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Maybe…maybe we’re just not meant to have a happy ending. Maybe we don’t deserve it.
Stupidly, I started thinking about how I would propose to Lily. Not any time soon, but when we were both healthy and happy. I even envisioned the ring I would buy her—a small pink sapphire. Simple, non-traditional. I think she would have liked it. Now I’ll never know. I glare at my father, hating that he has hijacked my proposal.
“What I want you to do,” he says, “is be a fucking man.” I glare. “Last time I checked, I was one.” “Having a dick doesn’t make you a man,” he replies. “You’ve been an irresponsible little boy all your life. I give you things and you shit on them. If you want your trust fund, you have to use the money to make something of yourself. You can’t fuck it away.”
As we walk towards the doors, he says, “And when I find the leak, he’s going to wish that he never fucked with our family. I can promise you that.”
And what’s better than love uniting a sex addict and an alcoholic?”
“So she needs you,” I say like he’s an idiot. Ryke throws up his hands and stops walking. “For fuck’s sake,” he exclaims. “I’m giving her rock climbing lessons, not taking her on a date. We’re friends. The perverts who stare at her in magazines may forget she’s sixteen, but I won’t.”
“Maybe you should start a company about pissing people off. You can call it Bastards-R-Us.”
Holy fuck. My first thought: She’s masturbating. My second: She slit her wrists. The second thought propels me into hyper-drive.
I’d like to believe Lily couldn’t reach a low like that, but I’d be fooling myself. I’ve been there. I know she has too. It’s what happens when you hit a bottom that you can’t crawl out from.
Because if she’s not dead, it means she’s masturbating. I can’t believe this is how my world works.
“You have an exam to get to,” I remind her. “So why don’t you finish what you started and then we’ll head on out.” She blinks a couple times. “What-what are you talking about?” “Finish up and then we’ll leave,” I repeat, unwilling to clarify. She has to admit it herself. “I’m done, so can you hand me that towel?” “You’re done?” “Yeah.” “Are you sure?” “I don’t smell like garbage anymore, so I call it a bathing success.” “Maybe you misunderstood me,” I say dryly. “Finish fucking yourself.”
“I can’t be around you twenty-four-seven,” I tell her. “You have to figure this out, Lil. You can’t masturbate.” How many times do I have to say the words for her to understand them?
At the time, I thought it was a great present, now I’m ready to light it on fire.
“Me and you,” I say. “We’re in a fight. And if you don’t start listening to me, we’re going to have serious problems, Lily.
“We’re in a fight?” she asks, shock and hurt crossing her face. I knew I shouldn’t have started with that. “Yeah, how does it feel?” It doesn’t happen often. She looks panic-stricken and I realize that the fear of losing me…of losing us is what really motivates her. She motions to the case. “Burn it. Do what you need to do.” She shoves it against my chest and tries to push me out the door. I force myself not to smile because the “tough love” is actually working. I’d rather not ruin it with a momentary grin. “No masturbating,” I tell her again. She nods wildly. “I know. None. Not at all. Scouts
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Is he still angry at me? Oh jeez, we’re still in a fight, aren’t we?
“You want your dick to be touched so badly, fine,” Lo growls, and he does something that causes me to pause, going quiet and motionless in Ryke’s arms. Lo slams the guy again, his back digging further into the wall, and he puts his hand over the guy’s pants. The icky feeling I had for touching Blond vanishes. I’m not the only who did it. Though, Lo volunteered his hand. Blond thrashes, and Lo must grip hard because his face contorts into a pained wince. “Get the fuck off me.” “What? You don’t like it anymore?” “I can sue you for harassment.” “Let’s play that fucking game,” Lo replies. “Let’s
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Being a sex addict does not give guys the right to touch me. I didn’t think that would be an issue until now. Is this a problem that will persist for the rest of my life? Or something that will die when the media loses interest in me? Only time has the answers.
“Perceptive.” Connor doesn’t even flinch. “Maybe you should be.” Sebastian lets out a laugh. “You don’t think I am? I know that Rose has spent almost no time with you since Calloway Couture has suffered. I know that she cried on my shoulder two nights ago, not yours. I know that she called me, not you, to help pack up her office.”
“And if you truly cared for that girl, you’d realize that every time you smoke in this house, you set off her OCD.”
And I spent four fucking hours calming her down because you put wild ideas in her head. You smoke, you mess with her things, and you return her to me restless. She paces back and forth, muttering idioms that make no sense, and I have to figure out how to put her back together. You are not a friend to her; you’re a parasite.”
Sebastian panics and places a hand on her shoulder. “Rose, he’s manipulating you. It’s what he does.” Rose flinches. “Don’t doubt yourself,” Connor tells her. “Not for this guy, not for anyone.” Rose wavers. “Think about it,” Connor says. “You told me he’s profited off of selling old tests before.” “The cigarettes—” “You have known me for almost ten years. I have held you in my arms. I have kissed you. Have you ever smelled smoke on me before?”
