Page 63 of Wicked Little Darling

He calmed down almost immediately, wrapping his hands around my wrists and holding me tight in an almost painful grip.

I tucked my face into his hair, closed my eyes, and fell asleep breathing in that pretty floral scent.

11

I CAN’T EVEN ESCAPE FROM YOU IN MY DREAMS

REESE

“How are you settling in?”

My foot bumped against Dean Voss’s desk, so I shifted in my chair. “Good. Great. Everything’s great.” My smile was as hollow as my insides.

I could barely keep my eyes open today. I thought I might be coming down with something, which wasn’t great. I’d been feeling sluggish and lightheaded for the past few days, but I tried my best to sit up straight. I didn’t want to show an ounce of weakness in front of the dean.

Dean Voss leaned back in his seat and tapped his desk with one big finger. “Excellent. And how’s my son?”

I wanted to sayOh, the son you let your other son terrorize and abuse since he was a kid? The son you refuse to believe even though your other son is literally pure evil?

The other day had changed everything.

Looking back on it now, I was pretty sure I’d dragged Dakota into that closet because I hadn’t wanted Dean Voss to see him. Even before he’d told me all those things, some part of me wanted to protect him from the dean, and I didn’t feel like dissecting that at all.

Until the incident in the closet, I’d been planning on telling the dean that Dakota wasn’t working out as roommate in the hope of possibly getting a different room.

But that was before I’d pulled him into that closet.

He wasn’t as put-together and unaffected as he seemed. And though I wasn’t happy about his misery—not at all—there was a strange comfort in knowing I wasn’t the only one hurting. That we were on some kind of equal footing after all.

I’d also updated my notes after running away like a coward, maybe in an attempt to understand or process what had happened.

The notes I’d been keeping were basically just for me now because I’d forgotten to add anything for months. Honestly, they’d always been just for me.

Notes:

9/22 ~Dakota seems to be an ordinary boy so far, if a little annoying. He goes to class, he reads, he sleeps. Nothing of note to report just yet.

11/25 ~ He seems to have some sort of trauma to do with small dark spaces, maybe claustrophobia. Touch helped him.My touch specifically?I think I was wrong about him.

It was embarrassing, being so wrong about him.

But I was. And the more I got to know him, the more I realizedwhyhe was the way he was.

I wasn’t sure what the hell happened in that closet, but I didn’t think it was an act or that he was trying to mess with me.

It had been a long, long time since I’d touched anyone with the intent to comfort.

I’d forgotten how good simple human contact felt. How the nearness of another person’s existence could be so reassuring. The beat of his heart had steadied my own, and every shaky breath he’d drawn, sounding so close to my ears, was proof that I wasn’t alone—not in that closet and not in my suffering. On top of all that, knowing that he wanted me to touch him, to soothe him, that that was what he needed in that moment, was…almost exhilarating.

Someone had needed me for something so simple, and I’d been able to provide it.

I wasn’t going to address the fact that I’d gotten a fucking erection from all the touching. I was messed up, getting hard while someone was having a panic attack.

And we were never going to think about what I’d almost done right before the maintenance guy came.

Nope.

Fuck, I really owed Dakota an apology. For so many things.