Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 82883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
The library disappears. Rain and velvet darkness vanish, and I’m back in my apartment, the click and burn of my mother’s voice still unspooling from my phone. My thighs are slick, heartbeat a hammer. The duvet smells like incense and something embarrassingly sweet, and I press the guidebook to my chest as if it could smother the heat pooling there.
I try to swallow, but my mouth is dry, tongue stuck to my teeth.
Jeannine is still talking. “—he’ll need someone in the house. You won’t have to interact much, but someone needs to be there.”
I force myself to breathe. “I don’t have medical training, Mom. I don’t know how to—” Care for someone I’ve been naughty with. “—how to manage somebody who’s, you know, sick.”
She sighs, exasperated. “He’s not a patient. He just needs someone to keep him from getting lost in his own house, or forgetting to eat. Just keep him company.” Another breath, then, as if sensing the danger in my silence: “I’m not asking you to do anything crazy, Mary Kate.”
Not asking, but demanding, because that’s how my mother operates. I can picture her in the mansion right now, sitting on a love seat in her giant walk-in closet. The house, Kent, even my future—her projects, her burdens.
I uncross my legs, careful not to smear the wetness on my thigh, and set the guidebook upright on the nightstand. The picture of the Colosseum looks like a cartoon version of strength: ancient, battered, but still standing. I wish I felt half as solid.
“Okay, got it. I’ll be there,” I say, before I can walk it back.
“Good,” Jeannine says, clipped and pleased. Then she deploys her real weapon: “Kent pays your tuition, Mary Kate. He’s paid for everything. We owe him.”
There’s a pause so long I can almost hear the echo bouncing around my skull. I stare at the envelope pinned to the cork-board by my desk—Century College, $3,200 DUE, the numbers in screaming red. My scholarships are nil. The thought of dropping out, slinking back home defeated, is more shameful than anything I’ve ever done.
“We owe him,” I echo. It sounds obscene.
Jeannine softens, as if she can sense my guilt. “Besides, Kent likes having you around. You’re his favorite, you know.”
I laugh, and it’s almost a sob. “Sure.”
After a little more scheduling, the call ends. I stare at the phone until it goes black, my reflection hovering in the smudged glass: blonde hair static wild, lips bitten red, eyes wide and confused. I scrub my mouth with the back of my hand, and it comes away damp.
I try to convince myself that it won’t be bad. That nothing will happen. That I’ll just sit at the long dining table, picking at boxed salad, trading inane pleasantries with a man who once made me so aroused that I could think of nothing but him for weeks. And he did it with nothing but his hands, his tongue and a growl that still makes me shake.
So why is my mom making Kent sound like an infirm old man? But I guess illness can do that to you. It saps your energy, and turns a formerly healthy adult into skin and bones. But already I can feel myself slipping—imagination skipping ahead to Kent, in glowing health, in the study, Kent in the kitchen, Kent standing at the end of the hall in expensive clothes, always watching, always waiting.
With that, I begin to pack my things mechanically: jeans, t-shirts, my favorite fuzzy pajamas. I throw the guidebook in on top, even though there’s no way I’m going anywhere this semester. I zip the suitcase with unnecessary force, then drop to the edge of the bed, staring at my hands in my lap.
For a while, I just sit. I try not to think about what it will feel like to see my stepfather again, to hear my name in that deep, lazy voice. To watch his face for cracks—weakness, anger, desire—anything I can read, anything to prove that last Thanksgiving wasn’t just some hallucination.
I tell myself it will be fine. He’s sick, for Christ’s sake.
But between my legs, the ache is still there, throbbing and raw. I slide a hand under the waistband of my sweatpants, just to check, and the cotton comes away sticky and hot. My pulse drums in my clit. I want to call Kayleigh, to confess, to get the words out, but there are some things you can’t even tell your best friend.
So I just sit and let the feeling burn through me, waiting for morning, for the drive home, for whatever happens next.
2
MY MOM SPRINGS AN UNWELCOME SURPRISE
MARY KATE
The drive to the mansion is a slow suffocation. Every mile between the college and the Lakes District ratchets my pulse higher, until I can feel my own blood in my wrists. I take the scenic route, past the skeletal trees and the gray scab of ice on the ponds, circling Lake of the Isles twice to kill time. My head is a mess, and unconsciously, I shake it like that’ll help clear up the roiling boil of thoughts.