Page 221 of Did They Break You

She opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it again, but before she can speak, I do.

“And you know what?” I lean even closer, running my tongue over my lip ring, drawing her eye to it. She hated the day I got that pierced. Kind of why I fucking did it. “Neither am I.”

She blinks, and the look on her face—utter confusion—is fucking priceless. She actually thought she had me so tight by the balls that I’d never leave her. Betray her. She thought by forking over my inheritance, she’d bought my loyalty.

“If you leave me, I will ensure your father never has custody of Tristan?—”

“And if you try to fight him for it,I’llensure that everyone in this fucking town knows what you did to him.” My nostrils flare as I think about it. His broken glasses beside his bed in the hospital. The wound on his arm.

“Go ahead, Mom. Fight for Tristan.” I stand, knocking my chair back as I do. It topples over and everyone is staring at us. I press my index finger to the table. “If you do, you’ll be going up against me, too. Storm. Brinklin. You might win the legal case, but we both know what’s so much worse than that, huh, Mom?” I flash her a smile. “Don’t let the wolves drag your name in the mud, too,you fucking bitch.”

CHAPTER

SIXTY-THREE

REMI

Weed fillsthe air and the sweet, earthy taste lingers on my tongue. Beside me, a guy I just met has his hand gliding up my thigh, his mouth on my neck. I tilt my head, allowing him to suck and bite my skin.

Three weeks since Cortland broke up with me, and I’m doing just. Fucking.Fine.

Sloane is on a date with Asa.

Van is somewhere in this house now, and he’d probably be pissed if he saw me, but I don’t care. He’s busy with Ryann, which is how I need him. Preoccupied.

I’m not the girl who started this year. I don’t need him to hold my hand anymore.

Becausehe’sgone.

There’s been no more texts. No more calls. Cortland is gone. He’s not here, and that fantasy I had in my head is all… over.

He was feeling guilty, and just like me, he wanted a do over. He got his, and I got out. And it’s not all bad. I haven’t heard from Silas since I left the restaurant. As far as I’m concerned, we’re done. I was able to pick up a few shifts, working at the on-campus gym, and when I can’t… I do things like this.

I close my eyes, force myself back to this room, a moan escaping my lips as the guy’s hand trails under my short skirt, his fingers along my inner thigh. I don’t even know his name.

The lights are dim in the upstairs room of this frat house, the bass thudding under the floor we’re sitting on, but in here “Can You Feel My Heart”by Bring Me The Horizon plays as a few other students of EU fuck around with a Ouija board in the center of the room. Lyza, that chick from my dorm, is in the middle of them all. The two guys on either side of her are looking much more interested in her tits, barely covered by the low-cut crop top she’s wearing—light blue against her olive skin—than their hands on the planchette.

Turns out Lyza is pretty cool. Or maybe I’m just really high.

“Where are you from?” Lyza asks the spirit, her voice unwavering and strong as she stares down at the board, candles flickering around her and the guys on either side of her, a couple of people on the other side of the board.

I tip my head back against the wall, eyes still closed as I part my thighs wider, my white Chucks planted on the floor.

This guy is whispering in my ear as his fingers slip over my black silk underwear. “You like that, Remi?” he breathes over my mouth, my fingers curled around a beer bottle, a lighter in one hand, both by my sides as I let him touch me.

In our five-minute conversation before the lights got turned down and the candles were lit, I learned he’s in his third year here at Ely. He’s a political science major. With his hand under my skirt like this, he’ll probably be an excellent politician.

His hand teases the top of my underwear, one finger beneath the thin silk barrier, and I tense, panic and fear crowding in beneath my high.

There’s one moment. A moment of terror. Anxiety.Dread.It makes my stomach twist into knots, and I’m wearing hoodies and covering every inch of my body all over again.

He’scupping my face, his thumbs brushing over my lips.“You’re okay, pretty baby.”

Then I’m on his porch.

He’s telling me to leave. He’s walking away. My heart is in pieces all over again and?—

“Stop,” I tell the guy, my voice firm.Turns out, I did learn how to use my words.

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