There’s no way for Fox and I to be together. Maybe I was holding my breath in the hope we could still be friends—or more. His old promise of someday is something I still think about. I never forgot it, even if he has. Knowing his touch, I’ve been hoping to have that promise come true even more.
“No.” I scrub my hands over my face. “Not in the cards.”
My old feelings for him and the fact I find him hot can’t cloud my judgement of how he’s treated me. It’s not okay.
That can’t happen again.
After today at school and last week at the tree it’s even clearer.
The harsh way Fox called me desperate echoes in my head. Is that why I let it happen? Why I didn’t tell him to stop and allowed him to go as far as fingering me where anyone could have found us?
But you know what? No. It was a choice I made and I have to live with the fallout. In the moment, I wanted it and I refuse to let the guilt over it all fester. I’m not going to beat myself up feeling bad about anything. That’s not my style.
Annoyed that this has taken over my mind for hours, I move into a flow, continuing even when the playlist switches off. I don’t need the music to lose myself in twisting my body. I keep moving as my breathing syncs with my heartbeat, pushing away the fact Fox somehow destroyed my classwork so thoroughly, then violated Holden’s car with it followed by the sinfully good exhilaration of his touch paired with his cruel words making me come so hard I couldn’t move.
It feels good to keep pushing my limbs, stretching and arching through the flow.
My mind doesn’t empty. Did I want to be caught, or did I just want to stay in his strong arms and let him torture me with his addictive pleasure?
The heat that floods my cheeks is searing and I cover them with my palms, closing my eyes while I concentrate on breathing. When I open my eyes, the fierceness I keep tucked away in my heart is there in my reflection.
I need a way to fight back against him so he sees I’m not the liar he’s accused me of being. I won’t be scared of him anymore because it’s getting me nowhere. I thought he was capable of hurting me, but he’s had the opportunity and hasn’t taken it. That has to give me the only hope I can cling to. There must be a way I can find out how to get through to him so he’ll stop hating me. I twist the leather bracelet around so I can see the stones.
If I can just get close enough to figure out if there’s any scrap left of the boy I knew, I’d be able to break through his wall and fix this. Fix us.
Centering myself, I move into a handstand split against the mirror, using it for balance as I practice perfecting my inversions. My shoulders burn as I curve my spine and spread my legs.
The lights cut out.
My heart skips a beat as I suck in a breath, trying to adjust to the darkness. I keep working. It’s not the first time the custodial staff turned the lights off on me. Besides, I have a key. Yoga in the dark is nice.
I work to get my breathing back in sync, feeling the exertion in my shoulders from supporting my weight. After I focus for a minute, I notice that something feels off. The hair on the back of my neck stands on end and a shiver travels against my exposed stomach not covered by my tight crop top.
The air thickens and my pulse speeds up, along with my breathing.
A touch comes from out of the darkness, nearly startling me out of my skin. It’s a barely there, familiar brush of fingers right over my center that echoes the memories from earlier. My heart stutters in my chest. I tremble, but remain frozen in position. Is my imagination going wild? There’s no way he’s really here right now, no way he touched me.
I swear I hear a deep chuckle in the pitch black shadows. Then the lights flicker back on. Breathing hard, I carefully force my limbs to move out of the handstand split. My shaking knees make me crumple to the floor and I lean my forehead against the mirror, my breath fogging the glass. My heart is racing when I rest a hand over it.
Did I imagine it or not? It doesn’t matter.
The message is loud and clear—I can get to you anytime I want.
It should terrify me. So why is there a needy ache between my legs?
Braced for hell when I get home a short while later, I’m met instead with a weird phenomenon. Mom and Dad aren’t mad, they’re disappointed.
“So, I’m not grounded?” I stand on the steps with my yoga mat under one arm and my gym tote, ready to escape to my room. When they met me at the door, Dad spared me a quick don’t make it a habit after you’ve worked hard and left me alone with Mom. “The last time I got a detention you grounded me for a month.”
The last and only time I’d ever gotten detention. It was freshman year, earned because I wanted to nap outside beneath the sun during the lunch period, which made me late for class. It was DEFCON 5 when Mom got wind of it, so I was expecting much worse this time.
She still hasn’t yelled, or done the scary calm undressing that is even more terrible. She frowns at me.
“I’m not thrilled, don’t misunderstand,” she explains. “You caused a scene, and that is deeply disappointing.”
Tiny invisible knives prick at my skin. “Sorry. I’ll go upstairs and do my homework over. It won’t happen again.”
“I wasn’t finished, Maisy Grace.” She puts a hand on the banister, lines forming around her mouth. “I can’t have you involved with that boy. I know he’s to blame for this, just like his rotten drunk of a father.”