Page 81 of Please Hate Me

My first instinct was to pull away... but I resisted, because I trusted Mason.

“What happened to you?” There was a quiet horror in her tone, and I was glad I couldn’t see the look on her face.

My chest swelled with a breath as Mason continued to explore my back. Her touch brought me an unexpected level of comfort.

“My... dad.” Calling Dale that always made my stomach churn, but he was listed as the father on Cameron Cole’s birth certificate. If I called him something else, it’d raise more questions than it answered.

“He, uh, was real big into biblical punishments. And if I did something he didn’t think Jesus would do...thishappened.”

I gathered the courage to face her again and found no judgment in her beautifully mismatched gaze. Instead, it was like she understood me.

Somehow, that was worse.

“Is he the reason you became a preacher?”

I rolled my lips in for a moment before parting them.

“I don’t think I had much of a choice.” It was the best answer I could offer her.

I never realized how big Mason’s eyes were until they stayed focused on me this long. For what felt like an eternity, I bounced back and forth between the sky in one eye and the abyss in the other.

She glanced back down at the hoodie in her arms and found a loose string to pick at before she started talking.

“Do you ever think the world would be a better place if you didn’t exist? Not in the suicide way, but in the I-should-have-never-been-born way.”

Her question sat in the air like smoke in a house fire. It was suffocating and dark, but I couldn’t ignore it.

“I used to, yeah.”

“Did you ever have someone tell you that?”

I fought to keep the shock off my face.

“Have you?”

She nodded.

“My mom, my dad, Lucian’s dad... My dad was the only one who actually cared enough to try to fix me.” She paused for a moment to slide the hoodie off her lap. After taking a deepbreath, she continued: “He had a special bracelet built for me. With the press of a button, he could shock me any time I was annoying, or talked too much, or acted in any way my fans wouldn’t like.”

She laughed, but I couldn’t understand why.

“I guess it was a brilliant idea, because I have no idea who I am without the persona he made for me.”

Her words ripped open a void in my chest. I wanted to be angry for her, but there was no amount of rage that could erase the suffering others had inflicted on her.

Her lashes were heavy as she looked down at one of her wrists, tracing her fingers over the circular scars. Against my better judgment, I reached for her hand again. She started to draw back, and I was prepared to let her—but at the last moment, she intertwined her fingers with mine. I leaned over and brushed a kiss on her knuckles. It just felt right.

“That sounds pathetic, doesn’t it?”

I shook my head. “It sounds like you just need a little help remembering. Judging by the way Sophia talks about you, I bet you’re an amazing person.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

The lingering despair on her face dissolved into the world’s smallest smile. She scooted a little closer to me, and I could smell her perfume. Sweet, fruity, and absolutely perfect for her.

Was I allowed to kiss Mason?

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