Page 19 of Did They Break You

I’ve avoided going for a year now, but I can’t anymore. There’s nothing but darkness in my head. Morbid thought after morbid thought.Monster.That’s how she sees me, and I’m not sure she’s wrong. It felt a little good yesterday, touching her, justgiving into what she thinks I am. Now I’m sure I met all of her expectations.

I watch Maya’s fingers, my throat constricting. She pulls aside her panties, exposing herself to me and I clench my teeth, forcing myself to meet her gaze. Think about what she just said. “Why did you invite them?” I ask her. “You know Chase and I aren’t exactly friends anymore.”

She sighs, snapping her legs closed and smoothing down her dress with her hand. “Yeah, because of a dumb slut who tried to ruin?—”

I close the space between us, grabbing her neck and tipping her head up. “Shh.” I run my thumb over her bottom lip. “I don’t want to hear about her.”

She swallows beneath my hand, and my dick gets hard with the feel of it. “I never see her, you know,” she whispers, her eyeson mine. She runs her tongue over her lips, and I wonder if Remi would ever get turned on by something like this.

I grip Maya tighter. “She won’t be here tonight?”

Maya shakes her head. “No, baby.”

I think about seeing Chase. Brinklin. All of us together again. At West River, we were the wolves.Welcome to Pack Territorywas our school’s motto. And itwasours. Together, we could get away withanything.

But I think about Storm behind Remi yesterday.

His hand on her neck.

If she’s there tonight, things could get messy.

“She won’t be there,” Maya reiterates, and she thinks I don’t want to see her for a very different reason than the one that’s in my head. “I wouldn’t fuck you over like that, Cort.”

Yeah, you would, baby.Maya comes from a big, middle class family. She’s a social climber, and I know she’s only with me because she likes my money—my mother’s money—and my attention.

The idea of being comfortable.

For now, our relationship is symbiotic. Since I transferred to Ely to be near my brother, Tristan, Maya is like a shield.

She helps maintain my innocence.

From a girl who tried to ruin my life.

Again, Remi’s golden eyes flash in my mind.

She’s so fucking different.

Her hair. Her clothes.That piercing.

I wonder if she’s trying to hide.

As if she could ever hide from me. Her face is implanted in my mind.

So are all of the feelings I want to forget. All the memories.

A cold chill runs down my spine and I remember what it was like in the aftermath. Not sleeping, not eating. Unable to get outof bed even though no matter how many hours I laid with my head against the pillow I couldn’t fall asleep.

I remember Mom taking it all out on my father. On Tristan.

My nostrils flare but I bite back on that rage.

I drop my hand and step back from Maya.

She runs her manicured nails through her hair, tossing it over her shoulder. She’s bitched every day we’ve been apart this past year, wanting me to come visit her more from Texas.

Now, of course, I’m here, and since yesterday when she came over, all she really cares about is posting selfies of her, of us. Of bragging to everyone that I’m back in her clutches. Getting all my old friends here to recreate what we had in high school.

I think about her on her knees fifteen minutes ago, my dick in her mouth.

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