He doesn’t bother putting his shoes back on, holding them in one hand with his suit jacket slung over his arm.
“Nyx? You know this isn’t serious, right?”
Un-fucking-believable. “
I meet his eyes with a dead look. “What makes you think I take you seriously?” He flinches like I’ve just slapped him, but it doesn’t stop him from saying a rushed goodnight, and he closes the door behind him. I sit in my bed for a few more minutes, but the sensation of his cum dripping out of me spurs me into motion. I wipe between my legs with the sheet and strip my bed, then pull on my oversized sleep shirt and nearly run to the showers, desperate to get him off my skin. To scrub away the stupidity I seem to be addicted to. To drown out the voice in my head that keeps repeating what tonight showcased brilliantly: I’m not worth staying for.
I run the shower until the hot water turns cold, watching as it cascades down my hair in rivulets before catching soap bubbles, swirling round and round until they disappear down the drain.I will it to wash away my thoughts so the outside world doesn’t seem so big, so loud. So I can linger in this small, quiet world where I’m safe.
When I can no longer stand the cold water, I get out and move slowly through the empty communal bathroom. I have no idea what time it is, but the Gala must still be in full swing since no one’s back yet. Good. Fewer people to see me crash out.
I don’t recognize the woman in the mirror this time. There’s nothing left of the Nyx from before. Nothing left of the Nyx that came after. The shaking, shivering woman with pain in her eyes is a stranger punishing herself for feeling too much. She’s desperate, lonely, sad.
Weak.
Fragile.
She’s everything I never wanted to be again.
A tidal wave of anger and bitterness and shame and self-hatred burns through my veins, and I close my eyes to shut out the reflection of my own pathetic making. I lay my head on the counter, trying to regulate my breathless, soundless sobs as my chest tightens and fists clench. But then my control snaps, and I scream.
I scream and scream and scream until nothing else exists. Until nothing else matters.
I don’t hear the porcelain toilets crack and explode.
The screeching metal as welds fail, rending water pipes from stone.
The lights and mirrors shattering, raining shards of glass.
The door blowing off its hinges and crashing into the hall.
When the screaming finally stops, the world is cold and dark and wet.
Slivers of glass and porcelain are crushed beneath my bare feet as I walk through the debris-littered tile floor.
I ignore the burn of pain as they embed into my skin.
The dripping blood from a thousand cuts splashing on the tile.
When I step through where the door used to be, the emergency lights slowly come to life, illuminating the empty hallway. Under their pulsing red hue, I watch as fragments of glass and stone and wood are pushed out of my skin and fall to the floor. My broken skin knits together before my eyes, unmarred save for the rivulets of blood and water running down my body.
Without looking back, I calmly walk to my room, lock the door, and begin to wipe away the blood.
36
NYX
When I wake up the next morning—Butthead, as I’ve come to call the formerly-mangy white cat now that it’s become clear he’s determined to stick around—is sleeping on my head. Locked doors and windows don’t seem to deter him. Before I gave up on thwarting his breaking and entering, I got the distinct impression that he was actually insulted by my attempts. Over the last few weeks, we’ve come to an agreement: I feed him, give him a warm place to sleep, brush him, let him drink fresh filtered water from the sink in my room, and in exchange he doesn’t shit on my pillow.
When I’m working at my desk, he likes to sit in my lap and watch the screen as I type. Sometimes I’ll talk to him absently, and he chirps back at me. Today though, I peel him off my face, shove him under the blankets, and hold him like a stuffed animal as I fall back asleep. That’s where I stay for the rest of the weekend, tucked in my bed, numbing my mind with shitty reality TV re-runs. When I don’t feed him quickly enough, he licks my eyelids until I get up and get food for the both of us from my stash. He’s partial to the organic free-range strawberrygranola bars from the Great Hall. It’s probably the antioxidants or something.
My phone occasionally pings with a new message, but I don’t read them. When I get a slew of messages—memes from Milo, most likely—Butthead takes matters into his own paws and lays on my phone to muffle the sound. He flattens his ears every time it goes off and glares at me in disappointment. Yeah well, join the club.
I pass Thane without a word when I walk into class Monday morning and take a seat at the front of the classroom. I ignore his texts, too.
My stomach churns with dread at the thought of seeing Killian in Chemistry, and I skip lunch. It’s for naught though, when I see someone else in his usual seat at our desk. Instead, he’s holding court at the front of the class as his audience hangs on his every word. And yet, I still feel the sting of his rejection a second time when he doesn’t even glance my way.
When class ends, I’m first out the door, hurrying down the hallway to put as much distance as possible between me and the reminder of my mistake.
