Page 87 of Dance of Thorns

Something feels different when he finally stops. Not just the raw, numb ache between my legs. Not the scrapes and bruises on my ass and back, or the taste of copper as a drop of blood trickles down my cheek from the corner of my mouth.

I just opened Pandora’s box. I just stepped through the fucking looking glass into Alice’s world.

And there’s no coming back.

19

DOVE

Dear Boo,

I’m a horrible person. Call me a bitch and a cunt. Not all the time, of course. But sometimes, I REALLY am.

I'm not saying that to gain sympathy, or paint myself as the victim. TRUST me, I’m not the victim here.

He is.

So is she.

I did it again. And I hate myself for it. Bane and I were supposed to meet after school in the student parking lot next to the field house. But instead, I waited by the locker room entrance for the football team to come out after practice. Scott always gets this kind of part-creep, part-hungry look on his face when he sees me. I know it’s because I look like the bad girl version of Dove that would fuck him with the lights on, or actually swallow.

I didn’t outright flirt with him. That’s not why I do this. I just smiled and acted dumb and talked to him about football (barf). Then I asked him to walk me to the parking lot, and he did, probably because he thought he might get lucky.

Eww. Gross. Never. But that’s not why I do this. I’m not ACTUALLY trying to steal Scott from Dove. Just... She acts like such an uptight asshole sometimes. Like she’s so much better. So part of me doing this was a fuck-you to her. Like, maybe her knuckle-dragging boyfriend might think of me next time he’s fucking her from behind.

It’s so petty. God, I hate this.

But also it was to fuck with Bane. And that's the part I don’t understand. He’s never done anything. He’s always literally PERFECT. Not “perfect” as in clingy and annoying. Just actually, for real perfect. Too perfect. Maybe that’s why I fuck with him like this.

I had Scott walk me to the edge of the parking lot, and then I was suddenly like “oh hey there’s my boyfriend” which probably deflated his boner. But then I gave him a big hug.

I knew Bane saw it happen. And I knew when I walked up to him that he was pissed, because he asked me wtf it was about. I said I was just being friendly and to stop being so possessive. He didn’t push it, and that just pissed me off even MORE. Like maybe I wanted him to blow up. To show me that he’s not perfect…because I sure as fuck am not.

Boo, what the fuck is wrong with me? I mean seriously. I don’t know why the fuck I do this.

I hate myself so much right now.

It’s notthe first entry like that I’ve read in the last few days. I’ve gone back to the beginning of Lark’s diary to read it chronologically, and there’s alotof them.

The first time I read about her doing something awful behind my back, or Bane’s, I felt sick. Like someone was pulling a really shitty prank on me.

The girl I knew, who was my best friend in the world, had problems and issues. But they werenothinglike what she’s written about here and there in the diary.

But the more I read, the more I realize that I didn’t know the girl I called my best friend nearly as well as I thought I did. There was real darkness in her. And pain, and self-doubt, and confusion. I vaguely remember through the haze of memory loss that I was always so envious of her and Bane because they always seemed so goddamn perfect for each other. And the fact that Itrulycan’t remember a single thing about dating Scott probably says it all.

But now here I am, with Bane.

Engaged to him.

Living with him.

Fucking him.

It’s happened four more times in the last week since the night on the roof. That next day—fuck. I was sore in the way water is wet and the sun is hot.

It felt like my pussy had gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson in his prime. I spent Sunday morning curled in a ball in my bed. Then I found a bag of lavender Epsom salts sitting outside my door and spent the second half of the day in the tub, soaking my wrecked body.

Still…