Page 111 of Lessons in Cruelty

I realize I’m just standing there, drinking in his smell, when he might come and check on me any minute. But I can’t help it. It’s so warm in here. So clean, and fresh, and neat. Terribly neat.

Every place I’ve ever lived in has always looked like a fucking rat’s nest after a couple of days. Dad stopped cleaning up after himself around the time Mom passed. Or maybe Mom had always been the one to tidy, and he was too broken from her death to bother keeping the place neat.

Also, doing drugs is messy. The prep leaves all sorts of paraphernalia scattered about, and Dad was even less capable of cleaning when he was high.

I tried tidying, but I didn’t have it in me to get near him when he was like that. Guess I learned to live with the mess. The empty cigarette packs and snack wrappers lying around. Vodka and soda bottles. Cigarette butts overflowing in makeshift ashtrays—usually half-empty dollar store frozen meal containers.

A hard shiver races through me, as much for the memories of roaches scattering whenever I turned on the lights, as for the aching cold burrowing deeper and deeper into my body.

Clothes, Haven. You need to find warm clothes.

I push back my shoulders and start rifling through the clothes folded and stacked so neatly inside Bastian’s closet. My eyes keep drifting over to the stack of vests and boxers nearby. Are those silk?

My hand encounters something warm, thick, and soft. I pull it out, smiling when it unfolds into a large hoodie.

Gotcha.

Professor Rooke isn’t brawny, but he sure is tall. He’s got at least a foot on me. So I guess he has to buy larger sizes.

I hold the hoodie up against me.

It reaches almost to my knees.

Well, I already know I don’t stand a hope in hell of getting into—fitting into—his pants. This will have to do.

It’s definitely warm, and dry, and since my sundress is plastered to my frame, it’s a hell of a lot less scandalous. I hear the faint sound of the coffee machine percolating in the kitchen, and hesitate before letting myself into his bathroom.

Fuck, it’s gorgeous.

Slate slabs, dark gray and rough enough to avoid slippage, but still smooth. The shower takes up the entire width of the back wall, with a small bench inside. Jets on the side, which I assume can turn it into a small steam room.

There’s a tub on one side, a double-sink vanity on the other. A small table used exclusively to store towels, it seems.

Weird that he has two sinks when he’s so obviously single.

Guess it’s just as strange that he has a king sized bed.

God, I need to stop fucking judging.

I shut the door and take one of the dark gray towels from the table.

Peeling off my dress, I hesitate, and then take off my undies too.

Everything’s wet. My feet are coated in mud. My hair is hanging in wet ribbons around my neck.

I make the mistake of looking at myself in the mirror. My eyes lock onto the scratch marks on my thigh. The bruise on one hip. Reluctantly, I turn, my jaw tightening at the scratch marks over my upper back where the tree bark scraped my skin.

…I know who you’re protecting…

Is this why I came here? To tell Bastian that the green-eyed boy in his class hates me, and it’s all my fault? That I drove him to it, and everything he does to me is not only deserved, but way overdue?

Tears well up in my eyes, but I blink them back with furious determination.

Stepping into the shower, I turn on the faucet and crank the heat until steam billows.

No more running.

No more hiding.