Page 140 of Sweetheart: Part One

After another long time, I heard Drake’s voice. “I’m… good. If you are?”

Silence.

I assume Ebony nodded, because then Drake was standing. I heard his footsteps pad out of the room. Then the door clicked shut.

I waited.

He didn’t put on another movie, which I regretted. I might be stuck here for a while, but it was better than him catching me.

The silence stretched.

Then, with another thunder clap, I jumped violently, elbow crashing into the cupboard door. I grabbed it as it began to swing open, heart in my throat. The thunder would have drowned the sound, right?

Fuck.

My fingers were curled around the wood, but it was only open the smallest crack.

I waited, shaking and silent.

I had to close it slowly enough he wouldn’t notice.

A minute passed before I dared tugged the door closed. Another long time passed, and I knew I had to wait for him to leave, and then sneak out of here.

I couldn’t stay and risk Ebony ever finding out what I’d heard. I could hide under my bed like I used to, but I couldn’t stay in here.

EBONY

Drake had left me paralyzed. Not in a bad way.

Never in a bad way.

It was thrilling, always, when he came to me.

I couldn’t ask for it. I had to let him choose when he came, or it wouldn’t be the balance it needed to be. Then he’d never come back.

This wasn’t a thing I could bully from him or take by force. His need—hiswant—was paramount.

But when it happened, it was… priceless for me.

I could still feel the ebbing terror he’d handed me. It wasn’t the terror itself that was good—that part was stomach turning. It was in its disruption of the predictable, monotone experiences that made up my life, that made it a thrill.

I felt things I rarely felt. Pain, and fear, and even gratitude from him that I had done what I had done that day—even if, at the time, it had been for the wrong reasons.

It was a need to protect, rather than to own.

And something else. Something I had never had the courage to wrap my mind around, or voice, even to myself.

And then, pulling me from my peace, I heard it alongside a thunderclap: a loud bang, much too close to be the storm outside.

My eyes snapped to the closet. It was still. Perfectly still, except… the door… I leaned back slightly to examine it from another angle.

It was open.

I watched for an age until finally it moved, closing ever so carefully and silently.

Vex.

Unusual panic cluttered my mind. Had she been in there the whole time?

---