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“I know.”
Pierre shrugged, as if it weren’t the most cataclysmic moment of our friendship, as if all those haunting years of bullying had never happened, as if I hadn’t just betrayed him not only as his friend, but his lover.
As if he’d changed.
I stared at him for a solid minute until I was sure he wasn’t joking. Until I was sure this moment was still real.
“What do you mean, you know?” I asked slowly. “You know what?”
“What you just told me,” he answered with another shrug. “You’re involved with all three of them. I already knew that.”
I bit my lip, wondering why I felt like I wanted to smash my fist into a mirror. Into my own reflection.
It was his nonchalance. That had be it.
It was infuriating.
“What are you doing?” I said. “You’re hiding something.”
Pierre let out a harsh laugh. “What’re you talking about?”
“I don’t know,” I sputtered, narrowing my eyes at him. “You’re not angry, or pissed off? You don’t care? You’re not hurt?”
Again, he shrugged. “I’m tired of being hurt,” was all he said, his gaze void of emotion. “Do whatever you want. As long as I have you, I’m okay. I’m fine.”
Raising my eyebrows, I looked around the room, and after a moment, I threw my hands up in the air as if to say, Great!
Because it was great. It was the best possible fucking outcome. Right?
“How’d you know?” I asked. There was something he wasn’t saying, something that would boil underneath his surface until, one day, it would explode. “Was it Felix? Did he find you?”
“Find me?”
“He’s in London,” I explained. “His father made him come for some reason. We ran into each other at Durham when I—”
Without realizing it, I was choking up. Pierre must’ve noticed it, because he stood up from his chair, and a second later, his arms were around me.
“When you what?” he pried, kneeling down at the side of my chair, one arm desperately stroking my hair while the other grabbed onto my own arm. “Tell me.”
I could feel it all over again. His body forcing itself on me, his voice taunting me, that stupid, pretentious British accent.
At that moment in time, it was anything but sexy.
“Tommy tried to rape me.”
I couldn’t look at him. It wasn’t embarrassment. It wasn’t fear. It was just the feeling of awkwardness, because I never thought I’d have to have this conversation with him, with anyone. The truth was, I just wanted to forget it ever happened. Because it was something I thought happened to other girls. Not me. No, not Kathleen Silver. I was untouchable unless I wanted to be touched.
Yeah. I was the other girl.
I felt Pierre leave my side, and a second later, I heard the door slam shut. And then, a memory passed in front of my eyes—Pierre’s gaze looking into my own, his lips mouthing those lethal words. Except, this time, it wasn’t him. No, for this first time, it wasn’t him.
I want to kill Elliot.
He had said that once to me. And I didn’t think he’d ever say those words again, prayed to God he’d never even think them.
“Pierre,” I shouted, scrambling out of the chair. “Stop.”