“I heard you,” she says. “I hear you talk badly about Connor every time I’m with you, and while I agree he’s not the most forthcoming human being when it comes to his personal life, he’s still my boyfriend. I would never allow Lily to cheat. I hate that you smoke. And I’m not going to take your suggestion to quit Calloway Couture. I’m going to unpack my office. I’m going to fight for my company. I’m going to do whatever it takes, and I’m going to stop listening to you tell me that I can’t beat these odds.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers in my ear. “I love you.” I feel her tears on my shoulder. “I’m here if you need me now. I promise.”
“Do you really see me as an apathetic trust fund baby?” I ask, remembering some of the insults that inadvertently flew my way.
He lifts me into a hug, and I promise myself that I’ll try harder. Even if everything starts slipping away again, I’ll remember this moment, how long it took me to right what I had done wrong. I don’t want to start that vicious cycle again. I want to break it. I want to beat my addiction for good, no matter if outside forces pull me down. I can do it this time. Please, let me succeed.
Tonight, I plan on having sex with her. For one, I’m horny and I’d really like to fuck my girlfriend.
“You were bad bad,” I refute, not giving her the condom just yet. “What did you learn this week?” She drops her hands. “Self-love is not for me…even in bubbles. People at Princeton hate Yale and my boyfriend is really sexy when he defends my honor.”
“Can you teach me how to be the good kind of bad?” Christ. I want inside of you. “It’s not easy,” I tell her. “Please.”
“Now be a good bad girl and stay still while I fuck you.”
With one hand I gather her hair out of her face, and she sinks her mouth around my cock.
Her eyes flit up to mine in a doe-eyed way…and she has my entire cock in her mouth. This, right here, is what turns me on the most.
I want to fill her with my cum, to leave myself inside of her all week.
We’re going to shock the whore out of you, one way or the other.” I give Lo another look but his lip has curled into disgust and he grips the armrest with white knuckles.
My favorite part of therapy is the ride home.
I enabled you all our lives. I should have—” “What?” he says roughly. “What could you have done? Tell me to stop? I wouldn’t have. Physically taken the bottles away? I would have hated you. Tattled to my father? He wouldn’t give a shit. The only person who could have stopped me was me.”
But the way Lo stares at the road, like he sees a colder future than the warmth I’ve planned, makes me worry.
I made the mistake yesterday of reaching blindly into a box. I never, ever want to touch another man’s cum again. Rose couldn’t stop laughing while I soaked my hands in disinfectant for thirty minutes.
And then an excited squeal resounds from the staircase. Lily sprints down the stairs, her glee-filled eyes pinned to the vibrator. I grab her around the waist before she can grab it. She points to the package. “That’s new!” “I’m aware,” I say. “You still can’t have it.” She cranes her neck. “It’s a Zell500. That’s a luxury brand. You can’t just toss it in the trash.” Her eyes go big. “That’s sacrilege.”
“You should have rejected the deal for your trust fund,” he says under his breath. I pull the speaker away from my mouth to talk to Ryke. “I heard you the hundredth time you said it.” “You’re his bitch,” Ryke rephrases, as if that’ll make me understand.
“Our dad abuses you,” Ryke says, his eyes reddening. “He’s verbally abusive, and he’s fucked with your head.” I let this sink in, but I’m so numb to the answer. I just nod. “Yeah, I know.”
In this moment, I truly feel like I have a brother. One that’s probably too good for me.
“I’m not your son,” Ryke says, even though he does, on occasion, call Jonathan his father when he’s trying to make a point. Like in the car. “My mother took full custody of me, in case you forgot.” “How old are you?” My dad asks mockingly. “Oh wait, you’re twenty-two. In the eyes of the American judicial system, you’re an adult. And as an adult, you’re not your mother’s property like that Ferrari she bought with my money in her goddamn driveway.”
“How about we leave my mother, the woman you fucking cheated on, out of the conversation as well.” “Forgive me if I don’t like the bitch,”
He wished I wasn’t alive. But truth is, I kind of did too. Until I looked at Lily. Until I talked to her. I don’t think I could have survived this life without that girl.
It’s not because I can’t have them. I don’t want them.” I don’t want them to turn out like you. Or me.
What he did was buy me something of my own, something I could look forward to after college. He found me happiness, and I think it’s worth more than any silly engagement ring. A store that sells coffee, scones, and comic books. It’s perfect.
I really should not try to shorten the name because every time I say it, I immediately think of S&M. My mind has dangerous side roads.
“I wish you went through with it,” I suddenly say. Because then I wouldn’t have to bear this pain. My face wouldn’t twist this way. Lily wouldn’t have spent her childhood in my broken house. Her mother would have loved her as much as she did her sisters. Ryke would have grown up with two parents instead of one. My existence ruined so many people, so many things. Life would have been easier without me.
“What?” Her velvety voice spikes. “You heard me,” I say, no longer nice. “I wish you would have killed me.” She pales. “You don’t mean that.” “Why wouldn’t I?” She touches her lips for a moment, just staring at me. “Because…your father, he gave you everything.”
