Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 72496 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72496 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Still numb, I stayed there, hands shaking.
Minutes, maybe even years later, she was pulling me to my feet and stripping me down. I still only remembered going into that bathtub and sitting. At one point, I think she tried helping wash me.
And then I remembered grabbing her, yelling at her, feeling ashamed she was seeing me that way and asking her to leave, or demanding it. In my dreams I felt her mouth on mine, my hands on her body, but I told myself it was my imagination, I told myself I would never, and yet at times the shameful part of me wondered if I did. Did I steal more than one life that night? Did I take a kiss? Did I steal her mouth again and again in order to suck some life from her that I desperately needed and did the last shred of goodness I had just disintegrate between our tongues?
Our relationship, or what was a small shroud of friendship, disappeared after that night and I still had no clue what I’d done so horribly other than being traumatized that I’d killed.
We were true enemies after that.
And now we were going to be in the same dorm room. Great. She was probably going to get back at me for it, at some point, it would only make sense.
She’d been tainted by me.
She’d tried to help.
But the only thing I’d been able to do with my voice was yell at her, but I’d needed someone to blame.
And it’s always easier to blame those you secretly respect than yourself.
CHAPTER SIX
“Don’t ever try to fight a losing battle, no matter how many times you convince yourself it’s going to work, it won’t, and in the end if love is involved, good luck.” —King Campisi
Bella
It was all meaningless.
I hated that I woke up thinking that thought… it’s all meaningless, like why do I even try with this guy? Every word I said was offensive to him, and every response he gave to me was so bitter that I was instantly triggered to the point of lunging at him.
My brain went back to the night things shifted—the night they changed between us, the night he still never admitted to happening, which just pissed me off even more because it made him a dirty liar.
“Can’t,” Ivan whispered. ‘Leave. I can’t.”
“I can.” I fought him, and then I jumped into the bath with him. He wrapped me in his arms and cried, and then he kissed me.
It was my first kiss.
It was full of anger and pain.
And all I could do was accept it, drink it and swallow it away into the darkness where it belonged.
He was hurting and if by giving him my mouth, I could make him feel slightly better, I would.
And I did.
He pulled my shirt over my head.
He was already naked, his eyes crazed, wild, when he bit down on my shoulder and gripped my arms.
I screamed out in pain.
He shoved me away. “Go, just go!”
“Ivan—”
“—go!”
I flipped onto my back, every sound he made, every sigh, every movement in his bed made me want to murder him, it was like he was doing it accidentally on purpose—annoying me, making me question everything, doubt, and then rage.
Maybe that was the issue I truly had at the end of the day, the rage. We’d been in the dorm—the south dorms, thank God—for less than twenty-four hours and I was already glaring at him and hoping he’d actually feel said glare in his sleep.
He lied about the snoring.
He looked like a sleeping god, which quite honestly made it so much worse than him being loud. I never actually asked the universe this, but why were the pretty ones such assholes? Were his good looks to make up for his lack of personality? Was he cursed? Was I cursed for having to both stare at him and put up with him?
Ivan tossed on his left side and ran his hand through his hair. I quickly looked away like I was doing something wrong, only to look back over my shoulder in an attempt to convince myself why he was the absolute worst.
His eyebrows were clearly too sharp just like his jawline, who actually liked someone that perfect?
His chin was obviously too—obvious just poking out there like he was Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, but a way better looking version, and his fingertips were full like his stupid eyebrows and lips.
His knuckles were scarred from beating the shit out of everyone and everything, see? Welcome rage once more. His full lips pressed together in a dreamlike smirk, and I was once again angry that he existed—not only to torment me, but to make me feel inferior.
Ivan sighed again and turned toward me. The universe decided it would be an obviously good time for the sheet to fall down to his hips. Nope. I jerked away and glared at the opposing wall.