Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 98000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
“Oh hey,” he says. “Have fun?”
I wave him off and head straight to the bathroom. He tries to be nice. I should probably appreciate it because most people don’t give a fuck, but I suck at small talk, and I can’t focus on anything right now except the O’Sheas.
I rinse my mouth, then brush my teeth. One look in the mirror shows Tiernan’s marks all over my neck. I tug my shirt off, and there’s one on my chest too, my pale skin colored purple from his mouth.
I close my eyes, count down from five so I don’t break the mirror with my fist. What the fuck is wrong with me? I could have hooked up with him without letting him leave evidence behind.
When I turn the water on in our small shower, I make sure to get it as hot as possible, strip out of my clothes, and step inside. The heat burns, makes my skin feel like it’s sizzling, but I stay there as long as I can take it, as if the water could remove Tiernan’s marks.
What would my father say if he could see me? If he knew I kissed and touched and enjoyed myself with Tiernan O’Shea.
What would my mom say, who tried so hard to make me happy, to show me the beautiful things in the world. All she cared about was me being as far away from this lifestyle as I could get, yet here I am.
And a part of me is intrigued by it.
After rubbing my body as hard as I can, I get out. My skin is an angry red as I dry off, and then I wrap a towel around my waist and return to the room.
“Holy shit,” Ollie says, eyeing my neck and chest. “You did have fun.”
“Sorry. Puked. I needed to clean up,” I tell him, trying to be normal and apologize for ignoring him earlier.
I pull on underwear beneath my towel, then toss it into my laundry basket.
“Hey…are you okay? No one, like, forced you to do anything?” he asks, his voice soft with concern.
For a moment, I’m struck speechless. What would it have been like if I’d inherited my mom’s kindness? What would it be like to be caring and show concern for others as easily as Ollie does? The concept is so foreign to me, despite growing up with it from her.
Here’s this guy I’m not very nice to, whom I barely know, yet he’s worried about me. Making sure I’m safe and okay. “Um, yeah. I’m good.” I run a hand over my wet hair. “I wanted him to be rough.”
And I did, which is part of the mindfuck I’ve been having all night.
Ollie nods but doesn’t look convinced. I think he’s pre-law, a good boy who’s probably never done anything bad or edgy. I might have just blown his entire world open.
“I’ll clean up my mess in the morning. I feel like shit.”
“Yeah, okay. That’s fine. I’m going to bed anyway. Good night.”
“Night.”
He turns out the light, the room descending into darkness. From the sound of it, Ollie falls asleep almost instantly, but I don’t have that in me. I lie here, looking up at the slivers of white on the ceiling from the light outside the window.
Did Aislin get home okay? And why the fuck am I thinking about her? It’s not as if Tiernan won’t make sure she’s okay. Hell, it’s not like she doesn’t probably know how to do it herself. But it’s easier to think about her than him…the punishing grip of his fingers on my hips, the way he made my dick throb…
I grit my teeth, every memory making me hate him more yet at the same time crave something I can’t put my finger on.
When it becomes clear I’m not getting any sleep tonight, I quietly get out of bed and pull my sketchbook out from under it.
I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember. I got it from my dad. My mom said he used to want to be an artist. That he could draw or paint for hours. They’d talk about having their own place in the country or by the ocean, where he could create all day every day, away from all the violence.
It was a dream, of course. They both knew that would never happen, even if Sloan hadn’t done what he did, but she was good at that, at being happy about things she would never have, content to dream.
The bathroom door clicks quietly closed behind me. I turn on the light, sit on the floor with my back against the wall, open to a blank page, and start to draw—first a torso with no head. Just arms, a neck and chest…with dark splotches from a mouth all over them. The next piece is Tiernan against a tree, me having control over him the way I gave it to him tonight.