Page 50 of Ashes of Sin and Stardust

Chapter 13

It took me hours toget forty of my three hundred lines down because I kept getting distracted thinking about the way Reuben had touched me, the sound of his voice, the feeling of his mouth so close to mine as he spit on me. I shivered at the memory and melted a little more each time.

I’ll show him some freaking lines,I thought as I flipped the third page and began again. But my hand was cramping up and I was only on number forty-five, so I decided to try again tomorrow. Plus I was starving so I went downstairs to eat. I hadn’t even realized how hungry I was until I thought about food.

It was a tradition on Sundays to have a potluck with everyone in the church, so Sunday evenings people pretty much fended for themselves. I grabbed some leftover casserole and started inhaling it.

“Uh, Alice? Are you alright?” Cat sat beside me.

“What, yeah, why?”

“You just seem... chill.”

“Oh. Yeah. I’m great. Mister Weston spit in my mouth.”

She raised an eyebrow at me, shaking her head as she walked away.

“What?” I called back.

“Nothing.”

Sophie was sitting a few seats away and had clearly heard our conversation. She was grinning down at her hands and peeked up at me.

“Shut up, Sophie.”

She giggled. “I knew it.”

It took almost fivedays to finish my lines. Three hundred lines in my notebook was fifteen pages.Never again,I thought.I’m going to have to put my foot down about lines in the future.Not only was it boring as hell, but my hand was sore.

Although the bit before had been worth it...

But even though I kept going back over the memory of the elevator over and over again, my mood began to sour. Reuben had basically just forced his way into my life like he had authority over me. I wasn’t sure I was willing to accept that. I didn’t want to be taken advantage of, and I didn’t want to be his temporary entertainment, released when he found the next best thing.

Plus, he hadn’t come by the clubhouse all week. He hadn’t texted, or even tried to reach out to me. Hadn’t he said hewasn’ta once-a-week kind of guy? So did that make him a liar? Was he messing with me? Was he bored of me already? Did he call Woodrow and decide to take his side of the story?

Before I knew it, my brain had spiraled into a depressive headspace. I decided he didn’t like me, that he just wanted to use me, teach me a lesson, and leave me as a laughingstock of the church, and that my real punishment was the laughter and the funny looks I’d gotten from my so-called friends after he’d made a fool of me. Anger and betrayal burned through my body like a fever, followed by a wave of nausea.

I hate my life. I can’t do this.

I stumbled into the bathroom, vomiting and trying to regain control over my body, but all I wanted to do was throw my head against the wall until I stopped seeing, stopped thinking, stopped breathing.

With shaking hands, I sat on the floor of the bathroom, wrapping my own hands around my throat. I remembered the way he’d done the same, and how good and beautiful it felt, how powerful he looked as he stared down at me, daring me to push him again.

I squeezed a little, then a little more, and let my eyes close.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

But then my vision changed. Instead of remembering Reuben in the elevator, I remembered being strapped to a rack, naked and bleeding, pulling away from the collar on my neck in an effort to get out, begging and shouting and screaming–

My hands fell away from my neck, and I felt the blood rush back to my head, making me dizzy. I barely caught myself on my hands, laying down on the floor and pressing my face into the cold tile of the bathroom.

Fuck Reuben Weston,I thought.I can’t believe a damn word he says.

Iwoke up in my bed, my hair brushed, my face washed. Alex was sitting beside me in the chair, staring at me with her typical expressionless face.

“Hey, Alex.”

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