffering corrupt me from within where no one will care to see or even notice.

But as soon as I head down the long corridor to make my grand escape out of the Larsen home, I come across Nora’s closed bedroom door and immediately stop in my tracks—like I always seem to do whenever I’m here.

This.

This is why I still come over when Aidan summons me for his lackluster fuck sessions.

---