Page 21 of Brutal Obsession

Things just got more interesting.

I grin. “First to fall wins?”

He extends his hand, and I slap my palm into his. Violet’s affection isn’t my goal. I don’t want her to love me. I don’t want her to like me. But it’ll keep Knox busy. He’s a competitive son of a bitch.

Love is overrated. I want to torment her until she breaks.

6

VIOLET

It takes me three hours to put my room back together, sans mattress and box spring. In fact, my room looks a whole lot bigger without the bulky furniture. My pictures are all gone.

When I first discovered it on Monday, I did three loads of laundry to get rid of the paint on my underwear, and I had to toss all the clothes that were ripped to shreds. But I didn’t want to deal with the furniture. I didn’t want to take down the photos. So I hid it from Willow for four days.

Now it’s Friday, a quiet day with no classes, and I have the mental capacity to deal with it.

Whoever did this had a lot of anger, which makes me think of Greyson.

And trust me, I don’t want to be thinking abouthim.

Willow gets home on the tail end of my cleaning spree, when I’m struggling to push my red-stained, gouged dresser out the front door. The only thing making me feel less guilty about putting it outside with afreesign on it is the fact that I picked it up at a secondhand store for twenty bucks.

She watches me struggle for a moment, then comes and helps me lift it over the threshold. We carry it to the street, and I lean against it.

She waits, clearly ready for me to spill.

I just shrug and turn around, knowing she’ll follow me all the way back to my room. And she does. She gasps softly when she steps inside.

My room isbare. Like, to the bone. The walls are blank, scrubbed paint-free. There’s a few pieces of clothing still in my closet. My backpack that I had with me hangs in the closet. Otherwise, nothing.

“What the fuck?”

“Someone broke in and destroyed everything. On Monday.” I don’t tell her that they wrote whore across my wall, and that all my memories are gone. I mean, they still live in my head. But beyond that…

“MONDAY?” she shrieks. She smacks my arm. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

“Because…” I don’t know. I haven’t cried this whole time. Not when I found it, not when I started to tear down the pictures. Or when I discovered my journal missing. I told myself that tears were useless and action could fix this. Make it better.

But now, with Willow witnessing the aftermath, the backs of my eyes burn. And they fill with tears. I blink rapidly, trying to keep the liquid from spilling out. But my shoulders hunch, and my chest gets tight, and the floodgates open.

I break down in the middle of the room, slowly sinking to my knees. I let it go, and the shuddering mess of emotions comes pouring out.

Willow sits beside me, her arm coming down around my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“It’s not your fault,” I respond. My voice is hoarse. I wish it was for a good reason, but I’m just exhausted.

“You can sleep in my room until we get you a new bed. Like a sleepover.”

I choke on my laugh and wipe under my nose. “Thanks. Just like old times.”

She nods emphatically. “Right? It’ll be great. Or we’ll get sick of each other in the middle of the night and one of us will move to the couch.”

“That only happened once.” I rub at my eyes and clear my throat. “Mexican food just does something to me.”

She snorts. “Trust me, I remember.”

Then she rises and holds out her hands. “Come on, you deserve a drink after dealing with this shit.”

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