Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 66997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
I shoved him away. He’d already won my heart again and again before ever touching me and if he was going to kiss me, I wanted it to be when he didn’t smell like whiskey. “You’re drunk. Stop being dramatic.” He grabbed my hand and kissed along my fingertips. “I know my truth, and you’d be terrified if you knew what my dad knew. Mom says—Mom says she’s going to do something.”
I stared him down. “What do you mean?”
“He’s done bad things, and bad people have to pay for their sins.” He leaned in and grabbed my hand. “Sometimes I think I’d die without you.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true.”
“Nope,” I scold myself. “Don’t go there. You didn’t cause it.”
But when I look in the mirror. I don’t see the girl I’ve fought to become, the lie I’ve constructed. I see the girl who said yes when she should have said no.
I see a murderer A liar. A fraud.
2
“The innocent rarely stay innocent. They are sharpened. Or they are buried.” The Count of Monte Cristo
LILAH
Two classes. Easy. Done. It really won’t be that bad. While they’re necessary in order to get into grad school they aren’t supposed to be so hard that I have a nervous breakdown, so why do I feel that way? Like somethings shifted in the wind? Maybe it’s the fact that fall came hard and fast this year in Portland? I don’t know. Either way the chill hits me hard. I decide to put on my jean jacket I had wrapped around my waist and reach for my phone.
One missed text.
Evans
TA room, five min out.
I grin down at it. I needed that distraction. Badly.
Dean’s list my ass. He’s clearly not worried about it so why should I be?
He wouldn’t take the risk of ending up on it, not Evans, he’s basically the perfect student turned adjunct professor and one of the smartest people I know. I swear if anyone’s more calculated in this world about how they want people to perceive them, it’s Evans Harrison. Besides, his family is old money the kind that doesn’t like any sort of scandal as much as staring in their direction. He doesn’t think he’s going to get caught because he either never has or Daddy has so much money that he doesn’t care. The more I see him the more I wonder if we can’t eventually turn into something more, I’ll have that talk though once I finish my classes. Right now my brains too messed up, thankfully my body knows how to dissociate and just let itself enjoy what he can offer and the only thing I can give.
Feeling better, I rush over to the Arts Building and let myself in then walk down the dark hallway and toward the small office area for professors. I knock on the door twice.
“Come in.” His voice is a bit gruffer today. I still remember the night of the thunderstorm when he said he liked me. It was supposed to be a fling, so why do butterflies constantly erupt in my stomach whenever I see him? I’m clearly incapable of having a little fling which makes it worse that this is my last semester. We don’t normally meet before class. God, are we going to have to have the relationship talk? Maybe we should. Maybe it’s time. Maybe it’s because I told him last week I wanted to go on a date.
I let myself in and click the door shut behind me. His hair is ruffled like he’s been running his hands through it too aggressively and his mouth is a bit swollen. Maybe he’s been sucking his bottom lip like he says he does when he gets frustrated or when he’s grading papers.
As it is, Evans is standing there, pants already unbuttoned. “Almost started without you.”
“Wow, someone’s feeling lucky.” I take a step toward him and set my bag on the chair. “Don’t you have a class to teach? Young minds to form?”
His dimples deepen as he grins and reaches for me, grabbing me by the back of the neck. I can taste the vanilla latte on his tongue and almost taste the aftershave down his neck as his mouth fuses with mine. “Mmmmm, missed you though. Forget the mind shaping, I just want your full attention while I feel the shape of your breasts.”
I button his jeans back up tight and pull back. “Right, and I have your class in five, the one you can’t exactly be erect for without it being weird.”
“Of course, that’s why my favorite student is here. I do love you on your knees, and by the look of murder on your face I should have led with ‘God you’re beautiful when you open your mouth’?”
I laugh, it feels hollow. This is what I need though. I don’t think I would know what to do with intense words. “You’re an asshole.”