Page 67 of What Is Love
“I’m sorry I torture you so,” I grumbled.
He chuckled. “I guess that makes me a masochist.”
“You like that I torture you?”
He stood and came next to where I sat on the bed. “I like it more when I am able to read you. Those moments feel more meaningful.” He curled some of my hair behind my ear as he stared down at me. “Just like right now, when you were checking me out.”
I looked away, my cheeks getting really hot.
He laughed as he leaned down. “You’re adorable.” He pressed his lips on top of my head.
Just before he could fully pull away, I turned my head to look up at him, bringing our faces inches apart. His eyes met mine just before dropping to my mouth. I could see his desire to kiss me.
“Can you read me right now?” I asked him.
He sighed as he pulled away, making me regret opening my mouth. He probably saw my disappointment—I couldn’t hide it fast enough.
“It’s not that I don’t want to. I do. But you’ve just gone through something and I don’t want to take advantage of that.”
I nodded, respecting what he wanted. For him, it had just happened. For him, it was new and traumatic. For me, I hadn’t “just” gone through something. I was stuck in a constant, never-ending cycle. It had just been another fucking Sunday in hell. Something bad would happen again and again. An opportunity to kiss someone I thought was kind and handsome would not.
But he didn’t know all that, and because I liked him, I wished that he never would.
“Will you be staying here again tonight?” he asked.
“I think so.”
“I work part-time at the auto shop the club owns and I have a shift today. If you’re okay with it, I can come back tonight after I get off.”
“You want to spend the night again?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah, I do.”
“Okay.”
He smiled and told me he’d text me before leaving work. As soon as the door shut behind him, the loneliness I had known my whole life felt a lot heavier.
Thanks to Prue,I had everything I needed for school and the next few days. Last night, the front desk had been nice enough to bring up the suitcase she had packed and dropped off for me. As I stripped before getting into the shower, I realized the bloodstone necklace was missing from around my neck. I tried to think back to the last time I’d felt it or noticed it, and that had been while dancing with Mac at Noble’s Pub. I wondered if the pub had a lost and found. I’d have to ask Wyatt tonight.
After showering, I saw the extent of what Clay had done to me in the mirror. My body looked as horrible as I felt. It didn’t make things any better when I started peeing blood, too. I wished it was a shock to see, but it almost always happened when I took a hit to the kidneys.
Before walking into school today, I made sure to take pain meds, not that they helped all that much. My morning classes went by in a blur. Now it was lunchtime. The pain meds hadworn off and I was headed to the nurse’s office to get more. Before I could make it, a body blocked me.
“Charlotte,” a put-off voice said. I knew it belonged to Brandon before even looking up. “Why haven’t you answered any of my texts or calls?”
I was so not in the mood to deal with him. I couldn’t muster up the right attitude. “Because I’ve been sick all weekend.”
“You couldn’t take a minute to talk to me?” he snapped, without a shred of sympathy in him.
“No.” The word left my lips before I could stop it, and I wasn’t sorry.
His shock was comical. “No?”
“Let’s be honest for once,” I seethed. It felt like I had opened Pandora’s box and now I couldn’t close it. “You don’t give a shit about me. You just care about fucking me, or else you would have respected my request to take things slow.” I went to walk away from him and continue to the nurse’s office.
“Where are you going?” He grabbed me by my arm that was still sore from Clay twisting it.
I yelped before swinging. My hand slapped across his face. It was my left hand, so it wasn’t as hard as it could have been, but I was sure it still hurt. “Take your hand off of me!” My voice traveled far, turning the heads of students still in the hall.
