Page 57 of Love Me
My eyes moved to the scars on my wrists and my memories tried to rise to the surface. I pushed them back down.You don’t have to face them right now,I scolded myself.
I found that since I’d stopped running until I dropped, it was harder to keep my memories from slipping to the forefront of my mind. And even though I was able to push back the memories, the feelings associated with them still rocked me to my core.
“I’m going to go try these on,” I said tightly and headed for the dressing room. As soon as I shut the door to the tiny room behind me, I released a heavy sigh. I hung up the costumes on a hook and stared at myself in the full-length mirror.
Just for a minute,I told myself as I touched the scars around my wrists. The skin was bumpy and discolored. The memories of waking up to rope tied around them flashed behind my eyes, along with the feelings of terror and desperation. I rubbed my hands down my face as I remembered the urgency and need to get free—all of it had pushed me to tear away my skin. There hadn’t been any pain. Being terrified of Mr. X returning had blocked it out. Too bad the terror hadn’t blocked out the pain of my broken heart every time my eyes had been drawn to the tips of Shayla’s shoes in the hall. It had been the only part of her body I’d been able to see from where Mr. X had tied me to my bed.
Enough.
Gritting my teeth, I pushed back the memories to where I kept them locked up. My whole body was shaking, and my eyes welled up.
“You’re all right,” I whispered to myself in the mirror. With trembling hands, I began changing.
I distracted myself with modeling the IT costumes for Isabelle.
“I’d go with the dress instead of the bulky bodysuit,” Isabelle said. “You’ll still look terrifying, but if we get you some white, lacy thigh-highs and some heels, you’ll give your guys some twisted sexual fantasies.”
I laughed and returned to the dressing room to get dressed.
* * *
Isabelle and I had gone to a handful of stores to get everything we would need for the party, as well as a few other things, like my secret weapon to seduce Knox, as Isabelle called it. As we headed for the exit of a store, I pulled out my phone to check if I had any messages from the guys. I had a couple of texts from them, but I also had six missed calls from that unknown number.
Again, I did my best to not let it unnerve me, because it could be a scammer for all I knew. As I read through the messages from the guys, Isabelle held the door open for me to exit. Once outside, I glanced up just in time to see Cassy and Amber a few feet away.
“There goes our nice afternoon,” Isabelle grumbled.
Cassy gave me an evil smile as she approached. “It’s a surprise that you have time for shopping.”
When I refused to acknowledge her and her comment, Amber urged her on. “And why is that?”
“Well, I assumed sucking four cocks daily could be quite time-consuming,” Cassy said.
Still refusing to engage, I went to walk around them. I guessed I didn’t put enough distance between us, because Amber still rammed her shoulder into mine. My purse fell to the ground and some of its contents spilled out. Among them was my nightmare medication Dr. Bolton prescribed and my birth control.
Isabelle and I knelt at the same time, and she quickly helped me pick it all up as Cassy and Amber snickered.
“At least the whore is practicing safe sex,” Cassy said.
“The pill is just to prevent babies. The medicine in the bottle is probably for gonorrhea,” Amber said as they both walked into the store.
I grabbed my birth control at the same time Isabelle grabbed my nightmare meds. She didn’t even attempt to read the label as she handed them to me, but I still found myself babbling, “I get really bad nightmares and my doctor prescribed these to help me sleep. The only reason they and my birth control are in my purse is I never know if I’m staying at the guys’ or my place and I don’t want to forget to take them.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself, Shi,” she assured me. “I take birth control, too. For the most part, I keep it at home, but the few times I’ve been able to spend the night at Ethan’s, I’ve taken it with me.” Isabelle glared back at the store. “Is it wrong that I wish the worst upon them?”
“Nope. I’m waiting for karma to rain down on them.”
14
I staredlong and hard at the red Camaro next door. Knox’s Camaro.
Tonight should have been Colt’s swim meet, but with his brother’s support, he’d quit. So he and Creed were working this evening. Keelan was also at work. It was his first day back after taking time off to rest. Having gone in early that morning, Knox was home by the time I got out of school. Which meant, if I wanted to, I could go be alone with Knox right now. In fact, he had already invited me through text, simply saying, “I’m home if you want to come over.”
In the time that I stared at Knox’s Camaro, I went back and forth on using the secret weapon Isabelle had suggested. He wouldn’t talk to me, and I couldn’t help but think his issues had to do with me. From things he’d said to his brothers about not wanting to rush me or insisting that I wasn’t ready for certain things, maybe I was too innocent to him, or maybe he couldn’t get past how damaged I was. If either of those were true, then Isabelle might be right. But did going over there in nothing but lingerie really prove anything? It definitely wasn’t something a blushing, innocent girl would do.
I let out a frustrated noise and stomped to my room. This was it. This was the last time I’d put myself out there. Fuming and feeling determined, I stripped.
What’s the worst that could happen?I thought as Iput on the dark red lacy lingerie—a bra that pushed my breasts up to new heights and hip-hugging underwear that only covered the top halves of my butt cheeks.
