“You’re right.”
“Of course I’m right,” he says, one of the corners of his lips curving in a smirk.
I hit his arm softly.
“Dumbass.”
“You like this dumbass,” he replies, flicking his tongue. “I have to ask, am I still your not-boyfriend or are we making this official?”
I scoff.
“Why so serious, Stan? You’re not asking me to marry you.”
Stanley rolls his eyes.
“Oh, fuck. I forgot the ring in the car,” he announces sarcastically.
A giggle escapes from me.
“Shut up.”
“Shut me up,” he dares.
I wrinkle my nose.
“I dunno. You still have morning breath and I don’t know if I like you enough—” My voice trails off when Stanley starts tickling me. “No! Stop!” I exclaim, moving without control of what my body is doing.
“Fuck, Bree! Did you have to hit me in the eye?” Stanley complains, covering the right side of his face as he bows, groaning in pain.
“Shit, Stan, sorry,” I say quickly, wanting to see if I hurt him badly, but he doesn’t let me.
“Damn, I leave you alone for two minutes and you turn to violence?”
Luanna is watching us with a confused frown.
“It’s not what it looks like,” I mutter, returning my attention to Stanley, taking his hand off his face. The zone is red, and his eye is teary. “I’m sorry, babe.”
I kiss his cheekbone, closer to his eye.
“Now we have nicknames outside the room?” he quips.
I groan.
“You’re perfectly fine,” I notice bitterly. Looking at Luanna I point at Stanley. “Lu, officially meet Stanley McKinley, my personal pain in the ass. Stan, meet our chemistry genius.”
He offers her a smile with an eye closed.
“I’d look at you properly, but Bree just blinded me.”
“You’re fine,” I cut his drama off.
“I don’t know, Bree. You’re kinda blurry,” he mentions, and I catch his playful tone.
Luanna snickers, grabbing our attention, dragging us away from a possible banter.
“Now I get why you guys suck at chemistry. You absorbed it and it’s all around you.”
Stan and I exchange a strange glance. We didn’t even know each other until we spent a month taking the class. Maybe more. It wasn’t until the midterms when we started talking and in the most uncivilized way. However, I can tell that her comment is making an excuse for our lack of knowledge in the subject. At least in theoretical terms because it’s obvious that we’ve learned to read the one surrounding us.
“Right,” I mumble with sarcasm.
Stanley holds my hand.
“I’m going to go,” he announces, and I feel my chest tightening because I’m getting clingy and needy. I don’t want him to go. “But I’ll call you later, okay?”
I nod, wrapping my arms around his neck. He hugs me by the waist and kisses my neck in an affectionate way. Smiling, I realize that Stanley is like that ray of sunlight in winter that fills you with warm feelings.
“Okay.”
I walk him to the lobby of the building, and I come back quickly to spend time with Luanna. We start chatting as we take the cases to my room. She told me about her trip and kept stalling when I tried to bring up the topic about what happened before she got sent to the academy. Luanna has always been an open person. Whatever happened was strong enough to not talk about it with me, and I know almost every detail of her life.
“So, that’s your personal Ken,” she comments, bringing up Stanley to avoid talking of her life. I nod, walking to the corner of the bed to take the sheets off. Luanna helps me with the other side. “He’s hot.”
“I know.”
“Although he’s not your usual type,” Lu adds as she makes a face. “You were always into idiots.”
A shiver rips through me, remembering the type of guys that I considered attractive in the past. They were nothing like Stan. I doubt that I ever stopped to notice the good guy.
“I know,” I repeat.
“But you look happy with him. Happier than I’ve ever seen you before. I like that,” she concludes with a genuine smile. “I’m glad that you found someone that complements you. You’re glowing around him. You deserve that and more.”
“Thanks,” I whisper and, even if I don’t say it out loud, I know that she deserves more than what she’s getting. I don’t know what she’s been through in the past year, or the reasons why my uncle acted so drastically, but I do know that Luanna is a good person. She deserves more than a second chance.
“If I don’t ask, my head is going to blow up. Is he good in bed? Because that smile that you have…”
By instinct, my muscles tense up.
“Really good,” I assure her, winking.
I can be completely honest with her.
“I envy you,” she admits. “I haven’t gotten any action in months.”
I laugh.
“Ash and Karma told me the same thing,” I mention, shaking my head. “Though, you should see the line of guys that are into Ash.”
“Line of guys? Do you have photos? That’s something that I want to see.”
Curiosity decorates her words.
“I’ll show you a photo.”
I walk to the desk where I dropped my phone earlier and I see that I have a weird notification glowing in the screen.
John Carter tagged you in a post.
