Page 76 of Unorthodox
I can barelythink.
Barelybreathe.
I try not to hear his words in my head. I try not to think of what we just did. Whathejust did. Of how I hurt. The ache between my thighs.Elsewhere.
For a long moment, we do nothing but lie there.
Eventually, when my eyes flutter closed and I stop trying to think about this, when I stop trying to analyze what happened to me, why I didn’t fight, why I’m so fucked up, why Iwantedhim, he picks me up, gently places me in my bed and leans over me, pressing his lips against my throat, where I know there’s going to be a bruise from his hands.
“Don’t move from this bed, Addison. Not until someone comes for you in the morning. Then, we’ll have an outing together, and we’ll bring Dante along, since you fuckingadorehim.” He kisses me again, on my temple, one hand gentle against my throat, the other brushing hair from my face. “Someone will come in to clean up the mess you made. You can consider that my gift to you, for what’s going to come tomorrow.”
He runs his nose along the side of my face and then his lips are against mine when he says, “Goodnight, love.”
Without another word, he stands up, dresses, picks up his gun, and walks out. I can only stare at the door, numb.
A few minutes later, Mamie enters the room without looking at me. After she’s swept up the mess I made, and after another guard came and left, carrying my broken TV with him, I stare at the ceiling.
I don’t sleep for a long, long time.
I let the pain reverberate through me. It helps me stop thinking.
The ache between my thighs, around my throat, the achethere. When I used the restroom after everyone is gone, the pain as I peed… It all obliterates my thoughts. Drowns out the self-loathing. The hatred, and not just toward Max.
He used me, and I let him.
I didn’t even fight.
I wanted him.
But I focus on the pain.
I focus on the hurt.
It demolishes the rest, prevents the tears from falling, until, eventually, I fall into something like sleep.
Max isin my room before the sun rises.
I spent most of the early morning staring into the darkness, a numbness like I’ve only known once in my life taking over my body.
My mind.
Numbness, until Max walked into my room and obliterated it all.
The pain has dulled.
Now, I feel the self-loathing. Thehatredof my own body.
Max glances at me, but says nothing except for, “Get dressed. We’re going hiking.” As if nothing happened between us at all. As if I don’t want to kill us both.
As if he didn’t…Don’t think about it.
He pulls his phone from his pocket and waits by the door.
Hiking?
Rubbing my eyes with my fist, I take in what he’s wearing: black jogging pants, a black t-shirt, black sneakers.
And of course, he’s armed.
