Page 87 of Serpentine Valentine
So I was here, standing in front of twenty people eager to hear my story.
Rhea was there, and Dahlia, Taya, and some of the other girls from the Delta Alpha attacks. A few I didn’t know at all, my sisters, Professor Diana smiling supportively, and finally, Bryn.
All women who could understand some of the seething mess of darkness in my chest chasm.
“On Halloween last year,” I started, clenching my fists so tightly my nails cut crescent moons into my palms. The pain helped to ground me. “I was assaulted by a man I thought I could trust…”
Telling my story for the first time, start to end with only a few gasping pauses when I felt like I was drowning, wasn’t just hard.
It was excruciating.
I carved the words out of my own scarred flesh and offered them to the group like a blood sacrifice.
I couldn’t look at any of them as I spoke, instead fixating on a poster of the school production of Shakespeare’sThe Merchant of Venice. Under other circumstances, I might have laughed seeing it there, but as it was, I couldn’t have dreamt of a better focal point.
When I was done, there was one pure moment of absolute quiet. Not silence; there were still the sounds of thighs rubbing, bottoms shifting, someone picking at their nails and another sucking in a heavy breath. But quiet, like I’d dropped a bomb in the middle of the room and everyone was dead in the aftermath.
But then, a single whisper.
“Thank you, Lex.”
I kept staring at the poster, and I didn’t recognize the voice.
Then another. “Thank you, Lex.”
And another and another until the whole room was filled with the echo of gratitude.
Finally, I wrenched my eyes from the scales drawn on the poster and looked around the room at the faces of the women who were thanking me for telling them a horror story.
Many of them were crying, either triggered by my words or empathizing with them. One girl was nodding like she didn’t even realize she was doing it, a bobbing head of emphasis, and another was almost vibrating with intensity, her eyes locked on mine like I was her touchstone.
And then there were my sisters.
Gracie was staring at me already, and the moment my gaze touched hers, she mouthed,You’re kick-ass.
Effie pressed a hand to her heart, saying,I love you.
Juno was the one who started clapping.
And then I was crying, great gasping sobs that hurt my chest, but I still managed to gasp, “Okay, thank you, everyone. Who wants to go next?”
I was walking homethat night when my crimes caught up to me. Uncharacteristically, I wasn’t paying as much attention to my surroundings as I should have been. I’d spent the last few hours in Mathieson Library writing a paper for my Tragedies course, which of course made me think of Luna. She hadn’t been in class the last three days, but I heard through the grapevine that she’d been discharged from the hospital with a broken nose, a concussion, and a sprained hand. She was staying with her ex-boyfriend, Pierce Argent, and I tried not to let the knowledge burn a hole in the lining of my gut.
As if conjured by my thoughts, the big hockey player appeared from behind a tree as I walked down a narrow lane behind Piedmont Hall to get home. He was an affable-looking guy, blond and wholesome like a Midwestern farm boy, but with the perfect features of someone who might try to make it on the big screen. I’d never seen him around campus with anything other than a smile. It was one of the reasons I hated the idea of Luna with him so much. Because it made so much sense for them to be together. Two lovely, kind-hearted smiling blonds like a couple out of a fucking J.Crew ad.
Only, Pierce Argent wasn’t smiling now.
And he wasn’t alone.
His kind––popular kids, jocks, douchebags, take your pick––were never without their entourage.
The only one I recognized was Beckett, the one who’d had his hand up Luna’s shirt when she was passed out at that party. Dark satisfaction moved through my veins like the warmth from rich wine when I saw the fading bruises on his face. It was only the last year of searching for signs of threat and violence that alerted me to the bruising around the knuckles on his good right hand. I wondered idly who he’d gotten in a fight with. He sneered at me over Pierce’s shoulder.
I raised a brow and stopped walking, casually adjusting my book bag on the edge of my shoulder so it would be easy to drop if I needed to fight. There was a can of bear spray in the inside pocket, and the silver rings I wore at the base of four knuckles on my right hand made wonderful makeshift brass knuckles. Fear skittered up my spine, but just enough to bring clarity.
I wasn’t the same trusting girl I had been last year, and I knew how to fucking defend myself. It would be hard, one against the four strappinghockey guys facing me down, but anger made for explosive fuel.
Only Pierce looked angry enough to set even me on the back foot.
