Page 8 of Rage
He’s with Lisette Giles. Her hair in his fist. His full attention engaged the way it used to be with me. I know it’s her becauseshe is the only one at school with hair that shade of blond that takes every two weeks at the salon to maintain.
Betrayal hits me like a physical thing, not because I’m in love, but because of the cruelty of all the times he made me feel chosen.
Protected.
Wanted for the first time.
I push the door wider. They both freeze.
For a second, my body doesn’t understand what my eyes are seeing. It keeps me standing there, hand on the door, breath caught somewhere high in my throat. Waiting for the scene to rearrange itself into something less humiliating. Something I can survive without letting it touch the parts of me I’ve spent years trying to keep intact.
But nothing changes.
His hand is still in her hair.
Her lipstick is still smeared at the corner of her mouth.
And the bed is still ours.
Not ours.
His.
He pulls back and looks at me. But not with guilt.
Annoyance.
“Are you serious right now?” he asks, like the way you speak to a child interrupting something important.
Lisette rushes off the bed, gathers her things, and slips out without looking at me. She got what she came for.
The door closes. And it’s just us.
My eyes go to the door first. Then the window, even though we’re on the second floor and I already know the drop would hurt more than help. The driver is probably still outside. Roman’s driver. Roman’s house. Roman’s staff. Roman’s locks. My scholarship letter is hidden in the lining of my suitcase.My emergency cash is taped behind the bottom drawer of the dresser, and it’s still not enough.
My eyes land on his.
“You don’t get to look at me like that,” he says.
“Like what?” I snap.
“Like I did something wrong.”
I laugh, and the sound is fractured. “I just walked in on you fucking someone else in the same bed I sleep in.” He can’t be serious.
His jaw tightens. “I needed something different. You’re boring.”
The words hit before I can defend myself from them. My stomach drops first. Then comes the shame, fast and unwanted, crawling up my throat like I invited it. For one stupid second, some broken part of me tries to make sense of his cruelty by turning it inward. Maybe I wasn’t enough. Maybe I was too quiet. Too damaged. Too difficult to want without resenting.
Then my father’s voice slides through the room like smoke. He’ll just put you in a different cage, and I hate him for being right. I hate Roman more for proving it.
Roman looks at me flatly. “Get on the bed. All fours.”
“No,” I whisper, shaking my head in disgust.
He smiles and walks toward me. Terror snakes my insides.
I shake my head repeatedly, my eyes begging him not to.
