Page 66 of Switch
“A few years after we got married, her dad had been diagnosed with cancer, and her mom was insistent that the whole family come home for Christmas.I’d had a book signing in Cincinnati.My plane was delayed due to weather.Marina got stuck spending the night there without me.Eric could charm the pants off anyone, so her parents never believed her stories about him.”
My mind goes to June, one of my foster siblings.She was getting hassled by this older kid, Rubin, but nobody believed her.“Was he, like… You know…” I don’t want to upset Fallon by saying it out loud.
Fallon’s laugh is harsh.“That was about the only thing he didn’t do.Eric was gay.But he was also some kind of psychopath, I think.He enjoyed scaring Marina just to laugh at the look on her face.They thought she had a problem with self-harm.He’d cut her, burn her, break her fingers, and then force her to take the blame.Once, he hid cameras in her room and sent the videos around their school.Posted them on porn sites.For years, she had nightmares about being watched.Marina also had issues with food because he gave her so much shit about her weight.”
“Hidden cameras.”When I swallow, there are razorblades in my throat.“Sounds familiar.”
Fallon’s fingers clench and release in my grip.We’re almost to my apartment, but I wait.If he gets distracted, he might stop talking again.
His free hand rubs at his forehead.“The weight thing… He used to take her food, and he’d, like, make animal noises or call her names.‘I’m going to steal your dessert and I’m going to eat it in front of you while I tell you what a pig you are.’That kind of thing.She knew he’d do it, so she poisoned her dessert and waited for him to steal it from her.”
“Holy shit,” I breathe.“Honestly, that’s kind of badass.Now I kind of wish I could meet her.That’s hardcore.”
Fallon’s laugh doesn’t have any humor.“Something about that night flipped a switch for her.She said she’d spent her entire life afraid, and she’d decided she couldn’t live if he was alive anymore.”
I pull up behind my building.This place is a dump.I don’t like bringing Fallon here, but it’s safer than his place right now.
I pull the key out of the ignition.“Wait,” I say as he goes to open his door.“What if Marina’s brother hadn’t done the thing.Like, what if she’d poisoned her food, and he hadn’t taken it from her that time?”
Fallon looks out into the dark.“Like I said.She’d decided she couldn’t live if he was alive.She told me that if he hadn’t eaten it, she was going to eat it herself.Either way, she’d be free of him.”There’s a half breath, and his voice cracks on his last words.“She’d taken the first bite.Raspberry gelato.Her favorite.”
That’s…that’s some serious shit right there.If this Eric guy’s still alive, I won’t let him terrorize Fallon anymore.I’ll make sure he never hurts anyone again.
ChapterTwenty
PJ
I slipinto a side door in Fallon’s classroom, dropping heavily into the front-row seat next to Ravi.
“There you are,” he says.
“I’m not late,” I grumble.“Still have three minutes.”
It would have been earlier, but after a fun day of pretending everything wasn’t falling apart while Fallon and I got Bruiser and Jolene used to each other, he did a one-eighty this morning and insisted I park two blocks from campus so nobody would see us together.The opposite fucking end of campus from the Language Arts building.
Ravi leans over into my space.“What do you know about sounding?”
Okay, something tells me this doesn’t mean what I think it means.“Like sounding an alarm?Or instruments or something?Like musical sounds?”
“No.”The nineteen-year-old newbie escort sounds exasperated.“Like where you stick a metal rod into your dick.”
“Jesus fuck.What the hell?”I choke on a gulp of coffee, hacking inelegantly until I manage to cough it all over the desk attachment of the seat I’m in.Up front, Fallon strides into the room with a briefcase in one hand and his to-go cup in the other.Wonder where he got his coffee from.
“Mr.Jeffries, I trust you won’t leave that mess for the cleaning staff to take care of.”
It is hot as fuck to see the guy I spanked and fucked face-first into the sand lecturing me over the top of his wire rims.I could pitch a tent right fucking now.
Since I saw him last, he’s rolled his sleeves up to the middle of his forearms, and the way he’s standing behind the lectern, focusing not on me but on the papers he’s pulling out while he chastises me, strangely gets my motor going.
“Of course not,” I manage.“Sorry, sir.”
He still doesn’t look my way, but his cheek twitches while he sorts through the papers in front of him.
Wanting to stay on the good side of the teacher I happen to be fucking, I dart out of the room, grab paper towels from the nearest washroom, and focus on mopping up my desk.
“Whoa, you made a mess.”Ravi chuckles.
I give him a sideways glare.“This is your fault.Who the fuck mentions sticking a metal rod in someone’s dick before eight a.m.?”
