Page 18 of Breaking You Open

“Well?” Lilith asks.

“No.” As I shift my legs, I’m reminded of the cum still lining my underwear. It feels stiff and uncomfortable, but for some reason, I don’t feel like taking a shower just yet. “I gave him a blow job though.”

Lilith throws her head back and laughs. “Oh my! I didn’t know you had it in you. Naughty, naughty,” she adds with a twinkle in her eyes.

Thrilled to have caught her interest, I let out the giggle that bursts up my throat.

“Maybe you’re not that boring after all.” She throws me a punch on the shoulder so hard I almost fall back on the bed. “Maybe we can have fun. Pick up some guys together, you know.”

My gaze falls. “Oh. I don’t think so.” I don’t wantguys. I want only one guy.

She rolls her eyes. “You’re one of those, are you? You get attached as soon as a man smiles at you and doubly attached when they fuck you. Don’t you know there are plenty of fish in the sea? Fish who aren’t enforcers with blood on their hands.”

As soon as she says it, I imagine Louis with his back turned, his bulging muscles flexed with his hands at his side, dripping with blood. I imagine him pummeling his fist into the devious face of Eric Fletcher, and then into Aaron’s unsuspecting, vicious mouth until their faces are unrecognizable, bloody masses of pulp.

I realize I’m smiling, and that Lilith is staring at me with a strange expression. I take my time analyzing it. She looks…both surprised and a little disturbed, but there’s recognition there too.

A frown forms a crease between her perfectly filled-in brows, and she asks, “Who hurt you?”

Too many people to count.I could tell her the truth, but what’s the point? It’s weird with Lilith; I never quite know if she’s making fun of me or not, but it’s best to err on the side of caution and not give her ammunition if I can help it.

“Louis didn’t hurt me.”

“Yeah,” Lilith snorts. “I damn sure hope that big oaf didn’t hurt you, or he’d have to answer to me.” She pumps her mascara wand up and down and coats her eyelashes with thick layers. She looks older with makeup on. Meaner. “Anyway, you’re on your own tonight; I’m going out.”

“But…don’t you have that big test on Monday?”

“Who cares? I only applied to get my mom off my back, and you’re just here to escape your foster home, aren’t you?”

I was so nervous on my first day at the campus that I blabbered about all kinds of personal stuff—stuff I now wish I’d kept under wraps. I didn’t know Lilith back then; I didn’t know what she was like.

I’m no stranger to people making fun of me. It happened constantly in middle school, and high school was even worse. My arrival to Madame Sylvie’s home and thereby a new high school marked a new beginning of tormenting classmates. I spent every recess alone, in fear of them finding me. Every day felt like going out to war, and my only refuge was to come home into Aaron’s arms. He’d stroke my hair and whisper sweet things in my ear before he’d turn me around, bend me over, and—

“Hello?” Lilith snorts, and she’s right in front of me now. “I just asked you where my hairbrush is.”

“Oh,” I say, startled by her proximity. “Over there?” I point to the windowsill.

Lilith shakes her head. “You’re so fucking weird.” She finds the hairbrush in a drawer and has a few goes at her bangs. Then she takes hold of my jaw and winks at me, dark-purple lips shiny with gloss. “You’re lucky you’re cute,” she says before she struts out of the room in her obscenely high platform heels, leaving me alone to stew and wonder.

If Lilith finds me cute, maybe Louis did too?

After taking a reluctant shower, I change my pants and put on a hoodie, but I keep Louis’s shirt underneath. I need every sense of safety and comfort I can get, however foolish. I always do.

I spend the rest of the day studying for the term’s first homework assignment. I applied on a whim for the philosophy class, and although I’m not uninterested in the subject, my goal was simply to get into college in the first place, not lay the groundwork for my future. Up until a few months ago, I didn’t have much of a future.

I had Aaron. I had a roof over my head. But that was about it.

Due to a couple of tumultuous years, I had to repeat two grades in high school and ended up graduating two years late. Aaron used to say I was lucky Madame Sylvie allowed me to stay in her foster home even after I turned eighteen, and I suppose he was right, but it also meant I couldn’t get away from him. He was the only one Madame truly liked and therefore let stay for as long as he wanted, even past the legal age. My only option was to seek financial aid and apply to the most remote college I could find.

So I could escape his alluring clutches. So I could be free.

I don’t feel all that free right now though. I just feel lonely.

I sit hunched over my desk with the window cracked to lessen the claustrophobic feel of the small room. Despite the clasp that’s supposed to hold it in place, the wind blows the window right open. I startle from the sound and rise to close it.

That’s when I see it.

A hand. A hand grabbing the windowsill.

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