Page 119 of Swallow Your Sorries

“Or was it a fantasy at all?” Aria asks, settling onto the edge of my bed and tucking her foot beneath her. “I know you were in the old greenhouse with Gant a few nights ago.”

“How did you know that?” Stassi gets up, her peachy-pink satin nightdress floating around her ankles prettily as she scurries to my bedside, the satin curlers in her hair wobbling.

She’s asking Aria, but her eyes are laser-focused on me and I can already hear the unasked question.‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

I had plenty of opportunities because Stassi and I had been eating together behind the library and theatre for the past few days. Zedd’s been supplying our food or rather Stassi’s food, that she hands off to me. I don’t know much about Zedd other than when I witnessed him barking at that poor girl like she was a fellow canine, but his food alone tells me how much he cares about his sister. He’s obsessed with creating whatever she, or rather I, ask for to perfection. Like his Belgian waffles, I can’t get enough of. In fact, his food tastes better than the chefs’ dishes in the hall. Maybe that’s why I didn’t bother to venture back inside, despite Gant’s lack of orders to his minions. Lately, they’ve just resorted to gossiping about me, or ignoring me altogether which is the best I could hope for. I don’t want to be friends. I just want to survive.

But my omission about the greenhouse has nothing to do with Stassi or the fact that she’s still more of Gant’s friend than mine, and everything to do with me. Because I don’t want to talk about Gant regardless if I thought Stassi would go back and blab to him or not.

I don’t want to talk about him because then I don’t want to analyse, nor verbalise what’s slowly happening. The start of my obsession that’s mirroring his. Because I am becoming obsessed even in my subconscious mind when I’m dreaming and I can’t have that. I can’t have lines blurred and crossed if I’m strategizing on how to win.

“Éti told me,” Aria says simply. “He tells me everything.”

“And yet he can’t manage more than three words to anyone else,” Stassi mutters, settling onto the mattress, and I have to curl my legs so she can fit onto the twin bed. Then she turns to me. “Why were you in the old greenhouse with Gant? Nothing good happens there…or am I mistaken?”

“Nothing,” I mumble, and it’s the truth. Despite my dreams of Gant going down on me, the reality was far different. He’d edged me as a punishment and ever since, it’s only made me want him more. So much more that I’m revising reality with fantasy in my dreams.

Pathetic.

I just need a little distance to get my mind right again, so I’ve been avoiding him by staying in the dorms, but I won’t be able to hide for much longer. Our first private lesson is coming up.

He said he wanted to play twenty-one questions, probably as a way to find something useful to use against me. But two could play that game. I just need to curate twenty-one questions of my own.

“It didn’t sound like nothing,” Stassi presses.

“At least it wasn’t a nightmare this time,” Aria says. “Your screams are blood-curdling.”

My eyes snap to hers, then Stassi’s. “You know about those?”

“I’m sure our entire floor knows,” Aria says. “Who’s Jarett anyway?”

My face burns with embarrassment. I didn’t realise I was so vocal.

“My father,” I mutter, drawing my knees up to my chest.

“Fucking hell. Your own dad’s the one torturing you in those nightmares?” Aria asks incredulously. “The guy from the sex tape?”

I nod. No matter how hard I try to get rid of Jarett, he always finds a way to creep back into my life some way or another. “I’m sorry. I thought it was all happening in my head. I didn’t realise…”

The silence stretches between us forever before Stassi says kindly, “It’s not like you can help it.” Then she reaches over to my night table and cuts on the lamp, bathing us in a warm yellow glow, though it isn’t necessary. Outside the massive diamond pane window behind my bed, the sun is creeping up the horizon in shades of pink and bluish purples. “But it’s fucking up my beauty sleep. I can’t go back to bed now.”

“Do you always have night terrors? Or does something trigger them?” Aria asks before explaining. “It’s just lately they’re becoming more frequent. Did something happen?”

Before I can stop myself, I mumble, “Yeah, Gant fucking Auclair.” I’d always suffered from nightmares, but ever since I set eyes on Gant, tons of memories have suddenly resurfaced.

Like my near drowning at the pool. Then the lake. That’s probably the nightmare they’re hearing the most.

Stassi and Aria exchange a pitying look.

“He’s the source of everything. This bullying, my ruined textbooks, my soiled uniform, my constant state of starvation.”

Almost drowning again.

I rub my arms, hoping they haven’t figured out my aquatic secret already, depending on what things I’d screamed about. Because despite their sympathetic gazes, I worry that they have loose tongues. The last thing I need is word getting out that I can’t swim. What if it got back to Rin? What if it already had? Had Gant told her? No, if he wants to keep me here, he can’t tell anyone. I looked up the swimming rules, and it is a mandatory skill. That aside, swim season starts next month.

What the fuck am I going to do?

I’d been so focused on the midterm play and becoming Cinderella that I’d ignorantly pushed swim season into the recesses of my mind. Whatever plan I come up with, I need to do it in secret and fast.

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