Page 51 of The Lessons

Assault charge.

Fucking bullshit right there was what that was. See, Ains and I had been at a café not two hours after she got out of the hospital. You know, trying to enjoy a lemonade and pretend that life didn’t totally suck.

Then a fucking drunk-ass dickwad came up to us and started taunting her about the bandages on her wrists.How’s a pretty girl like you got any problems, he sneered.What’s the matter; did daddy not buy you the right pony for your birthday?

Then the legacy gift from my father showed up, and I started to fume. He didn’t fucking know her. Where the hell did he get off acting like he knew half of what she’d been through?

I asked him twice to kindly back the fuck off, but did he listen? No. Instead, he got up in her face.

So I punched him.

And now here I was, seated on an expensive leather sofa with Mr. Lets Talk About Your Feelings.

He cleared his throat. “So, Ryan, how are you feeling today?”

How am Ifeelingtoday? That’s how this guy started a therapy session?

Oh, I’m fuckingfinetoday, doc, thanks for asking.

Whatwasn’tfine was that I’d spent my formative years getting the shit kicked out of me.

Whatwasn’tfine was that my mom, the one person I cared about most in this world, was fucking gone.

Whatwasn’tfine was that my sister was a fucking basket case, and I couldn’t fix it.

Whatwasn’tfine was that I’d torn through our life insurance payout because her ER bills were astronomical.

So thanks, dick, for reminding me that I was doing just fucking fine. Like how I was doing mattered at all.

I looked up at him, my eyes cold.

“I’m fine. Everything’s just peachy.”

“Peachy.” He nodded and wrote something on his notepad. “Okay, let’s talk about that, Ryan.”

I rolled my eyes. These sessions were going to be torture.

Present Day

Ryan

I got home and slammed the door behind me. Luckily, it was the middle of the afternoon, and I had the house to myself. I tore down the hall, slamming doors and pounding on walls as I headed for my room.

Once safely in the confines of my bedroom, I stripped off my clothes, throwing them onto the floor on my way to the shower. After I turned the cold handle on full blast, I stepped in. The icy water felt like a thousand needles against my hot skin, and I braced myself against the tiled walls. This was exactly what I needed—to remind myself that what I’d just done was not simply wrong, it was beyond wrong. It was so wrong, I didn’t even know if there was a word for it. It was a pure fucking disaster. An ethical nightmare. And the worst part? The worst part was that it felt so…right.

So fuckinggood.

There was something about being around Natalie, her smile, her soft skin— It did something to me: something I didn’t quite understand yet, but I knew it was growing into more than I could handle. My mind washed back and forth between feelings of pleasure and guilt. Hell, I’d learned all about sociopaths from my classes. Was that what was going on here? Was I turning into a sociopath, trying to create my own reality, picking and choosing what to pay attention to? Had I turned into an abhorrent, grade-A asshole, just like my dad?

Fuck.I slammed my hand against the tile wall.

I stayed under the cold water until my heartbeat returned to normal and my cock calmed down. It’s true what they say about cold showers. I turned off the water and grabbed a towel, wrapping it low around my hips as I caught a glance of myself in the mirror. I stared at myself in disgust, contemplating how this was all so fucking backward. Natalie deserved more, more than someone who was a ticking ethical time bomb.

What the fuck was I going to do?

Chapter Seventeen

Natalie

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