“He’s right,” I reply before Lex has a chance. “I’ve been thinking about it nonstop ever since. I don’t remember giant chunks of time, and I was messed up for days after. I just don’t know how she did it. It’s been making me fucking crazy.”
“We are raised not to trust anyone,” Hadrian explains to her. “Soren is smart, careful, and he doesn’t leave drinks around. Getting close enough to him to do that really isn’t a job for a cheerleader.”
“That bitch must be working with someone!” Parker explodes. “I’m going to fucking kill her!”
He turns to the door and comes back as he remembers she’s not there anymore. Frustration comes out of him in the form of many curses, and I wonder if this is because of me or because Parker hates losing control. Yeah, Lex is the crazy analytical one of us all, but Parker is the one who keeps all the secrets. He likes knowing what everyone is doing, but he missed this completely. His fists open and close, begging to hit something, but he doesn’t.
“You were raped?” my brother asks, reminding me of the little boy he once was.
The word still makes me flinch, like someone slapped me across the face, especially when it comes from him. Orion watches me with a frown between his brows, many questions burning in his gaze, but I can’t say the word. Fuck, I can barely think about it, so all I do is nod.
Orion crosses the room full force. Sable moves a little to the side, trying to see what’s happening as he comes closer. His eyes shine with fucking tears, and it breaks me. Orion is a crazy motherfucker. He’s the loudest in the room, and he’s action before thought, so when he loses his voice, I can’t stand it. This is why I didn’t want to tell anyone. I realize the true reason right as he comes to me and grabs my shoulders. She did something awful to me, and it’s never been truer than seeing it through my brother’s eyes.
“You were raped, and you didn’t tell me?” he cries.
Fuck. I swallow dryly, unsure how to respond to an accusation when it’s entirely true. But I don’t need to sayanything because he keeps going. “You let me hate you and hurt you for so damn long, Soren.”
“I hated myself too,” I tell him to ease his mind. To let him know we were in it together like we are most things.
And if Sable didn’t catch me trying to fly off the window, I’d keep her hating me. It was easier to deal with the hatred burning inside when the people I loved the most were punishing me too. Hate meets hate. I used them as a tool for self-harm.
“This is so fucked.” Hadrian looks completely lost too. “I can’t believe all of this was because…”
“He wasn’t ready to say anything,” Sable tells them. “And I tried to respect his wishes, but?—”
“We were being cruel,” Parker finishes for her.
He doesn’t look much better than Orion. Neither of them does. My skin still stings with the memory of her touch, and I’m not ready for the way they’re looking at me. I’m not some puppy who’s been kicked. I’ve never been seeking their understanding or forgiveness, rather to feel okay again, whether that was with the drugs or now with Sable. It’s not about them or Arabella. It’s about Sable. I shake myself as if I can shake their gaze, refusing to look at any one of them.
“It doesn’t change anything,” I say.
“It changes everything,” Lex says with finality as if we should listen to him.
Orion’s right, he’s not the leader. I scoff and move away. Fuck them all and their gentle words.
“Soren?” Sable’s eyes are on me as I pace around the room.
“It doesn’t change shit!” I say again. “It happened and now?—”
And now the echoes of myself are scattered in the faces of the five people I love the most. Fuck, my insane brother is fucking weeping! What kind of hell is this?
“You should have told us,” Hadrian says.
I laugh. “You’re going to give lessons in communication now?”
He can’t say shit about that, and he knows I’m right. I shake my head even when they don’t say anything. Their silence is loud enough to hear from here.
“There’s more,” Sable says, and I stop my pacing.
What? This is the only secret I was carrying, right? My head is so fucked I can’t be sure, so like the others, I wait for her words like the others.
“Soren knows about this place because I caught him trying to kill himself.”
Oh that?I’m not trying to make light of my suicide attempt, but that was not even close to the worst that I have gotten. I was just a lot more fucked up than the other times. I’m the only one who doesn’t take it seriously, though. Everyone stops, air frozen in their lungs until my brother screams, “You fucking what?”
He marches across the room until he’s directly in my face once again. His chest bumps mine, and I push him away. "Don’t start, Orion!”
“And he was as high as a kite, I imagine,” Lex says too easily.
