Page 74 of He Hate Me

He cups my cheek and kisses me, slowly and sweetly. We hug and I love the warmth of his chest pressed against mine, the strength of his arms tightening around me.

“I guess we’d better…” I say.

I stand up, feeling him slip out of me. We’re a wet mess and our separation fills the room even more strongly with the smell of sex. Brandon hands me a stack of tissues from the desk and I dab at my crotch. I can feel the slow trickle of his essence leaking out of me. The gussets of my shorts and panties are soggy. Brandon wipes himself clean and pulls his sweatpants up, but they’re equally stained.

“I think I need to change my shorts,” I say.

“Yeah,” he says, “probably a good idea.” He reaches into the open leg of my shorts and pets my lips, wetting his fingers in our mingled spend. He gives my clit a light caress with the backs of his fingers before he helps me stand up all the way.

There’s a loud rap on the door. It’s been two minutes, I guess.

“Just a little longer,” I yell. I grab a change of underwear and clean pajama bottoms and go into the bathroom to change. I hear their voices muffled by the door as I give myself a quick wipe with a wet washcloth and put on fresh clothes.

When I go back out, the scene that meets me is unexpected. Brandon looks panicked. There’s a toiletry bag on the bed and next to it, baggies of weed and pills and what I’m guessing is cocaine. It’s not a tiny amount either. I’m no expert, but there is more weed there than I’ve ever seen in my life. And there’s a small digital scale. And empty bags.

“Shit!”

Brandon’s head swivels towards me when I speak, his expression growing even more panicked.

“It’s not what it looks like,” he says only to me, as if he doesn’t care what Devin and my mom think, but I’m more confused than upset. What the hell is going on?

“Where did that come from?” I ask, naively.

“From Brandon’s room,” my mother says, aggressively. “I can see you didn’t know about it.”

“Is this really yours, Brandon?” I ask, hoping he’ll tell me it’s a mistake or a setup, but looks away, his face turning red.

“Of course it’s his,” Devin says. “Didn’t he tell you he got sent to juvie for possession with intent while he was seducing you?”

“No! That’s not true.” But Brandon has never said anything to me about juvie, except to taunt me. I’m not even sure I really believed he’d been. Devin had said Brandon had gotten into some trouble and I’d told my friends he just got out of juvie because I was mad at him. I’d never honestly believed he’d committed a crime.

“Are you going to be a man and tell her?” Devin says.

Brandon runs his hands through his hair, pacing in a tight circle. He looks at me pleadingly.

“I haven’t lied to you,” he says. “This isn’t…it’s not…”

“Is this why Rourke is friends with you? Are you selling him drugs? Are you dealing drugs to his friends?”

Devin may be an amazing liar, but Brandon isn’t. Or maybe, even though I haven’t known him long, I know him better, because I can tell right away that I’ve hit on the truth. It puts “our room” at Rourke’s mansion in a whole new light. Brandon’s a perk for Rourke and his degenerate friends. How must he think of me, knowing I’m the drug dealer’s girl.

“Brandon,” Devin says, “when you asked to move in with us it was on the condition that you would stay out of trouble, and I was explicit that meant no drug dealing.”

“You searched my room. That’s an invasion of privacy.”

“You came in here this morning reeking off marijuana. Deja has never touched drugs or even broken curfew and now she’s staying out all night, smoking marijuana, having sex.”

Brandon scoffs, and I shoot him a warning look. I can see that he’s tempted to out me to them, tell them about my previous drug use, but he just laughs bitterly. I get what he’s not saying out loud, though, that I’m not the goody two shoes I’ve snookered them into thinking I am, but he can’t be suggesting I’m no better than he is. I’ve never been arrested and the hardest drug I’ve ever used is molly, and that was only once. There is coke on my bed. Brandon sells coke, probably uses it as well. What if it’s worse than that? Meth? Heroin? I just let him come inside me.

I hug myself tightly, a feeling of betrayal rocking me. I’m sick to my stomach. I gave him my virginity and my trust, but he isn’t worthy of them.

“Deja,” he says, coming towards me and I flinch away from him, going to stand with my mom. He looks so hurt I almost think I’m misjudging him. He really cares about me.

“You can stay here tonight,” Devin says, “but you need to find somewhere else to go tomorrow. We can no longer have you under our roof.”

Devin moves to pack the drugs up, but Brandon shoves him out of the way, scooping items into the case as fast as he can.

“What are you doing?”