My debauched plans were ruined at first glimpse of Savage, her hair in braids, laughing and talking with my sister, oblivious to my presence. Downright joyous, despite how everyone at Lancaster treats her. It was as if it didn’t matter—as if I didn’t matter.
And that infuriated me.
Caitlyn and Jane were sorely disappointed. I have no idea if they propositioned Chad and Spence. I didn’t care. I abandoned them at the restaurant, chasing after Savage like a madman. Creating another delicious memory between us. Me terrorizing her. Her becoming aroused by it.
She’s a mystery. One I know I could eventually figure out. She can’t hide from me. I will eventually lay her bare and open. Until every little secret she hides comes pouring out. I have power over her, and she knows it.
Does she realize she has power over me?
I understand my sister’s fascination with her. Sylvie likes strays. She always takes them in. They make her feel better, as if she’s not so sickly. My sister’s health is a constant concern of my mother’s, yet she never seems to get better. She’s actually getting worse. And Sylvie’s fascination with death is morbid. Seeing her with Summer, which is happening more and more, gives me a little bit of hope. I swear, Sylvie’s gaining weight. She smiles more. I can only assume it’s because she has a friend.
But I don’t like it. I don’t want them getting too close. It’ll hurt my sister that much more if I have to break them apart, and that’s the last thing I want to do. My family is the most important thing to me. I’d kill someone to protect my entire family, especially my sisters. I’m their older brother, and it’s my responsibility to watch over them.
I just hope Summer doesn’t try and get information about me from Sylvie, not that Sylvie would say anything.
She knows better.
Four days is a long time to go without touching someone, but I could go longer. Human beings and their need for comfort, for touch, for consolation, for sex, for love, for feelings—I don’t get it. Needing someone is a sign of weakness. Protecting someone—such as my mother, my father, my sisters, that’s different. I love them, but don’t need them. My closest friends? I care about them too. I need them like soldiers and I’m their general. We’re an army and their singular goal is to protect me.
And my job is to protect them.
Yet there is something about Summer that makes me want…more. From that first moment with her at my parents’ apartment in Manhattan, I felt changed. Charged. A little girl sitting in a woman’s dress, sneaking drinks from discarded champagne glasses like a thief. As I drew closer, I realized she was around my age, and her tits were spectacular. She was all limbs and bare skin and big breasts. Doe eyes and dark hair and flickering interest. She oozed sex to me, and I can’t even explain why. We were young.
Kids.
All I could think about was consuming her that night. How could I inhale her, keep her, mark her so that no one else would touch her? I didn’t know then, and I don’t exactly know now.
I still feel that way, all these years later.
I’m back in my suite after school, my gaze going to the journal, where it lies on top of my desk like a bomb I’m afraid to detonate. Do I dare open it and consume her secrets? Oh I taunted her that night, saying I would continue reading it, but I hadn’t cracked it open beyond my initial discovery of it in the first place. Looking at the nondescript journal sitting on my desk every evening, seeing it first thing every morning, I told myself I didn’t care. Who is she? Nothing. What does she mean to me?
Also nothing.
All lies I tell myself.
I stop at my desk, the journal taunting me, the title scratched across the front like a dare.
Things I wanted to say…
The need to read it grows, rising inside of me. Growling, I snatch it up and crack it open, finding a subtitle on the inside of the cover.
…but never did.
Settling on my bed, I start to read. Bits and pieces at first, flipping through the pages impatiently, eager to find something salacious. In the front of the journal, the words are written in girlish cursive, with rounded letters and tiny hearts instead of dotted i’s. Doodles in the margins, quotes and favorite lyrics. Lists of the boys she liked. Traits she wanted her future boyfriends to have.
None of those traits really apply to me. She wanted them all to be nice and caring and smart, with a great smile and soft hair. She wanted them tall, with a good body and kind manners and a sense of humor. A boy who knew how to kiss, who gave great hugs, who had a caring family.
Hmm. Guess I nabbed a few of the physical traits, and failed all the rest.
I count back through the early passages, aligning the dates of her entries to our ages, and realize she started this journal midway through eighth grade. She talks of bad grades and the future and friends and dances. She writes about traveling in Europe for the summer and where she’ll go to high school and how badly she wants to attend Lancaster Prep, but she couldn’t get in.
Interesting.
She makes no mention of her mother or Jonas beyond them going somewhere as a family. She talks of her stepbrother, a boy I knew, but didn’t particularly like. A boy who’s now gone.
Dead. As is his father.
In the late spring of our eighth-grade year, she complains incessantly of Yates. How he won’t leave her alone. How he sneaks looks at her in the bathroom, always busting in when she’s showering. How she didn’t yell at him to go away one time. Instead, she said nothing, and he stayed in there. Watched her through the rippled glass of the shower door, trying to make out her naked body, she assumed.
The moment I shut the water off, he left, slamming the door behind him. I was so relieved. What a perv! Not like he could see anything through the glass, but maybe me letting him look for once will satisfy him. At least for a little while. Y definitely needs a girlfriend, so he’ll leave me alone.
Interesting. Why does it not surprise me that Yates Weatherstone lusted after his stepsister? It figures. He was always odd. Overly eager to prove his worth, his strength, his wealth. Loud and brash, a braggart when he’d done nothing to brag about. His father was in real estate and had amassed a small fortune. He was a smart man, a quiet man and my father respected him, which shouldn’t be taken lightly. He used Jonas Weatherstone in a few business dealings to acquire some properties in the city, and when my parents had parties and business get-togethers, the Weatherstones were almost always included on the guest list. I remember Yates’ mother—a strange woman who would gawk every time she entered our home. As if she’d never seen such a thing.
I supposed she hadn’t.
I have to force myself to stop reading it, and I leave campus, needing the escape. I drive aimlessly, and end up downtown, though I always knew this was my destination. Last year I did this—too much. In search of a townie. Someone to lose myself in. It’s getting darker earlier and earlier, and the streetlights are already on. Most of the stores are already closed. Only a few restaurants and bars remain open. I slow down when I spot a group of girls standing by a seafood place, their heads swiveling toward my car as I approach, all of their faces familiar. One of them in particular stands out.
Dark hair. Dark eyes. Pouty, dick sucking lips. She always reminded me of someone, but it never dawned on me until this very moment.