“Yeah.”
His breathing is ragged, and I force my attention from the leaf as it gets pulled beneath the surface, looking at the man beside me.
“Are you holding on?”
“Not really.”
“What would help?”
He squeezes the strands of hair in his fist, chunks pulled so tightly that it must hurt. “To beat someone long enough that I disconnect from myself.”
His honesty aches in its familiarity. The urge to take a break from my own twisting thoughts has so much sympathy sparking in me, I don’t know what to do.
“What exactly did my brother do that scared you earlier?” he asks, ignoring his truth-bomb, pushing past what we should probably talk about.
“It’s not anything he did, or even what he said. It’s the way he said it, Trips.”
He waits for me to elaborate, and having lived here for a while, his silence bothers me less than it did before. “Your brother’s a pedophile, Trips, but besides that, he’s got a violent streak that scares me. A lot. I think that if he snaps, he’ll rape me, then drown me.”
This has his eyes snapping to mine, the blue there so turbulent that I can’t read him clearly. “Why do you think that?”
I shrug. “Vibes? You know I’m shit at explaining this stuff, Trips. I was ready to take him down, to show him I’m not a toy for him to play with, to prove that I’m not the broken girl in those videos anymore. But with a single word, I knew I should run. So, I kicked off my shoes and did just that.”
“I’ll kill him,” he says, every muscle in his body tight, his eyes only half focused.
“Trips, I need you here,” I whisper, the chance to talk freely with him one I won’t take for granted.
“I don’t know if I can, Clara.”
The fear from his brother and the anger at his stepmother combine, and I say something that I might regret.
But he needs this.
So do I.
“Then fight me, Trips. Fight me, and if you win, you can have me.”
Chapter 80
Trips
Ihear her words, but they don’t make sense through the haze I’m desperately fighting against. “What?” Reaching out, I grab her hand, needing to hold on to something outside of myself.
Her lips twist, something teasing, something challenging in her gaze. “If you catch me, you can fuck me.”
I blink down at her like an idiot. But then I’m nodding, agreeing without thinking about what she’s asking for. “Rules?” I ask, instead of questioning the mud that’s running my brain while my veins fill with flickering excitement.
“Anything goes. If either of us say ‘watermelon,’ the game stops. But otherwise…” She shrugs. “We just see what happens. If it goes well, we both win in the end.”
It’s enough for the haze to retreat a bit, excitement winning out over anger. “Five second head start,” I say, standing, letting go of her hand with reluctance. But her arms wrap around me,tight enough to force me into my body, the last of the anger burning away, want taking its place.
Then she’s gone, sprinting behind the waterfall. Numbers fall out of me as I strain to listen to her feet on the stone walkway, her sandals left beside me.
And when I get to five, I dash after her, taking the path to the right, her footsteps barely audible over the rumble of the waterfall. I sprint over the footbridge toward the orchid garden, knowing that it dead ends by a chaise lounge.
Sure enough, I round the bend and nearly plow into her, her flight stalled out by the end of the road. I snatch her around the middle, but she twists free, the training we did in Mexico leaving her slippery in my arms.
We grapple, her elbow getting me in the gut, her heel slamming into my calf, and I’m harder than I thought possible, her fight taking everything in me to contain. There’s no room for anything besides her warmth spinning out of my grasp and the need to take what she’s offered.
