Page 91 of Distortion
It’s not enough.
I back up and push myself against the wall opposite the mirrors, letting my head hit the breeze blocks hard enough to give me a moment’s dizziness. But I don’t do anything else. I learned early on in my time at The Heath that bruises I couldn’t explain meant loss of dessert, or other, worse consequences. They didn’t care about the why, only that there weren’t injuries that showed my inner turmoil. So I learned to get the frustration out without them being any the wiser.
Before I leave the bathroom, I make sure that I look as normal as I can and there are no tears to be seen. I would never give any of them the satisfaction of seeing what they were able to do to me.
‘Are you okay?’
I whirl with a startled cry to find Blake behind me. He looks pissed.
‘I’m going to Applegate,’ he says through clenched teeth.
He was almost kind to me last night. I thought we’d turned a corner. Why would he do this now? To tell him I wasn’t prepared for the lecture? How does he even know about that already?
A mortifying sob escapes me and I turn quickly, intending to run back into the bathroom, but I feel his arm snake around my waist.
‘Hey, hey,’ he says in my ear. ‘It’s okay, Daisy.’
I shake my head and try to extricate myself, hating that anyone is seeing me like this, especially one ofthem, even as some traitorous piece of me loves the feel of his touch. Itgrounds me, the smell of him starts to calm me like he’strustworthyeven though I know that isn’t true.
‘Talk to me,’ he says, holding me close.
When I say nothing, just keep trying to escape him withoutlashing outat him, he sighs and picks me up. He takes me quickly to the bank of elevators and presses the button. It opens a moment later and he walks in, choosing the basement level.
He lets me go once the doors close and I spring away from him, breathing hard and pushing myself into the corner. He takes out his phone and taps at the screen. I close my eyes. It’s over. They’ll tell John about this. Blake can easily see that I lost it in a public setting. There’s almost nothing worse in my stepfather’s eyes, in Stoke’s eyes.
Have to appear normal, have tobenormal.
But I’m not normal.
And, despite the hours upon hours of lessons at The Heath, I never will be. I’ll always be an embarrassment, a liability.
The doors open and Mav’s standing on the other side looking in, ready to witness my very publictantrumas well so that they can tell Shade everything in great detail, I’m sure. The thought of the glee my stepbrother will take in relaying to his dad every sordid little thing I say has me letting out a scream of fury through my clenched teeth. He’ll hear about that, too.
At least no one saw me in the bathroom.
At least there’s that.
‘What the fuck happened?’
‘Casey and Bennet,’ is all Blake says.
‘Those fuckers.’ Mav steps into the elevator. ‘I’m guessing McKinsey didn’tnoticeanything?’
Blake snorts. ‘Doubt it.’
‘Daisy?’ he asks gently.
I look at him.
‘Can you ... talk?’
I just stare, my eyes filling with tears.
‘What do you mean?’ Blake asks.
Mav doesn’t answer him, his attention on me completely.
‘It’s okay,’ he says. ‘Come on. Let’s go into the lab. There’s no one else in there.’
