Page 23 of Fallen Rook

I had a severe case of psoriasis.

It was my secret. My burden. My coping mechanism.

My vanity, my prettiness, my happiness, weren’t real. They were all for show.

I had an autoimmune disease. And that autoimmune disease told all the secrets I was trying to harbor. Each lie triggered a flare-up. Every facade resulted in an attack of my body on itself.

Outside, I looked very close to perfect.

Inside, I was disintegrating, coming apart, thread by thread, inch by inch. Every single day, there was less and less of me, and I didn’t know how to stop it.

The cutting marks? I put them there to mask what really lay underneath.

Pink, dry scabs. Uneven skin. And the scars that I inflicted on myself when I was in one of my episodes.

When I itched, I went deep.

I clawed and tore and slashed my skin to papery pieces.

I didn’t mind the scars I gave myself. They were straight and symmetrical and not as hideous. But because I always carried my Swiss Army knife for work purposes, people assumed that was all that was wrong with me.

And I let them.

I wore muscle shirts when my condition was manageable. But during flare-ups, I had to hide most of my body. Especially my arms and legs. I’d been hiding my whole life, so concealing my skin was second nature. In ink. In fashionable clothes. In self-made scars.

Still, it hurt.

Hurt that who I really was could never be accepted by the people around me.

This week I’d experienced one of those outbursts. Guess I had Cash to thank. I was still preoccupied with who sent him, even if whoever did came up empty.

Anxiety played a big part in my condition, which was why I hit the gym so often and was so particular about my sleep and nutrition. My doctor told me the best mitigation was prevention.

A wave of nausea hit the back of my throat, and I hurried to the toilet, retching into it.

I couldn’t expunge the image of Tom’s face from my memory when he saw my blemished skin.

He looked…repulsed.

I wasn’t even half as elated as I should’ve been about the FBI dropping the case against us. Everything was tainted by my disastrous encounter with my tomcat.

To make things worse, we’d started off so well. My grumpy little stalker finally came out to play. He was mouthwateringly hot. He also either had a stiffy from spending time together sweating, or he was the proud owner of the biggest limp dick in the world. And for some unknown reason, I didn’t find it hard to be honest with him when it came to my sexuality.

It could’ve been perfect if he hadn’t tainted it with his silly questions and probing.

Another upsurge of sickness sent my head straight into the toilet. I vomited again.

Failure. Stupid. Weakling, my father’s voice snarled in my head. He wants to lock you up for life, and all you want is to suck his dick.

I had thought his voice would stop taunting me now that he was dead, but as it turned out, Vello was buried deep inside me. The devil on my shoulder that always reminded me I wasn’t good enough.

Maybe it was for the best that Tom and I parted ways.

I couldn’t even start contemplating the shit I’d get from my brothers if they found out I let SSA Tom Rothwell ride my ass.

I slid down the cold marble of my bathroom wall, thumping the back of my head against it and closing my eyes.

My phone pinged on the floor next to me. My eyes snapped open.