Not with me. So, with other girls? Ugh. I don’t know whether to be flattered or disgusted, so I settle on both.
And later, when I can’t avoid Cyn waiting for me beside Iris’ car, the first thing I say is, “Do you like public sex?”
His brows rise to the sky before he smirks. “Why? You liked coming in the courtyard, beauty?”
“I will not do it while someone watches,” I hiss, and his eyes darken before he grabs my chin. “Who said anything about that?”
A shiver rolls down my spine at the ferocity of his question, and I step back, looking him over warily. “It doesn’t matter. I won’t do it.”
“Beauty, I’d kill anyone who tried,” he says roughly. “Now, who suggested it?”
“But you’ve done it before,” I whisper.
He sighs impatiently and reaches for me, but I pull away, and he drops his hand. “Yes, I’ve fucked a girl in public.”
“While others watched?”
“Yes,” he says with a moody glare.
“Right,” I mutter, stepping up to the car door.
“Beau—”
“I need to go. I don’t—I’m not—. Just leave me alone,” I say through clenched teeth, fighting back painful rage because, in this, I don’t feel sexy enough. I don’t feel as though I measure up, and the devastation is just another reminder that what he wants isn’t me.
“Rain,” he says firmly, but ignoring him, I back out of the spot and refuse to look back.
???
The following week passes quietly. John is surprisingly distant, and Pam has been home, thank god. But Iris has retreated into herself, and I can’t reach her no matter what I do.
She goes through the motions, attends school and everything, but she escapes to her room every day when we get home, refusing to talk to me.
I don’t know what I’ve done or if it’s something else, but it weighs on me because, with each day that passes, I’m afraid she might take matters into her own hands.
I’ve studiously avoided Cyn, and I don’t know if he is doing the same because I refuse to look at him. Still, I can sense his presence from across the cafeteria, and I thank the powers that be that it’s the only time of day I have to pretend.
Something about his confession broke me, and deep down, I admit it’s because I’m both jealous and insecure. How do I possibly measure up to girls who are so sexually free they’re willing to do the deed in front of others?
I can’t fathom it. And what if he ever wanted to do the whole double dipping thing Jig mentioned? The horror. Or worse, if he wanted another girl to participate?
It’s all so completely confusing and frankly disheartening that I’ve pushed it from my mind to focus on John. Because even though he’s backed off, I sense the powder keg just below the surface, especially when he doesn’t think anyone notices.
We’ve just finished dinner, and Iris escaped to her room, citing period cramps. Pam went out the back to take out the trash, and I’m quietly cleaning the table when John speaks.
“I watched a show the other night about a serial killer who strangled his victims to death before fucking their corpses,” he says quietly.
Startled, I drop the plate I was holding to the table, staring at him with wide eyes. His mouth curls into an empty smirk, and he says in a voice so low, I strain to hear, “What do you suppose it felt like? Fucking a husk? Was her body still warm? Cold? Did he come?”
Trembling, I stare into his eyes, surely pools of evil staring back at me, and I only break away when Pam reenters, grumbling about the garbage man.
I hear none of it as I grab my plate, deposit it in the sink and escape upstairs before locking myself in my room and sitting before my bed.
The man is insane, and I’m trapped here for another seven months.
???
Sometime during the night, my phone buzzes, and waking from a light doze, I pull up the message, my heart skipping a beat when I see it’s from Cyn.