Page 64 of Seeking Shadows

"Don't kiss any more boys," she murmurs, her fingers brushing over my chest in a way that makes me freeze. "It doesn’t look good on a boy as pretty as you."

I’m imagining things. I have to be.

The comment doesn’t faze me—I don’t care about kissing boys or girls. After Abby and I talked about it, I stopped restricting myself. I do what I want. I always have.

That day, I decided to plan a class just to kiss the exchange student. He was a terrible kisser.

Not worth it.

I don’t care about the closed minds of adults. They’ll think whatever they want, and that says more about them than it does about me.

“Looks like you hit your head pretty hard,” she says. “It might swell. Take this.”

She hands me a glass of water and a small, unlabeled pill. I hesitate for a second, but the persistent ache makes me give in. I swallow the medicine, waiting for relief that doesn’t come.

Just exhaustion.

My limbs grow heavy. My blinks slow, like a thick fog is settling in my brain.

The nurse is still watching me, her expression shifting—not worried anymore.

Just… attentive.

I try to speak, but my tongue is too heavy.

The last thing I see before the darkness swallows me is her faint smile.

When I wake up, I’m dizzy and disoriented. A sick feeling coils in my stomach, like something inside me is wrong, unclean. My body trembles, my head still throbbing, but it’s the nurse’s smile that makes my skin crawl.

Panic comes before understanding. A cold, electric jolt rushes through my chest, my heart racing too fast to breathe. The sheets cling to my skin like they’re tainted, as if I’ll never be clean again. My throat is dry, my mind torn between the relentless pain in my skull and the echo of her honeyed voice.

“I’ve taken care of both of your problems.”

The words make my stomach turn.

My body knows before my brain does. A violent shiver runs down my spine, an instinctive recoil from something I don’t understand yet—but the fear… the fear is absolute.

I force myself to move. My limbs are sluggish, my blood a drumbeat in my ears, but the need to get out drives me. I ignore the fog in my head, swinging my legs over the side of the gurney. My body sags, almost collapsing, but adrenaline keeps me upright.

The nurse is still smiling.

Too sweet. Too wrong.

No. No.

My mind screams that something is very, very wrong.

I stumble backward, reaching for anything to steady myself, but my only escape is the door. I run.

Staggering, almost falling, my unsteady legs carry me forward on instinct alone. The door creaks as I shove it open, the narrow hallway stretching before me in sharp fluorescent light. My insides churn. My breath is short. I don’t know if I’m alive or just existing in this feverish desperation.

My feet slap against the cold floor as I hurl myself down the hallway, the thick air clinging to my skin like something unseen is pressing down on me. My heart pounds so hard it hurts, every pulse screaming at me to keep going. My lungs burn, my vision flashing between blurs and jagged bursts of light.

I push through the bathroom door and crash against the sink, my fingers clutching the cold ceramic as a suffocating lump forms in my throat. My stomach twists violently before I can stop it.

I vomit.

Hard.

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