Page 10 of The Wrong Play

All I knew was that I never said no.

Once I had given in, there didn’t seem to be a way to take it back.

At first, it was under the pretense of helping me with my college applications. My father had been thrilled when Callum volunteered, saying it was an incredible opportunity to have help from someone so respected in academia.

It also meant that my father didn’t have to spend any of his precious time helping me. Win, win for him.

I couldn’t come up with a fast enough excuse to say no. And even if I had, I knew it wouldn’t have mattered.

So, I sat at his desk, pretending to focus on school applications while his presence loomed behind me, always too close, always just barely brushing against me. A hand on my shoulder. A soft breath against my neck when he leaned down to point something out on my laptop. The way his voice dipped low when he praised me, whispering how sexy I was…how special I was.

Right before he fucked me on his desk.

He cut me off from everything. From my friends, from school, from anything outside of him.

“You think they care about you?” he’d ask, his voice laced with mock sympathy when I mentioned an invite from friends.

And when I would shake my head, desperate for his approval, he would smile and tuck my hair behind my ear, whispering, “That’s my darling.”

He made me think I wanted it.

Needed it.

He reminded me constantly that no one else would deal with me.

“No man is going to put up with this, Riley,” he murmured one night, his fingers brushing over my wrist where the scar from my IV line still lingered. “No man is going to want a girl who spends half of her time sick in bed, too tired to function. That’s why you’re so lucky to have me. Because I can see past all of that.”

He was everywhere.

In the mornings, he would want an hour by hour outline of my day. If I didn’t answer, he’d call, his voice smooth as he asked if I was ignoring him.

When I was with my parents, he would brush his fingers against mine beneath the table, just barely, just enough to make my stomach clench with something confusing, something sick.

When I started pulling away, feeling the weight of what we were doing, he made me feel unlovable.

A burden that only he could endure.

I had never felt more alone.

I hated myself.

But I couldn’t stop.

Because he had convinced me that I was his. That no one else would ever want me the way he did.

And the worst part?

I believed him.

I knew the moment I woke up that my body wasn’t going to cooperate today.

My limbs felt heavy, my mind ached with the familiar pressure of exhaustion, and my stomach churned like I had swallowed glass. I was used to this, it’s not like it was the first time. My body had betrayed me for years, pulling me into waves of fatigue and pain I couldn’t control.

But today was worse. Today, I felt like a shell of a person, barely able to breathe, let alone move.

I had tried to tell him. Tried to explain that I didn’t have it in me, that I was too sick, that I needed to rest. But Callum never listened when he didn’t want to.

“Shh,” he had whispered against my skin, his weight pressing down on me, suffocating. “Just let me have this.”

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