Page 15

Cody

I barely left my room the day after the nightmare, and I avoided Rafael altogether for a week after. We operated in this strange dance where we avoided each other at all costs. When he entered the room, I left.

My world had shifted, and nothing made sense anymore.

Rafael hurt me unlike anyone ever had. I should have wanted nothing to do with him, but that wasn’t the case. Even as I fantasized about all of the ways I could hurt him back, those thoughts kept devolving into some disgusting scene where he took control and brought me to my knees.

I wanted him. My attraction to him was undeniable. Everything about Rafael turned me on.

The look in his eyes when he took control pierced me like a knife laced with opium. It was simultaneously painful and intoxicating. The whiplash from the sexual interactions we had to him choking me and calling me pathetic after his nightmare, felt like the ground had cracked beneath my feet. I’d never met anyone more twisted and complex in my entire life.

The resentment I felt toward him swelled inside of me like an infected wound. My life had run like clockwork before he arrived. Since Hank came into our lives, I had time to relax. My grades improved, and I finally made the hockey team of my dreams. I seemed perfect. I felt perfect. Now, I was uncomfortable in my own home and studied Rafael’s movements so I could avoid his brooding presence.

It wasn’t wholly because I was afraid of what he might do. I was more fearful of what I might do. What if my yearning overtook me, and I went to Rafael only to be rejected? Pathetic.

I wanted to be alone again. There was no reason to think about all of this shit when I was alone. My life had been so simple; now it was this war between wishing Rafael didn’t exist and existing to be touched by him.

I wanted to hate him. Hate was something I could logically contend with. I had every reason in the world to hate the little asshole. He was a dick twenty-four seven, and he ruined my mother’s wedding.

But I didn’t hate him.

The mixture of emotions was something I couldn’t handle. This burning rage mixed with the urge to be close to him made me feel confused and vulnerable and fucking pathetic. He was right.

I had to shake this feeling because I couldn’t handle the truth.

Did I always have a thing for him? Was that why I couldn’t stop looking at the picture?

He couldn’t be more toxic, so why was he all I thought about in the darkness of night when no one could bear witness to my shameful fantasies?

My brain couldn’t keep up with the questions, and I couldn’t stop thinking about him. No matter how much I wanted to hate him, some tendril of emotion kept me connected to him.

But I had to fight it. I had to hate him, or at least convince myself that I did. Rafael was toxic. I had to stop myself from feeling these things for him.

I had to hate him again.