“Youarehurt.” She sounded pissed, and maybe like she thought I had lied to her.
“I’m not,” I said. “I’m just sore—”
She touched the back of my neck and I winced.
“Liar,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
I remembered my hair being yanked and the quick sear of fire along my neck after. But when I touched the back of my neck after she did, I felt it. A gash that was crusted over with blood—in the same spot where my other scar was.
The blood on Aniello’s hand as he stroked himself had been from me.
“It got kind of rough,” I said, trying my hardest to mask the truth from my face. In my home, I was free to let my guard down. Cilla was starting to become a part of it. I had to be careful. She had enough issues. “But the good kind of rough.”
After a second, she nodded. “As long as I know you’re really okay.”
My face fell as soon as I was in my room, and I collapsed to the floor, right in front of the container hidden underneath my bed, filled with preserved dead roses and sharp fragments of glass stained with blood.
Aniello hadn’t answered any of my silent questions with words, but instead, he’d showed me. Maybe I didn’t even need to ask because he’d been showing me all along.
Touching the gash again, I felt the exact same shape. This scar, and I had no idea how many others, was from him. That meant whatever we’d done the night before, we’d done before.
14
Rosalia
Ivy, which was hard to see at night, clung to certain areas of Club D in the daylight like a lover protecting its other half’s dirty secrets.
Whatever sort of spell that was weaved around this place seemed to protect it at all costs. Layers upon layers of armor to keep the oaths muttered behind these walls protected came from the ground up.
I always felt the ivy was there to hide the snakes beyond the structure.
Maybe that was why I worked the nightshift. I didn’t care to look a liar in the face day in and day out, knowing that my acceptance of the lies made me an accomplice of them. It had never bothered me before. After the accident, everything about the place felt different. The secrets felt darker. Deeper. More dangerous.
Even Aniello, the one man who kept me coming back, somehow felt different, too. But in a different way. He was the only living, breathing thing inside, my oxygen, when everyone else felt as consuming as a fire. Smothering.
I watched from my car as the women all fell into step, talking and laughing, wondering why they hated me so much. If I’d done something in the past that I couldn’t remember, why couldn’t one of them just be honest with me about it? Instead of treating me like I had a disease that was contagious?
“Everyone wants an excuse not to like someone. I make it worth their time.”
I must have made it worth their time.
Time.
I looked at the clock on my dash and shut the car off. Before big events, we had meetings every two weeks to discuss things that needed to be done. The closer to the event, the more meetings we had.
Each event was assigned a committee by Big Bismo. One woman, or two, of my standing at Club D always headed the events. The one coming up in August was mine.
The theme wasPhantom of the Opera—an idea that they had fought me on.
It seemed like they argued over every little detail because they wanted to see me fail. The thought didn’t come to me at first, because my head was up in the clouds, constantly trying to remember the missing time of my life. Apart from wondering why they all hated me from time to time, I’d insulated myself from the rejection by concentrating on my memories. The fog was lifting a little, though, and I was starting to see things in a way I hadn’t before.
It took one minute, which the clock captured, to decide that I didn’t give a fuck anymore about their whys.
Maybe I’d given them a good reason before. Maybe I hadn’t. But from that moment forward, it didn’t matter what I did or didn’t do. They either liked me, or they didn’t. It didn’t matter.
Stepping out of the car, I held my head high. I straightened my dress, making sure any wrinkles were worked out. It was from one of my favorite Australian designers. A black midi dress with a wrap skirt and a side drape pocket, it had satin details and an amazing front slit that showed off my legs.
It felt more comfortable than the dress Aniello had sent to hell in his private inferno. I would never regret wearing that dress. It had brought me to where I was. Which was one step ahead of where I had been.
