Page 35 of Make Me Pretty
The thought sits with me, heavy and burdensome, as I pull out of the parking lot I screeched into. A Linkin Park song comes on while I sit at a red light, so I crank the volume as high as it’ll go in my piece of shit Saturn. It crackles through the speakers, making my eye twitch, but I still tap my fingers to the beat of the song, hoping the more I try, the deeper I fall into it. Into anything to take me out of my head. Away from it all—and from him. Where he’s probably still in my bed with his little fucking hand on his little fucking cock.
My fingers clamp around the wheel, and the leather creaks under the pressure. I twist around, fingers completely bloodless as I stare out into the rapidly descending night.
Theonetime I decide to leave practice on time—and this is what I get.
Well, fuck that.
My car rocks against the ruts in the earth, made deep over many years of constant driving and parking, through rain, sleet, and snow. The small park court is lit up by a single streetlamp, chain nets clanking softly in the breeze.
Slamming into park, I jerk forward and let my head fall against the steering wheel. Each breath is forced, enunciated with extreme care so I don’t fall into the spell of the panic attack I feel sitting against my chest with a weight that is all too familiar.
But I refuse to succumb. Refuse to keep letting what… whatLukedid drive my life. He took years from me, from Ma. Years we can never get back, but I won’t give him anymore.
Ican’t.
I’d rather keep pretending it all never happened, but I’ve never been able to—only managed to shove it all down, buried and embedded far too deep to ever see the light again.
But… Abel.
Fucking Abel, man.
Little runt really set out to ruin everything because of one mistake I made—and it was that; a mistake. I’d take it back in an instant if I could, but life has never been the generous kind. We don’t get to do shit over. Remake decisions.Wish for anything.
What we have is what we get, and every fucking thing we do influences it all. And I tried—since Luke went to prison, and we left that life behind to move to Ardent—to be… better. To be the opposite of everything I had become, deeply entwined with aggression and malevolence.
I met Gabriel shortly after the move. To this day, I still haven’t a clue why he even tried to be my friend. I was an asshole and really just terrible to be around, but he saw through it and wasthere.He taught me how to be a decent friend—a better kind of person really, even if it always felt surface level.
And Abel went and undid every single coil I’ve rewound.
Vile perversion oozes out of my pores like pus in an infected wound, andfuck,the release of toxins feels euphoric.
I drop my head back against my seat, eyes scrunched shut as I lift to slam it back again and again until a different kind of pressure builds behind my eyes. One that hurts more than it stings.
Once the dizziness sets in, I stop to catch my breath, vision swarming with the whispers of darkness. I can’t feel this way. I can’t allow it back in—but it’s too late.
I’ve touched him, tasted his candy-sweetened breath. My touch will mottle his skin with bruises I have spent months thinking about. My room, my bed, my sheets will be stained with his sweat and cum.
And my cock is still fucking hard.
CHAPTER 11
PERIS
My eye twitchesin time with my cock. I can’t even control it anymore—it just happens.
He’s right fuckingtherenear the top of the bleachers with his school laptop open atop his scrawny legs. Long, knobby fingers fly over the keys surprisingly fast for such small hands. He doesn’t even look down at the court—atme.And he hasn’t since the night I choked him, giving him what he’s always wanted from me.
Ireallyshouldn’t have touched him. But knowing and doing are two painfully different roads. And Abel knows exactly how to get under my skin. He’s burrowed himself deep, fingering my frayed edges, pulling them taut until they snap off one by fucking one.
My eyes narrow. Why’s he even here if he’s not going to watch us practice? Watchme?He’s certainly not off sucking someone’s fucking face this time.
I set my jaw in a tight grit, shaking off any and all thoughts of my… shit.My foster brother.I hate the label—which Ma likes to don every now and again, like saying it will somehowbring us closer.Who the fuck knows. But ifshedid?...
Abel’s so muchmoreand yet considerably less. He used to just be some fucking twink covered in bruises with his sights set on me, and now… I’m in his vortex.
It’s fine.
I’ve got everything under control.
