And why should she wish to be with me at all?
My family, my history, my appearance, my voice, my inexperience, lack of any future whatsoever… I can’t blame her for the moment she will run.
I promise myself I will resist the impulse to kill her when she does it.
I know it’s a promise I likely cannot keep.
Unclasping the bag with one hand, I balance it on my lifted thigh with the other, not wanting to get it more wet than it is, from when Sanford threw it in the grass. I pull out a hoodie and try to jam it over my head, but holding onto the bag and getting dressed proves… frustrating.
Not to mention the wooziness seeping through my bloodstream as I exert myself.
“Fuck.”The angry, twisted word leaves my lips before I can hold it back—all of my frustration, sadness, rage, confusion, it convolutes the sound. I am immediately embarrassed by it, my cheeks heating beneath the fabric of black piled around my head.The hoodie I spied on Karia in, the one I was wearing when I strapped her to the dental chair. She gets the last laugh now.
I clench the fabric tightly in one fist, my knees tremble, and I have the sudden, clawing urge to vomit.
But before I can scream at the top of my lungs, there is movement close to me, then Karia’s soft voice says, “Let me help you.”
I freeze, the hoodie only half over my head, the bag in my hand.
My heart thumps violently and I know she cansee me—only my face is covered—and I tense, waiting for her to back away, retract her offer, scream herself.
Instead, her fingertips graze my flank and my skin jumps, but she says nothing about the glue holding me together, zero about the blood crusted along my flesh, oozing into my black pants.
She is silent as she glides her fingers along my obliques, as if she cannot resist touching me, then reaches for the hem of the hoodie.
My breath catches in a silent way.
I can’t exhale.
I can’t move.
What do you think of me? Why don’t you run?
“Push your arm through,” she says in the same low, calm manner.
I do as she says, tunneling my hand through one sleeve, feeling the cotton glide along my bare skin.
She tugs the fabric down and I switch the bag to my other hand. Then she uses her own to pull at the hoodie and give me enough room to push my other arm up and through the remaining sleeve. She gently glides it over my head. My hair is a mess above my brows, along my forehead, and I can breathe the cool fall air once more, relieving me of the shame burning red on my cheeks.
I’m afraid to look at her.
I stare at Sanford, still half-sitting along the well, but his gaze is on Karia, watching her… take care of me.
There is something there in his expression that looks so much like wistfulness, I want to grab this girl and shield her from his sight.
She is mine, you lost yours. Look elsewhere.
But my body feels shaky, my lungs are tight, and as Karia straightens the hem of my hoodie, then smooths her palms along my chest, standing closer, I can’t resist meeting her eye.
And the look there, it makes breathing impossible once more.
Wide eyes, lifted brows, parted lips, she is pushed up on her toes, her breasts grazing my core, but not where my wound is, as if she memorized the place.
“You are handsome,” she says softly, a stray lock of blonde hair falling across her face, obscuring one half of one eye. “You are…” Her slender throat rolls as she swallows. “Perfect.”
My face flushes once more and an irrational bitterness wells up inside of me, ballooning hot and sharp.
You are a liar.
