Page 43 of Riot Act
It’s of his side and back specifically. He’s facing away from the camera, half his face in dark, shadowy profile, but mostly turned away, out of sight. The camera is visible, the reflection of it displayed in the mirror that Pax is standing in front of. The Canon sits on top of the shelf in front of his record collection, its lens black and ominous like a silent void, swallowing up the image.
He must have set a timer on it to take the photo. He didn’t want to be in it, clearly. If he did, he would have faced the lens instead of turning away from it. It’s still a beautiful image of him, though. Shadows drape over the definition of the muscles in his shoulders and arm like ink. The light from the window bathes his cheekbone and his hand in light, casting them in white.
“Don’t,” he says.
“I wasn’t going to touch it.”
“I know. Just…don’t.”
He won’t say it, but he doesn’t like me even looking at this photo, I can tell. I give him what he wants, moving away from the wall of photos entirely. “So. You had the surgery then?” I say.
He scowls. “We’re not talking about that.”
“Why? You don’t want anyone knowing that you did something kind for once?”
“It wasn’t kind. It was revenge. You said it yourself, back in the hospital.”
I leash the smirk that wants to form on my face, but it aches at the corners of my mouth. “Oh, yeah. I did say that.” I was very high from the pain killers I was on at the time. My mind had been sharp enough to find a way to make the bone marrow donation acceptable to Pax, though. If he knew how badly I played him, I doubt I’d be standing here in his room. He wouldn’t be entertaining my presence at all. “I’m sure you’re alittlerelieved that you were able to help your mom, though, right?”
He glares at me—straight through me—a series of tiny muscles flexing in his jaw. He releases a frustrated blast of air down his nose, nostrils flared, and then lifts the camera to his face. He snaps off another photo of me, his eyebrows banking together as he lowers the Canon from his face again.
“Why don’t we talk about why you tried to off yourself instead?” he snaps.
It feels like he just dumped a bucket of ice-cold water over my head. Suddenly, teasing him over the surgery doesn’t seem like such a good idea anymore. “All right. Fair point,” I concede. “Those topics are off limits. What are we talking about, then?”
“We’re not talking at all. You’re showing me how I don’t scare the shit out of you. Walk over to the window.” He jerks the lens of the old camera at me, then to the window like he’s holding a gun and not a really expensive piece of equipment. He wants to shoot me, either way. I feel like I’m lining up for a firing squad as I cross his room and position myself as he commanded me to, in front of the large bay window opposite his bed.
“Now what?” The nervous electric current vibrating under my skin intensifies when he looks me over, picking me apart with a detached, distant gaze.
“Now you take your clothes off,” he states. Simple, emotionless words that come out flat, as if he just told me to angle my head a little further to the right. Nothing about him changes. His expression remains stoic and impassive. His shoulders are relaxed. His eyes are the same cool, pale grey. But something does change. I can’t put my finger on it. Can’t pin down what exactly. But Pax is toying with me, and he’s enjoying it immensely. He’s waiting for me to refuse his demand and run frightened from the room. This is typical Pax Davis behavior. He knows he’s asking too much, but he asks anyway, to see which buttons he can press before the other person breaks.
He isn’t a perilous shoreline thatIwill break against, though. Another version of me would have shattered into pieces at the mere thought of stripping down in front of him, but that version of me died on a sidewalk, drenched in blood. It’ll take more than baring my flesh in front of a Riot House boy to affect me, now.
Pax huffs sardonically; he thinks he’s already won this weird game of chicken, but he hasn’t. He hasn’t even come close. Without breaking eye contact with him, I take hold of the bottom of my long-sleeved shirt and I slowly draw it up, over my head.
I toe off my sneakers next, then shimmy my jeans over my hips, sliding them down my legs without blinking. Pax freezes, still as a corpse, watching me as I slip my bra straps down over my shoulders, then reach back to unfasten the clasps at the back.
It isn’t dark.
We aren’t in the forest.
I’m sober as a judge, and so is Pax. At least…Ithinkhe is.
This is nothing like the night he pinned me up against that tree and nearly slipped himself inside me. And I face him with a vague sense of pride now, rather than being torn in two by my sheer panic and how badly I want him.
My bra hits the floor.
My panties join the rest of my clothes.
I don’t care that my underwear doesn’t match. So what if my bra is black and my panties are pink? It hardly matters now that they’re on the floor. It doesn’t matter that I’m covered in bruises, either. The tops of my arms are covered in them. My thighs are mottled with a variety of marks. My ribcage is black and blue; a lot of those bruises, Pax himself gave to me. I don’t care that my wrists are still bandaged, either.
None of it fucking matters.
I stand with my back to the window, rolling my shoulders back, tilting my head and raising my chin…and I meet Pax’s blank stare with a burning defiance that originates somewhere deep down in the very center of me.
I’m naked. I can still feel those butterflies—they have a mind of their own, slamming around inside my chest—but I can separate myself from them now. My anxiety doesn’t get the better of me.
In fairness to him, Pax doesn’t even bat an eyelid. He either has an extremely convincing poker face or he’s so used to women randomly shedding their clothes for him when he tells them to. Whichever option might be true, I can tell that hedoeslike what he sees. It’s plain as day. Even though I look like I just went five rounds with a UFC fighter, Pax is still fascinated by my body. His gaze dips down, lingering over my chest, and I see his pupils dilate from across the room; they blow out completely when they roam further down, settling on the spot at the apex of my bruised thighs, between my legs.
