Page 56 of Pretty Pink Poison

I also couldn’t leave the room.

I’d jiggle the knob, and it wouldn’t budge.

Fucking Bane had trapped me again.

And every day, his ass would come to talk. Like he hadn’t already had a whole year to do that already.

Once every single day.

It was more than I saw him before but less than I wanted.

He’d ask me one question, and when I didn’t answer, he would stare at me with that look of fake acceptance on his face. The fucker deserved my silence, but I was getting sicker and sicker of his cordial attitude. Bane walking on thin ice like I might fall back into another episode had me wanting to break him myself.

Today, he came in with a stupid pen and paper and asked softly if I wanted to write down my answers to him because his ass knew I wasn’t going to respond out loud.

I wrotefuck youon it real big in bubble letters and smiled at him.

“For the love of all that’s holy.” He cracked his knuckles like he was trying to dispel irritation.

“That what you want? Will that get you to talk?” His tone was sweet and consoling.

Bane didn’t console. This was bullshit.

No, I wrote, just to piss him off more. I saw now how his jaw was working like he was hanging onto his control by a thread and then he ran one of his hands through his hair, “If you want, Bianca, I’ll tell the nurses and guards to leave and give us some alone time.”

I shrugged, and he narrowed his eyes like maybe he thought it would work.

“Just talk to me, Bianca.”

I wrote,No. Fuck you.

He sighed and leaned back in his chair, adapting a posture like he’d given into the idea. “Truly, if that’s what you really want…” He shrugged and then waved away his security and told the nurses to leave the house.

We waited five minutes as people scurried around us and then Bane looked at his phone. “Everyone’s gone now. You feel better?”

Then he spread his legs and beckoned me forward. “You want to fuck, we can fuck, or we can talk about what the hell you did a week ago so we can get to the bottom of it.”

Option 1 then, I wrote.

He snatched the paper and crinkled it up like he’d finally had enough. “Cut the shit. You don’t need to write anything down when I know you can use your voice.”

“Fine.” My voice cracked through the room, dry and scratchy from being quiet for a week. “If my only two options are fucking or talking, I choose fucking, but we all know you won’t do that with me.” I lifted my chin. “Even so, I have nothing to say to you. Just like you’ve had nothing to say to me for months.”

“Jesus Christ, baby girl. I’m staying away from you because it’s best for both of us. What else is there to say?”

“It’s been months, Bane. You let me fuck you and slept in my bed—”

“To be fair, I was high as a kite.”

“Yeah, always something between us when we screw, right?”

“There always will be because you’re not mine… Because youchosenot to be mine before and I’m living with that the best way I know how.”

He was still on that shit. Shit I didn’t want to discuss or use as an excuse anymore. “That’s bull, Bane. I may have made a mistake with Rafe, but it was never thefinalchoice.” That’s all I could say, all I could get out because the rest was too shameful.The rest he didn’t know and the rest I didn’t talk about. I let all of it fester inside me, destroying me from within.

He held my gaze and said, “It was for me, Bianca.” He was so damn serious in his truth that I immediately wanted to prove him wrong.

I needed to.