Only I don’t think Grayson is protecting anything precious. Because his next words are “Not yet. But I’m about to. Then we’ll find out if she’s got antlers growing out of her pussy.”
This time the cruel laugh bursts from his phone’s speaker. “Dude. I bet you anything she doesn’t shave, either. I bet she’s like a bearded collie down there.”
Grayson snorts. “I bet she barks when she’s getting pounded.”
It’s strange how the pain of this situation doesn’t hit me untilthe voice adds next, “Well, we’ll have to head to Lost Souls tonight, man. I’ll get you a beer or two for taking one for the team.”
It’s not the commentary about antlers…or barking…or dog hair that makes my heart and stomach feel like they’ve been split in half with a cleaver. It’s “team.” It’s that the wordteamindicatesmore. More people in on this joke. More people laughing and snorting as they muse about whether there are antlers reaching out of my vagina as though I were perpetually birthing a stag.
I imagine all of Cranberry, all of Virginia even, in on this endless joke that Sky Flores, town freak, is worthy of this level of unkindness. Simply because she’s strange.
Which, yes. I disappeared for eight years and no one believes the truth of my story, of where I had been and why.
Yes, I currently spend nearly all my time in the woods, talking to my only friends—the wild turkeys and the coyotes and the wrens.
Yes, I’m also really socially awkward and understand so little about this world that has changed to a nearly unrecognizable state since I’ve been gone.
But I’m still a human being. A woman who has never hurt anyone.
I don’t deservethis.
I burst through the open door—as this idiot didn’t even have the sense to close it—and catch him giving the man on his phone a virtual tour of my bedroom. The decorative paper I had so carefully pressed into the walls, the furniture I’d scoured thrift stores for, the books from my work piled high on my bedside table. When I was asleep in the woods…I had nothing. I could touch nothing. The only person who could hear me, on rare occasion, was my eldest sister Sage.
So I took Sage’s old room in the attic and spent ages and lotsof money making it mine. Making it sacred. It was another thing I felt I deserved from the universe—a place filled with my most cherished belongings where I could feel truly, sincerely safe.
And now Grayson’s in it, desecrating it with a debate about how much my genitalia resembles a dog breed.
“Oh shit,” he says, his eyes widening as he slams the end call button on his phone. “I was just—”
I don’t let him finish as I stomp toward him. “You said I washot. You said you liked myassas you were grabbing it,” I interrupt, breathing hard and throwing my hands to and fro to emphasize every word.
As stupid as it may be, those comments are the only compliments I have heard from someone who is not my relative in a decade. So, okay. They weren’t poetry. But they made me feel special when he said them. I feltwanted.
Is that why women often sleep with men they know they shouldn’t? To feel wanted, even for only two and a half minutes?
I feel like a stranger in my own skin, in my ownlife, all over again. I have to stop myself from pressing my fingers into my arms, into my warm brown skin, to make sure I’m still awake.
Because how could this scenario be anything but a nightmare?
That feeling of being wanted by Grayson has evaporated now, naturally. I feel the exact opposite of wanted—disgusting, undesirable, hated even—and it fills me with an intense sense of magic and rage, one I don’t know if I can control. One I don’t even care if Icancontrol.
I let my voice get even louder. “Why would you insinuate my ass was attractive if you thought I was half-canine? Why would you even get hard for me if you thought you were going to fuck a vaginally antlered woman?” I put my hands on my hips to keep them from shaking with the anger that feels as hot as a thickVirginia summer day in the humid, windless woods. “Why would you take me on four and a half dates and sit through multiple-course meals with me if you thought I was repulsive underneath my clothes?”
Grayson doesn’t feel the living magic coursing through me. He doesn’t notice the restless crows gathering on the roof next door, within my sight through my bedroom window, each one black and shimmering like an ancient spirit of vengeance. He’s gotten his ego back from the shock of my catching him bullying me, and he swaggers across the room and smirks. “Every single guy gets hard over anything vaguely round. Tits, ass. It doesn’t matter. It means nothing.”
A rustle sounds at the windows, the ones Sage used to grow basil in little pots on, the ones I’d opened well before Grayson arrived in case he turned out to be a disaster and I needed divine, feral help.
Like, for instance, right now.
I close my eyes briefly before I can ask him the next question. “How many people are in on this ‘fuck the freak’ prank?”
He shrugs and holds out his hand to count with his fingers. He has no shame. I can’t believe I’d thought he wasnice. “Me, and the guy I was just talking to, Jake…”
“Jake Cunningworth? That’s who was on the phone?” Jake Cunningworth is the man who delivers the mail at my workplace. Mymailmanwas just musing about mypubes. How am I supposed to look him directly in the eyes ever again?
“Uh-huh. And oh, some buddies from work, and my brother and his buddies from his crew…” Really, Grayson is just bragging now. He’s not getting laid, so he’s attempting to get his own revenge by humiliating me as much as he can.
I shake my head and allow a slight, wry smile to adorn my lipsover the Anastasia Beverly Hills matte lipstick in Sugar Plum I’d applied earlier. It was a Christmas gift from my amazing boss, since she knew I was getting into makeup.
