Page 3 of Inside the Maelstrom: Part One
Considering I’d seen him fucking Flora the nurse in the supply closet last week, it could be sex. He didn’t even shut the door. He just stood there fucking her where anyone could see and report her. He obviously didn’t care if she lost her job, because what did the lives of everyone else matter to a boy who was richer than the Queen of England?
A part of me—the part I liked to think was still clinging hopelessly to mental stability—piped up and said I was doing the exact same thing with Corey. But Corey was a whore and was fucking half the female inmates, and if those pesky whispers were correct, some of the male patients too. Corey was like a dumb Golden Retriever; he thought he was doing a public service. Like treating hysteria patients in the olden days—nothing that a good dicking couldn’t fix, right?
So if Corey got caught, it would be his fault. But Flora was a sweetheart, who’d obviously just got caught up in the magnetic bullshit of Hendrick Kenley.
“Aviva, do you have anything to add to today’s discussion?” Dr. Arubat’s voice pulled me away from my mental crucifixion of Hendrick.
I stared him dead in the eye and shook my head. “No.” I looked over at Yvonne. “You’re beautiful. It's the eating disorder that's ugly. Shake that fucker out of your head, and you’ll be all good.”
Dr. Arubat’s lips pursed. He didn’t like profanity in his sessions, but really, fuck was a perfectly fine word. It was the tone that made it a problem. “Thank you, Aviva. Let’s not try to diminish anyone else's experience though, okay?”
I mentally gave him the finger and tuned back out. Ten minutes later, we were set free, and I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Swinging past my room, I grabbed a book.
Maybe I’d head outside anyway. Find a tree to read under, and pretend I was somewhere alone, rather than at a wellness center that was bankrupting my parents one day at a time.
I knew the reason I was so angry today was because it was visitation day tomorrow, and no one would visit me. Again. It wasn’t that my parents didn’twantto visit—they called me every single night. I’d never tell them, but their voices were the only thing keeping me afloat some days. No, they were great people, but were working day and night to keep me in here, and out of jail.
Fuck, I loved them, and that made me feel so goddamn guilty.
I couldn’t even die right.
I found a palm tree with grass that managed to creep right up to the trunk, and decided that was my spot for the day. I’d quickly run through everything decent in the small library of books the center had. We weren’t allowed electronics, so no eReader. Like, what the fuck was with that?
I’d hit the under-read classics now, and I was reading Jules Verne like this was an English Lit class.Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
Scribbled on the title page in marker were the words:
Man gets hijacked by a submarine? If this isn’t a euphemism for Verne’s repressed sexuality, nothing is.
I let out a laugh. Well, they probably weren’t wrong. Jules Vernes, arguably the godfather of steampunk literature, was not a riveting read. He was scientific and technical, and honestly, if I wanted to listen to an old white guy yabber on endlessly, I’d go back to group therapy.
But the notes in the margin? They were amazing. Sometimes serious, sometimes poking fun at the story. I found myself becoming immersed in the story just so I could understand the mystery commenter’s notes scribbled across the page.
A shadow fell over me, and I looked up. Hendrick fucking Kenley stood over me, his face silhouetted by the sun.
“What are you doing?”
I screwed up my nose. “Masturbating.” I rolled my eyes. “Obviously, I’m reading.”
He tilted his head at me. “I think you’re masturbating wrong. Want me to show you how it’s done?”
I flushed all over, but gritted my teeth at him. “Not if you were the last discombobulated head on Earth.”
I climbed to my feet, pushing down the skirt of my dress. Hendrick didn’t move a muscle, and I huffed as I stepped around him. Tucking the book under my arm, I strode away, not giving him the satisfaction of looking back at him, even though I could feel his eyes burning into my spine.
As I walked past the pool, Corey was just locking up. He grinned when he saw me, and I gave him a smirk back. “Finishing up early?” I asked, and he lifted an eyebrow.
“Yep. Though I still have a little time until I clock out. I might have to do some paperwork.” His eyes dipped down my body, letting me know that I was the paperwork he wanted to do.
Honestly, I expected so little from Corey that I actually laughed at his bad metaphor. “Need a hand with that? I’m good with numbers.”
His eyes hooded, and he sucked his bottom lip between his teeth. He had perfect, straight white teeth that flashed in the warm afternoon sun. “I might just take you up on that, Aviva,” he purred, and it went straight to my core.
Corey headed to the pumphouse beside the pool, while I moved casually over to the pool fence, watching the turquoise water ripple softly in the breeze as I counted to sixty.
Turning back the way I came, I sucked in a breath as I noticed Hendrick still watching me. Fuck him though. I met his eyes and held them as I turned on my heel and followed Corey toward the pool shed. Let him think that the smile on my face was because I was excited about fucking Corey, and not because I was happy to get one up on Hendrick Kenley, the entitled, arrogant, asshole.
Chapter2
