Irritated, I inhale a long, shaky breath.
“What happened?” I start at the beginning.
Xav goes cold with fury, his jaw twitching.
Oh, this can’t be good.
“Logan roofied you last night. Axel was in on it. They wanted to…” He can’t bring himself to say it.
“Rape me,” I complete.
I understand how uncomfortable he is with the term, but it’s time we say things as they are. It wasn’t just “teenagers having fun.” Or a “drunken mistake.”
It was rape.
Sexual assault.
Xavier nods, his gaze skirting mine as though he’s sickened, infuriated, by our conversation. That’s how I know he’s about to tell me the one thing I’m terrified to hear. The boy made it clear he couldn’t care less about me in his last confession, but fuck, the look in his eyes… The only reason you’d ever look at someone like that was if you cared about them.
Or the unthinkable happened.
My stomach flips, tears covering my cheeks as I sweep Xavier’s blanket off my legs and examine my marked thigh. Logan’s fingernails are imprinted on my skin.
I jerk my palm to my mouth, my voice breaking as I choke. “He… He did it, didn’t he?”
My body begins to tremble with the aftereffects of being drugged and used like a blow-up doll. I can’t discern a thing through my glassy eyes, and when the first sob rips from my throat, I wonder if he used protection.
If he gave me an STD.
God, what if I’m pregn—
“Vee!” Xavier’s hand swaddles mine, and I fling my arm out of his reach, staring into empty space.
“He did it,” I repeat, my voice so weak I barely hear it. Images of Logan violating a drugged, unconscious Aveena disconnect me from reality. It’s like I’m floating out of my own body.
Staring down at the flesh I thought was mine.
“Vee, look at me.” Xavier grips my face, reeling me back onto solid ground. “Look at me,” he urges until I comply.
I plunge my gaze into his.
“He didn’t.”
I expected the waterworks to stop, but I only cry harder.
“W-what?” I sniffle.
“He didn’t,” Xavier assures me. “Axel came to his fucking senses before anything happened. Bastard ran inside to get Theo and me. You were out cold by the time we got there, but we stopped him, Vee. Nothing happened,” he stresses, his fingers caressing the side of my face delicately. For the first time since the night we drove to the springs, I recognize the boy in front of me.
For a brief moment, he’s my Xavier again.
My Zac.
Until he snaps out of it, as though he’s just realized what he’s doing, and unclasps his fingers from my cheek.
“What happened to Logan?”
“We took care of him” is all he says.