Page 67 of Rook

I knew that, to Rook, access to his mother was priceless. But I couldn’t help but worry about how much he was spending on me, on us. Money troubles had simply always been a running concern in my life.

To be more specific, the money troubles of the adults around me were a running concern for me. Anytime someone had to spend money on me, they did so grudgingly. And it almost always came with a lecture. If not punishment. Even for something as simple as growing out of my clothes or wearing through the soles of my shoes.

So no matter how many times Rook assured me that the money was no concern, I couldn’t help but worry about it.

I’d even tried to convince him that we could just use the tripod again for the pictures. But he’d put his foot down about that, claiming we needed a photographer to make it all seem legit.

Since it wasn’t my money, I couldn’t exactly say no.

Though I had tried to offer to pitch in. Even if the idea of losing any of the money I’d been socking away gave me a stomachache.

That was the one perk to trying to be around Rook as little as possible—I had more savings than I’d expected to have so soon in this whole process.

Maybe it was immature of me to be avoiding Rook. But when we were close, it was getting harder and harder to fight my feelings and keep my walls intact.

I mean, I’d told him about how my mom had basically sold me to a club president.

That was a story I’d never told anyone before. Sure, I’d softened the story around the edges, leaving out my terror and disgust, about how hard my hands had been shaking, about how I’d been sure I hadn’t drugged the man enough, that he was moments away from grabbing me, stripping me, and pinning me down.

And while I’d seen every sex act imaginable between couples and groups at that point, I’d yet to know a man intimately myself. Which just made it all the more terrifying.

I hadn’t told him what it was like after that incident, about how I’d taken to sleeping in the crawl space in the basement with the spiders, pulling old, dusty boxes in close to hide me, terrified that the president might want a ‘repeat’ of our night together.

And I hadn’t told him about how my relationship with my mother was never the same, about how I no longer went out of my way to help her. To give her clean urine. To make sure she hadn’t passed out on her back.

I definitely hadn’t told Rook how I no longer cared if she choked on her own vomit, how I no longer worried about what might happen when she overdosed again.

Life on my own couldn’t be as bad as life with her.

Part of not wanting to tell Rook those things was because of shame at feeling that way about anyone, let alone my flesh and blood. Another part, though, was because Rook had such a close relationship with his own mother; I couldn’t fathom what he might think of me if he heard that instead of helping my mother through her struggles, I found myself sometimes actively hoping for her demise.

“Last time I wore a suit was for court,” Rook said, coming out of the bathroom, yanking on his collar.

“It looks nice,” I told him, standing there in my robe with my hair in giant curlers.

“That’s a… look,” he said, smiling as his gaze tracked over me.

“I’m hoping this works,” I said, waving toward my head. “I haven’t tried curlers since I chopped all my hair off.”

“You had long hair?”

Whoops.

“Yeah. I cut it a few months back,” I told him, keeping my tone breezy. “Needed a change. But I probably should have gone with smaller rollers for shorter hair. Oh, well. Are you done in there?” I asked, nodding toward the bathroom.

“All yours.”

My dress was already hanging on the back of the door, enjoying the steam from both our showers, making sure all the wrinkles fell out.

I brought my makeup in with me and set to work on a subtle but elegant look before pulling my hair down and combing through it with my fingers until I had the loose waves I was going for.

I’d opted for no veil, choosing instead this gorgeous gold vine and star wedding headband.

By the time I slipped out of my bra, into a pair of nude undies, then into my dress, I was feeling surprisingly shaky.

There was nothing to be nervous about.

It wasn’t arealwedding.

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