Page 88 of Drown Like Heaven
Dr. Killshaw continued his advance, so I snatched my bag, then turned and ran out of his office as fast as I could, slamming the door shut behind me, breathing clean air in huge gulps. I darted down the hall and barreled into the door for the staircase, almost tripping over my feet as I dashed down flight after flight of stairs, trying to escape what I’d just done.
I don’t know what to do.
I’m falling, and there’s nothing for me to grab onto. I’m surrounded by empty air and my stomach is twisted and I can’t breathe correctly because of how fast I’m falling and I’m not sure when I’ll hit the ground.
Why am I so easy to hurt?
Chapter 22
Dakota
Twilight shadows drifted through the small window in the bathroom of my trailer, casting everything in shades of violet, like a bruise.
I slipped below the surface of the water, my skull hitting the bottom of the bathtub, my eyes open to watch the ripples above my face, to watch all the bubbles of air escaping my lungs. I envisioned Mason’s perfect face there, his hand wrapped around my throat.
You’re in my head, too. I wish I could get you out.
Please come back and hurt me again.
I like it.
I think Ineedit.
I wanted him the way lungs wanted air after drowning.
Violently. Without choice.
Pushing up on my elbows, I sucked in a breath of air, blinking water off my eyelashes. My fingertips brushed the wet skin of my neck, feeling my weak pulse. It was so much faster when I was with Mason, when his fingertips were the ones touching me. My normal heart rate seemed so slow now, like I was dying, drifting away.
I slicked my hair back off my forehead and stared at my face in the cloudy reflection of the silver faucet, warped and small. My pale chest, my wet hair.
The water wasn’t very warm anymore, and my fingers were wrinkled, but I still liked how it felt to submerge my ears and listen to my own breathing, or the sounds of my fingers breaking the surface tension of the cooling water. My knees were bent upwards, my feet pressed flat to the bottom of the bathtub.
Eventually I got out of the tub, dripping all over the floor, then drained the water and wrapped my hair up in a towel, my pajamas loose on my damp skin. Cotton fabric, worn soft by time. I really only liked to wear big t-shirts and men’s boxers to bed.
The kitchen floor was cold against my bare feet while I boiled water on the stove for the ninety-nine cent box of pasta I’d purchased on sale—farfalle, butterfly shape. It was my favorite shape of pasta, and had been since childhood.
While waiting for the water to heat, I grabbed my laptop from my bed and set it on the counter, skimming through the assignments I still needed to get turned in. My first Unit Ops exam was coming up in a few weeks, and although I wasn’t particularly worried for it in terms of content, I did feel weird.
I hadn’t been back to class after what happened in Dr. Killshaw’s office. It was only one lecture I’d really missed, but it felt…significant. I didn’t know how I was supposed to face him, sit and listen to him lecture, take notes, without wanting to break down. He’d been so fuckingmeanto me.
You know I could get you expelled.
Those words lingered in my head. I wasn’t sure if he actually meant them or if he’d just said it to scare me, make me regret pushing the line, but I couldn’t get them to stop tormenting me. Technically, if I’d finished my sentence, he had every right toreport me. Becauseyes, I was offering to give him whatever I thought he wanted. Sex, or something similar.
I didn’t even know why I said it. Maybe because my body was all I knew how to give.
If I wanted you, you’d know.
It was needlessly cruel. He’d cut me down just because he knew he could.
And if my previous actions weren’t proof enough of my idiocy—Istillwanted to believe he was lying. I wanted to believe he was fighting back against what I’d seen, because it had to be real or else…I don’t know.
Then there was the other memory, the one living in the shadows of my mind, the one holding words that needled at all the things I tried to hide.
Nobody knows how to take care of you. And you’ll never let anyone try.
He was right. And I hated how badly I wanted it. How fucking badly Ididwant someone to take care of me, to hold me safe and always. Even more, I hated that he’d somehowseenthat in me, before I’d even admitted it to myself. And then I’d only gone and proven him right when he came back into his office and I sabotaged everything.
