Page 41 of Worth the Trouble

My mother.

I’m losing control and there’s only one way I know how to get it back.

I stick my fingers down my throat and watch my soul leave me. It’s a waste anyway. All of it. While what comes out looks like food and bile, it’s unimpressive pieces of myself in the toilet swimming around.

I’d like to think Rome is right and there’s still something in me worth searching for, but it’s a lie. As proven by the contents in my stomach.

I’m nothing but ruin.

Ask any man I’ve dated. I was fragments when they found me, and they took trophies of the rest. I might be objectively pretty for a girl in my field, but there’s nothing underneath worth looking at. Which has been fine up until now. I’ve been living out my dreams and using my soul to pay for them.

It never mattered until Rome grabbed me like a snow globe and shook me up. Forcing me to face what I can’t have.

While I’m cold bones and emptiness, Rome is fire and scar tissue. Scalding to the touch and intent on burning the memory of him into me.

But we don’t actually fit.

So why did he insist on waking me up? Planting flutters in my chest and tying me in knots.

When he put his hand up my dress, and I came apart, it was unlike anything I’ve ever felt. Not because of the club, the dancer watching us, or the circumstances. It was him. All shadows in my open space, creating figments I’ve long missed in my years of loneliness.

It was him reaching into places he doesn’t belong.

I stare at my puke in the toilet bowl and wish things could be different. That I was more—and he was more—and we weren’t simply two broken people on a mission to test the limits of the universe on each other.

I still remember the look in Rome’s eyes as he held me when my orgasm faded. The sarcastic ease slipped away, and for a moment, we were lost in each other’s darkness. Pain, shattered glass, and spilled ink.

And I wanted all of him.

The parts that made me fall apart and the parts that hurt. I wanted to swim in the sea where he drowns his secrets to discover what can make a man who feels so good think he’s bad. I wanted to see if my imagination was lying as I played with the idea of him tearing me to shreds.

I sat in his lap and felt myself falling—until the moment snapped. So I did the only thing I could think to salvage myself, and I pulled away.

For a second, I thought I saw disappointment flash in his eyes at the move, but like always, Rome plastered on an unreadable smile and pretended he was fine. No matter what flickers of his true self I glimpse, he blinds me before I manage to get too close.

He’s as good as I am at burying true feelings. But nothing has been the same since I walked away from him at the club that night. He hasn’t left my mind, and I wish he would. I’m not capable of anything with him—or anyone.

As evidenced by my insides swimming around in the toilet.

I flush my feelings and stand, but my head immediately starts swimming. A rush that used to be frightening but now feels like control. Knowing I’m the only one with this power over my body when everyone else is always trying to take it.

Stepping out of the bathroom, I almost run into Mom, who is waiting for me in the hallway. I figured she would have left by now, but no such luck.

“Lili.” She straightens the purse strap on her shoulder. “Before you go, we need to talk.”

I tighten my ponytail. “Is this about the show?”

“Not exactly.” Mom’s lips press in a thin line, and I realize she’s about to tell me something I’m not going to like. “Vaughn Davis is coming to town.”

My stomach plummets at his name.

Vaughn Davis is worshipped in my social circle because he’s got the kind of money that bleeds out of his pores. He’s the type of man who takes anything and everything, using it until there’s nothing left. And worst of all, he’s my ex-boyfriend.

We were together for almost two years before I faced the truth about what kind of man he really is. And even if Mom hoped for a ring on my finger and a few babies in order to improve her social status, I knew what I had to do.

If only the breakup didn’t deepen my rift with her in the process. She assumed I’d done something wrong. If only she knew the truth.

Vaughn Davis is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I’m lucky I got out with what I had left.

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