At the end of the day, that’s what I was to her: a sex toy.
“Put aside your fucking jealousy for once. A girl’s life is at stake, Jen. Do you get that?” Luke raged at her, and she flinched.
“It was just something to consider, Parker; don’t get your panties in a wad,” she said defensively, flicking her long blond hair over her shoulder. Her high-pitched voice was bugging the hell out of me. I tucked the phone into my pocket and signaled to Logan that we were going to leave.
I didn’t have a lot of choices.
Keeping Selene far away from me didn’t seem to be the smart move.
She was now a part of the web that Player was weaving around me, and I couldn’t protect her if I wasn’t with her.
And I had to protect her from the world’s cruelty because she was more than just my Tinkerbell.
She wasn’t just a fairy who had alighted upon the undeserving hands of a man like me.
She wasn’t just my Neverland, the most beautiful refuge I had ever explored.
She was something more precious than that.
She was my Pearl.
And I was her Shell.
That’s why I had to take care of her.
13
“I had left my heart with her,
Even though it was broken.”
Neil
Again.
I sank back into my abyss once again.
Swallowed up by the darkness, condemned to eternal torment.
After talking with the Krew, I’d gone straight out to the pool house.
Alone and far away from everyone else.
It was cold in there, and I sat naked, huddled up in a corner rocking myself.
I had just taken another shower. Water dripped from my hair down the length of my body. Once again, I felt beaten down by the other who lived inside me.
“What did you do!” The Boy standing beside my bed regarded me disdainfully, disappointed in my behavior. Instead of letting me think and try to figure out the goddamned Player situation, he instead needed to rake me over the coals for spending too much time with Selene and revealing too much of our past.
“You told Selene everything! You shouldn’t have done that!” he accused.
His childish voice was irate, almost unrecognizable.
“I only wanted to push her away,” I said defensively, my hands on my endlessly throbbing temples.
I wished he would just go away, that he would vanish from my life, but I knew that would never happen. I knew that he would continue to hang on tightly to me because I was incapable of really dealing with the abuse I’d experienced.
“But you didn’t! You let her into our world instead! You’re giving her permission,” he scolded me furiously. “How could you? I trusted you. You can’t abandon me for her!”
