“God, Lily, why?” I whisper in horror. Whatever happened, had to be her. It just had to be. And now I’m the one that’s going to have to pay for it.
“Maddie.”
For a second, I think I’m losing it, hearing yet another voice. But feeling the presence of another in the doorway, I collect myself and turn my head to the side and find River. He’s still wearing the same clothes from the last time I saw him, only wrinkled and his dark hair is disheveled. He’s also giving me a horrified look, his gazed fastened on my arms.
“Jesus.” He rushes into the bathroom, his eyes widening even more as he sees the bloody paper towels all over the floor. “What the hell happened to you?”
“You tell me,” I say in a hoarse voice, staring down at my arms. “Because I have no idea what went on pretty much after I left your office.” As soon as I say it aloud, a voice inside my head screams at me to keep my mouth shut. I want to shout back at the voice and tell it to f**k off, but the burning sensations on my arm from where I scrubbed the blood off makes me keep my lips sealed.
He glances around at the bathroom, which reeks of vomit, then grabs a few paper towels from the dispenser near the sink. Crouching down beside me, he hands me the towels and I dab my mouth off with them while he takes hold of my arm and examines it.
“Where did this come from?” he asks, delicately rubbing his thumb across a bloody spot on my wrist.
“I had stuff on my arm and I scrubbed a little too hard cleaning it off.” I slip my arm from his hand and put it to my side, his touch making me feel distant and cold. “God, I feel like shit and the really shitty part is I can’t even remember what I did to feel this way.”
He watches me intently as if he’s seeking a sign that I’m lying to him while I clean my face off with the paper towel. “You really don’t remember last night at all?” he questions with skepticism.
I shake my head, balling the paper towel up in my hand. “I really don’t, so it would be great if you would enlighten me as to what the hell happened.” I’m aiming for the fake light tone, but fail miserably.
He takes the paper towel from me and chucks it into the trashcan. “I’m not really sure where the blood came from… All I can remember is you and Bella talked. Drank. Did all that lovely stuff you do, although I think you got a lot more intoxicated than you normally do.” He scratches his head. “After about your eighth shot, I sort of lost track of you in the crowd.”
“So you have no idea what I did last night either?” My head slumps against the wall again because it’s too heavy to hold up. What did I do from the hours of midnight to seven?
I wouldn’t trust him if I where you, Lily whispers.
“I know you kept saying that the only way you’d let me observe you was for me to be drunk and it made it really, really hard to decline.” He contemplates something. “You know, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you wanted to get me drunk on purpose, just so I couldn’t observe you with a clear head.”
“Why would I do that?” I ask, feigning innocence.
“Well, I’d say I have no idea,” he replies, staring at the floor with wariness before sitting down on the stained tile, his hands balanced at his sides so he doesn’t touch anything. “But from the little that I saw last night, you have a way with getting people to do what you want.” He glances up at me, his expression unreadable. “You know, you’re kind of a manipulative person.”
“I am not,” I lie, raising my head up and straining the best smile I can muster. “I’m a total angel. Ask anyone.” I’m trying to be sarcastic, but there’s a strain in my voice that matches the ache in my body. I’m not okay.
No you’re not. Especially near him.
River props his arm on his knee and itches at his tattooed arms so roughly he leaves streaks of red. “Maddie, I’ve known you for almost two months now and you’re not the angel part of this bar.”
He reaches for my hair and with hesitancy and tucks a strand behind my ear, a gesture very unlike him and one very unlike me to kindly receive. I lean back and he jerks away, almost as if I’m on fire. Silence encompasses us as I watch his nails tear apart his flesh with his fingernails and it makes me want to scratch the hell out of myself and see what’s hiding underneath the layer of flesh that covers my body. Finally, I slant forward and grab hold of his hand, trapping it in mine and forcing him to stop itching.
“Would you stop that?” With my free hand, I trace my fingertips down the red marks. “You’re scratching the hell out of yourself.”
His mouth curves downward, confusion written all over his face as he stares down at the scratches. “You seemed perfectly content last night about scratching me.”
I scratched him… what?
When I don’t say anything, staring at him unfathomably, he adds,” God, you really can’t remember anything at all, can you?”
“But apparently you can remember some stuff you’re not telling me,” I say, still grasping onto his arm to the point he should probably tell me to ease up, but he doesn’t, which makes me want to only grip tighter. Hurt him.
“This happened at the beginning of the night before I lost track of you.” He holds my gaze firmly. “After you left my office yesterday, you came back up a while later and well…” He shifts uneasily. “We fooled around quite a bit.”
“We did?” Why can’t I remember this?
Maybe you should ask him.
He nods. “How can you not remember… you weren’t that drunk when you came up. At least I don’t think you were.”
I rack my brain for any sort of spark of reminiscence, but all I can remember is making it to the bottom of the stairs right after I told him he could study me for the night, tripping over my own feet, then falling to the floor. Then nothing. “And things got kinky I’m guessing.” I think about how I bit his lip before I walked out of his office and how I liked it, inflicting pain on him.
“Not too bad, but…” He glances down at his arms and then at my fingertips digging into his skin. “You did get a little rough.” His voice cracks and I can tell he wants me to let his wrist go. It makes Lily not want to let it go. Hold onto it forever until he cries out my name.
Bits and pieces float back to me.
“God, you’re so f**king amazing,” River kisses me deeply as I straddle him in his office chair, gripping onto him, stab my nails into his flesh. Lines form on his skin. Dots of blood drip out… I love the sight of it. This is who I am. I’m sick. Twisted. Deranged. And I f**king love it, because if I don’t love it than I have to fear it. Accept or drown in self-hatred. I’ll never let fear own me—never let anyone control or hurt me. I want to hurt him. And I can, because I’m wild reckless Lily, who doesn’t give a shit. Strong. Even a little deranged, which was who I was supposed to be in the first place.