Page 116 of Drown Like Heaven
But today didn’t feel like that.
It felt like it wasn’t about me at all. Like he couldn’t care less about how he was treating me; he only cared about getting the answer to his question, and not because he wanted to know my class schedule. Not because it was another piece of me he was uncovering.
It was something he wanted totakefor himself. He’d used my pain as leverage to get what he wanted, like I was just a tool, like I didn’t matter to him at all.
And it was making me so confused and upset and anxious.
He’d never been like that before. I didn’t recognize him anymore.
The same darkness was laced through both of us, the same need for obsession and violence, but there were other parts of him, worse parts, things that were darker than I was able to handle on my own. Naively, I’d believed myself capable of withstanding him; I’d even secretly found pleasure in the idea that I might be the only one who could really understand him, who could match his darkness even if it scared me, even if I sometimes hated it. Because it was in me, too.
But I didn’t believe that anymore.
I didn’t believe anything.
Chapter 31
Dakota
Later that week, I was waiting in my seat after Unit Ops lecture, preparing to spend the afternoon doing a run in the lab with Dr. Killshaw. He’d told me it would take about four to six hours, but I wasn’t obligated to stay the whole time. Since I didn’t have work, and my one other afternoon class had been switched to online, I didn’t have any reason to say no.
My hand wasn’t really sore now, but I hadn’t responded to Mason’s texts once. He hadn’t showed up at my trailer yet, either. Even when he called me, I let it ring all the way through to voicemail.
Anticipation was making my stomach twist while I sat in the back row, waiting for the rest of the students to leave the classroom. I rubbed the side of my thumb back and forth over the lace on my journal, looking out the window at the trees. I’d been getting a lot of use out of my journal lately—mostly scribbled and tear-stained entries that made zero sense. I couldn’t stop thinking about Mason.
Why would he do that?
The sound of the door swinging shut snapped me out of my head.
It was just me and Dr. Killshaw in here now.
Without pausing for his instruction, I got out of my chair automatically, shoving things in my bag, brushing my hair out of my face when it swung forward over my shoulders. In my peripheral, I could see him watching me.
My eyes snapped up to the front of the room.What version of you will I get today?
The version where you say you want to take care of me, or the version where you’re the one hurting me?
He stood casually in front of his desk, head slightly tilted as he observed me. His posture was relaxed, hands in his pockets. It was almost pointless to try and analyze his body language, however, because it didn’t betray anything about his emotional state. He was perpetually unreadable.
I walked down to the front of the room, coming to a stop a few steps away from him.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Sure.”
He narrowed his eyes, maybe disliking my lack of enthusiasm. It was hard to keep portraying all my external emotions correctly, because the inside of me was a disaster. Riptides wrapped around my veins, turbulent waves crashing against the inside of my skull, a vortex of cold water taking the place of my vital organs. Instinctively, I touched the hand Mason hurt, running my thumb over my palm.
But I didn’t want to keep thinking about Mason.
I shoved it all to the back of my mind.
“Yes,” I corrected. “I’m ready.”
“If something’s going on, you don’t need to work today.”
“I’mfine,” I said, a touch too forcefully.
Something volatile sparked in his gaze. I couldn’t tell if it was anger or interest; the line between those two emotions was thin and unstable, a hairline fracture.
