Total pages in book: 28
Estimated words: 27095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 135(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 135(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
Who taught me so many things…
I’m such an idiot.
My phone has twelve unread messages from August. I know because I count them every few hours. It’s a terrible habit, but I can’t stop. You know, kind of like when you have an itch you know you should stop scratching. Or a bruise that you can’t stop pressing on.
The first messages were casual, just asking me where I was. Then he started asking if I was okay. Then he started sounding worried. And the most recent one from this morning is simple and goes straight to my chest:
Jessie, I need to see you.
And the worst part? I need to see him too. My body aches with desire, a physical ache that probably has a medical term he could explain to me. It’s what I’d imagine withdrawals are like.
I went from never having been touched to being touched by the most skilled hands in the United States—and probably the world. And now those hands are gone, and my body is feeling the loss.
Even now, I can’t stop thinking about her. Megan Ashwood. The girl in the photo.
She sat in the front row, just like me. She sat in August’s chair, just like me. Did she feel his hands, just like me? Feel his tongue? His lips? His…
“Fuck,” I curse under my breath, rubbing my eyes with the back of my hands. “Don’t do this to yourself.”
The girls all know something’s wrong. Becca’s asked me five times. Dani has left snacks outside my door, and Lourdes knocked once and simply said, “I’m here when you’re ready to talk.”
But I’m not ready. And I don’t know if I ever will be.
But right now, it’s Friday night, and Becca has a fake ID. “Tequila is a good medicine,” she told me earlier. “Brain-numbing. So get up. Get dressed. We’re going to the bar.”
There was no question about it. And despite the fact that I just want to wrap myself up in blankets like a mummy and sleep for a thousand years, I gave in. I have to get off campus. Do something to distract myself from thinking about him.
August…
Gritty’s is loud, the lights are dim, and the whole place smells like stale beer and pretzels. I’m sipping a vodka soda that Becca ordered for me and trying to pretend I’m just a normal college girl having a normal Friday night.
Me? A broken girl whose heart has been sliced out of her chest by a man with surgical precision? No, of course not. I’m fine!
Becca’s going on about her sociology professor’s PowerPoint incompetence, and I’m just nodding randomly, stuck in a daze. This must be what purgatory is like.
“I’m gonna get us another round,” she says, shaking me from my stupor.
“I’m gonna use the bathroom,” I reply. We get up from the table and head in different directions.
How could I have done this? How could I have been so stupid? August played me, and he’s still playing me. He’s probably so practiced at all this. Can I even trust his texts? Does he even care about me at all?
My heart tells me yes. It’s screaming at me to answer him. To take him back. To let him explain himself.
But the evidence…
I’m a good student. I study hard. I pay attention. And when I think about that photo that Gerald showed me, my heart burns like it’s been stung by a wasp.
The bathroom is down a cramped hallway just past the pool tables and dart boards. I’m barely a step into it when I hear his voice.
Not August’s. Gerald’s.
I freeze, turn just slightly, and see him sitting in a high-top by the back wall, a glass of red wine in front of him. Yeah, of course it’s a glass of red wine at a college bar. He’s even wearing his try-hard tweed jacket with another guy dressed the same. They’re laughing to each other.
“Yeah, it barely took any effort,” Gerald laughs, swirling his wine. “She believed it all. See, that’s the thing about young girls like that. They’re so ready to believe they’ve been tricked because they already think they’re too naïve to know any better!”
The other man’s laugh rasps out of his throat. “And what about the photo you showed her?”
Gerald waves his hand dismissively. “Just some grad student from a couple years back. She met with Holt once, all completely above-board.”
My stomach twists, and my legs tremble so hard I have to brace myself against the gross wall to keep from falling.
“But show that kind of thing to an eighteen-year-old girl and tell her there was a pattern, and she’ll fill in all the rest on her own!”
The whole world tilts on its axis. My head becomes a cloud of haze.
“And this girl’s name?”
“Megan Ashwood,” Gerald chuckles. “She doesn’t even exist, so that dumb broad can’t go stalk her social media.”