I can’t look at her. Jesus. I won’t be able to do this if I have to see her.

“Judge.” She’s behind me and puts her hand on my shoulder. “No one has ever seen me the way you do. And I trusted you. Trust you. Shit. I don’t know what tense that should be. Just please don’t make that be a mistake. Don’t make telling you a mistake.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I turn to face her, taking my shirt from the back of the chair and draping it over her shoulders since she won’t put on her pajamas.

“Do you want to know why I’m so late, Mercedes?” My voice sounds foreign to me. The lie so clear. The wound I’m about to deal so final. So vile.

She shakes her head, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her as sad as I do at this moment.

I draw in a deep breath. “I was at the Cat House. It’s where I’ve been practically every night since you got here.”

For a moment, she looks like I’ve slapped her. “That’s not true.” She backs away a step. “You told me it wasn’t true.” Her voice sounds different too. Broken.

“I lied to you. You’re very sweet. And lovely. And so very inexperienced.” I go to her, touching her cheek.

She slaps my hand away. “I don’t believe you!”

“It’s true.”

“I don’t fucking believe you, you asshole!”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t want you.”

Hurt turns to something else. Something dark. Her lips curl in disgust, and the way she looks at me then is with pure hatred. She pushes my shirt off her shoulders as if she can’t stand having it touch her, having any part of me touch her, and stalks toward me. She raises her arm and slaps me so hard my head snaps to the right. My cheek stings, and the sound of it is still reverberating in my head when I slowly turn back to her. The vulnerable girl is gone, and a broken thing in her place.

“I hate you. I hate you so much. And I will make you pay for humiliating me. Mark my fucking words. I. Will. Make. You. Pay.”

With that, she spins on her heel and leaves my room, exactly like I wanted. Exactly.

34

Mercedes

People like to say time heals all wounds, but it's a lie. Wounds don't heal. They fester inside you, turning everything rotten. I should know. Because I must be pretty fucking rotten to deserve the never-ending parade of betrayal that colors the landscape of my life.