Page 96 of Did They Break You

It wasn’t guilt at all.

I flex my jaw, my pen jammed against the date on the calendar, nearly ripping a hole through the pages, ink bleeding on the line. “Raleigh?”

“You are capable of driving a few towns over, are you not?”

It’s a four hour drive.

I’m capable.I just don’t fucking want to.

It’s in about three weeks, and it’s the last place I want to spend any time at all. With the last people on earth I want to be around. I’ve never met Crystal, but I know she’s twenty-one. I remember now looking that up after he gave me her name in his email.

Twenty-one, and fucking my stepdad.

I’m not judging her. I’m judginghim.

“Why?” I ask, not bothering to keep the disdain out of my voice. And even when I’m met with silence for a long moment, I don’t care.

“Crystal, for some reason unknown to me, would like tomeetyou. I expect, when you arrive, you’ll be wearing a modest dress, and you’ll be on your bestfuckingbehavior.”

I press the pen harder against the white square, and it finally rips through the page.

“You’ll return home immediately afterward.”

Fuck you.“Great.”

He laughs, and it makes my stomach churn. “You willnotmention the disgrace you brought upon me last year, and you willnotdiscuss the fact that Cortland Adler is back at your school.”

I feel faint, dizzy with his words.He knows.He doesn’t care.

“And Remi?” His tone is even, but it’s a question, and if I don’t answer him, I risk worse than his cutting words.

“Yes sir?” I hiss.

“If you’re seen in the company of that boy again, I will cut you off, and you can figure out how to fuck up your life on your own dime.”

He ends the call without another word.

I stare at my phone, then throw both it and my planner across the room. I pull my sweater off, shove down my skirt, kicking out of my boots, yanking off my stockings.

I don’t know why I thought I could do this.

Why I thought I was stronger. Why I thought I could beseen.

I rip apart my stockings with my bare hands, my heart hammering too hard in my chest, anger clawing its way through my fingertips.

I’m fucking stupid.

I. Am. Fucking.Stupid. A momentary satisfaction warms through me as I shred my clothes, fisting the skirt in my hands next.

But it won’t rip.

I yank as hard as I can, only in my bra and underwear as I sink down to the floor, tears blurring my vision.

I can’t tear it.

My hands hurt, as hard as I’m yanking on it.

Nothing.

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