Page 80 of Defend Me

Silence. So much fucking silence, yet chaos in my mind. I didn’t want to listen to my own silence anymore.

I pulled out my phone and looked at the messages from Tilian. He hadn’t started sending them until Tuesday when I didn’t go to class. I hadn’t been able to bear the thought of stepping foot on campus. After I missed it again today, he got more frantic.

Sen, Kai, and West were messaging me too. Kai showed up here, but I didn’t answer the call box. I didn’t know how Dean managed to get up here, but I was certain he wouldn’t do it again.

When I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, I saw blue and gold. They were the colors of my best dreams and worst nightmares.

I wanted to see him. Some part of me knew that he’d make it better. I was too damn tired right now, but maybe tomorrow. Hopefully, I’d come out of this spiral so that I could make the better decision and stay away from him. If I couldn’t do that, I’d convince him to stay away from me.

How disgusted would he be if he knew who I was? What I’d done?

There was only one text I was going to send tonight, then I’d force myself to sleep.

Brooks:I fixed things with Ms. Whitlock on Monday. Hope that makes you happy, Mom.

*****

Searching for him, even though I shouldn’t

As soon as I woke up, I knew it wasn’t going to be a good day. I felt myself crumbling. I fought for control of my emotions. I fought tooth and fucking nail, but they wouldn’t go away. The box I kept them in was locked or maybe it had splintered, leaving no place for all of this shit in my head to go.

I was fucking losing it.

I held the sides of my head as I walked through the courtyard. It was already dark and I couldn’t even remember what I’d done with the day.

My hair was tied back and I thought about taking it down since it was cold out, but that was another level to add to the mounting chaos inside of me.

It’s unprofessional.

We have an image to maintain.

This affects us too.

Nausea rolled through me, forcing me to stop. I closed my eyes and Holly’s voice came back.

“I knew you wanted me, Brooks.”

I could feel her nails digging into my shoulders when I shoved her skirt up. I tasted her all over again and it made me gag. Her voice when I tried to back out… the threats to my academic career…

Her opinion and recommendations mattered too much at Harmon law. I didn’t have a choice. I kept saying that, but wasn’t there a choice? If I was a better person, maybe I would’ve left, but instead, I’d stared at the ceiling the whole time, fighting the way my eyes burned. Fear and desperation had never attacked me so fiercely, but I stayed, trying to let everything go so that it would be finished and I could leave.

My ass hit one of the benches not far from Marshall Hall. I looked around, unsure how I’d gotten here.

With shaky fingers, I pulled out my phone and navigated to my gallery. I didn’t know why I’d wedged it into the cushion of the chair across from the couch. Leverage, I guess. It had been automatic and was a move worthy of someone as conniving as that bitch and it gave me back some of my power.

Someone like her was likely to hold this shit over me. She’d probably come back for more with the threat that her approval could be rescinded with the snap of her fingers. But not if I had this. I wouldn’t touch her again. Icouldn’t. I’d rather die.

As the guy in the situation, plenty of people wouldn’t give a shit that I hated it. I fucked a hot faculty member. Why would I be having an entire mental breakdown over it? Maybe I was weak. It just didn’t matter anymore.

The sex disgusted me and I still wanted to claw off my skin, even after all of the showers I’d taken, but maintaining my power over the situation gave me the barest semblance of peace.

Not enough peace. Right now, it wasn’t fucking enough because she wasn’t the only problem.

When I’d been with Holly, I thought about Tilian. Somehow, that kept me sane. The way he laughed and the look in his eyes when he was on the ice. His adorable awkwardness and timid smiles, which were becoming bigger and appeared more often. Those fingers in my hair. Soft lips that begged to be touched.

He wanted me. I could tell he saw I was some variety of screwed up but he kept trying until Saturday when I shoved him away so forcefully. He texted me, though. He was worried about me.

It didn’t mean anything. I was a pathetic mess, trying to latch onto subtleties. I shouldn’t be trying to twist his actions into something that wasn’t real to comfort myself. All he’d done was put me on a pedestal, turned me into this ideal that was a fucking lie, just like everything about me.

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