Page 52 of Our Secrets and Scars

I am unlovable.

I am not enough.

A throat clears on the opposite side of the room, and I snap my head toward the sound, wincing as the movement sends booming pain reverberating through my skull.

Holden is folded into an armchair as he stares at me on the bed, a steaming cup of coffee held between his two fingers and thumb. He nods his head toward the side table next to me, at the two white pills and a glass of water. “They’re Advil. Take them.”

Though he doesn’t so much say it but order it like a military commander. Even so, I obey without question. And when I’m done, I look to him as if for praise, or at the very least, reassurance. I don’t receive either though.

His face wears an expression I can’t place. A little angry, a little betrayed, but there’s relief there too and a lightness to his features that he’d lost the last time we saw each other.

“Are you okay?” I rasp, my throat dry as sandpaper.

He cocks his head to one side. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

I shrug. “Well, are you?”

“Areyou?”

“My head hurts.”

“Not surprising.”

I rub at the back of my head, wincing at the thudding ache that isn’t easing. I must have been really drunk. “Fuck,” I groan. “I’m never drinking again.”

Holden’s eyes narrow. “You think you’re hungover?” he asks slowly. Cautiously.

“Aren’t I?”

“No.” He stands then, finally coming to join me on the bed. He sits beside me, his hands clenched in his lap like he’s trying to refrain from touching me. I frown down at them. “What do you remember about last night?”

I frown, confused. Anxiety begins to swell, a gentle wave that grows in size the more I try to remember.

Isla was going to meet her girlfriend at a bar downtown, and she wanted me to go with her. I didn’t want to, but she convinced me with the promise of buying me my pink coffee every morning for the next couple of weeks. I remember squeezing into that blue body-tight dress, the one with the spaghetti straps and sweetheart neckline I bought a while ago because it was pretty, not because I had any intention of ever wearing it. I remember walking through the doors of the dive bar and wishing I’d never agreed to go out. After that, things get a little cloudy.

“Getting a drink at the bar.” I scrunch my eyes shut as if the action will help me remember more. “Isla leaving me to dance with her girlfriend. Standing on my own. Owen…” I trail off, the words catching in my throat.

Images of Owen walking toward me blur together in my mind, obscured and far away, but somehow, I know that they’re real. The way my heartbeat quickens, thumping almost to the point of pain, it’s a feeling of doom that I can’t explain.

I don’t know what happened, but I know in my gut that something did.

“That’s all I’ve got,” I whisper. “I remember seeing Owen, but nothing after that. Did he… did he do something to me?”

Holden’s eyes dip to the ground before looking to me again, angry and a little sad. “It didn’t get that far.”

I exhale the breath I was holding. “How far did it get?”

“I was already walking to you before he’d even handed you the drink. Wasn’t quick enough to stop you taking it from him and taking a sip of it though.” He shakes his head, like he’s baffled at my stupidity for accepting the drink at all.

And though I’m not usually one to victim blame, I can’t believe I did either. Let alone actually drink it.

“You think he put something in it?”

He scoffs. “I knowhe did.”

“How?”

“Some girl saw him,” he says and then, quieter this time, “and it wouldn’t be the first time he’s done something like this.”

---