Pressing the bubble, my heart drops to my feet when I see the post. My stomach squeezes in a knot, and I feel sick, wanting to throw up whatever is left in my system. My whole body is being crushed by a pressure from the sky. I can’t breathe, nor think. I’m not capable of processing what I’m reading over and over again.
“Bree, are you okay?”
Luanna’s voice sounds far away, even when I know that she’s only a few meters from me. I don’t have the strength to answer or move my head. I’ve lost control of my body.
I’m not okay.
John Carter posted in the group of the university a screenshot of the message that I sent him two months ago and tagged me so that everyone could see that I sent it.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Hours later, I’m still not capable of processing what’s happening. The minutes have slowed down to the point where I don’t know if they’re passing. I’m locked up in my room, hiding in my sheets, wanting to curl up in a ball and disappear from the whole world. Everything around me is a fog that I can’t decipher.
Luanna was the one who acted when I couldn’t. She deactivated my account and changed my user from all the other social media, deleting my name from any bio where people can connect it to me. Also, she archived all the photos where my face was shown. Nothing is linking me to that message, except that my name is still there. I’m being humiliated, brought down to my knees, and I find myself weak with nothing else to do but to hide from the world.
Ash took my phone away to prevent me from seeing the comments that they’re posting about me. I signed in on Ash’s account, and I read what they were saying.
I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t affected by what I read. They were mocking and saying derogatory things about me. Everything mixes with the feeling of shame that took over me, sticking to my skin like a mask that I can’t get rid of. I want to cry, scream at the four winds, curse the moment where I wrote that absurd message, and leave the apartment to go back to my home and feel like I’m safe from them.
But I do nothing instead. I simply stay in bed without uttering a single word or let out a tear. I remain without suffering my humiliation.
How can I process this blow when I was in a happy place? It was unexpected and disastrous. It was an earthquake. It came without warning and left a wave of catastrophe behind, and I don’t have an escape plan or a place where I can ensure my safety as I wait until I can react.
Am I handling this the right way?
I’m hiding and refusing to see the people that care about me. Stanley came a couple of hours ago—or were they minutes? I don’t think that he was capable of getting to his building when everything blew up.
But I still didn’t see him.
I can’t look him in the eye after knowing that he read the embarrassing and obscene stuff I wrote to his roommate. I’m left in the same position that John told me a week ago; it just looks like Stanley was the consolation prize when, in reality, he means everything to me. He’s not a rebound, or someone I decided to flirt with because I couldn’t get his housemate.
I don’t know if he’s still here, or if he left already. Part of me hopes that it’s the latter because I don’t want to meet his gaze and realize that he’s looking at me differently. I don’t want to witness the moment where his eyes stop looking at me the way they did yesterday. I need to remember his orbs observing me like I’m one of the things that keeps him sane. My heart wouldn’t be able to handle a bad reaction from him. However, I do know that he has every right to do so.
However, the other part of me wants him to be here and tell me that he doesn’t believe the things that people wrote about me in the group. I want him to reassure me that he doesn’t care about what I did before I genuinely met him. Before we connected. I like the way that I am with him. There’s less chaos, and risky impulses when he’s around. Stanley anchors my chaos, allowing me to be my true self.
I decide that I’m going to stay doing nothing. I’m not going to react to this. I don’t want the emotional conversations that will drag me to realize that this is actually happening. I’m not capable of facing my friends to tell them the truth of what’s happening because they don’t know that Carter posted that because he wants payback. They don’t understand that he’s angry, and he wants to get back at me because I’m an easier target.
This is not for a dumb and stupid message that I wrote under the influence of alcohol. No, this is for the phone that we stole.
When it gets dark, I hear the creaking of my door opening. I lift my head from the pillow, watching Cora sneak in and closing the door behind her. She has her head low as she walks towards the bed, crawling on the mattress to snuggle with me. I rest my head on her chest, and she holds me in her arms.
Her support makes the need to cry grow stronger. My tears threaten to come out, burning my eyes, but I do my best to keep my feelings in line.
“I’m sorry, Bree,” she whispers in a husky and unfamiliar tone. “I’m sorry that he did this to you.”
A tear escapes me, and I wipe it away with the back of my hand, anger pouring out of me because I don’t want John to obtain any of my tears. He isn’t worth the pain. But I still feel it deep in my soul, the asphyxiating sensation that I’m being exposed and judged. I’m giving him the power to do so.
I shift slightly to be able to look at Cora. Her emerald orbs are dull and clouded as if they wanted to scream an apology that it doesn’t belong to her.
“Would you believe me if I told you that I deserve it?” It’s the first thing that I say ever since I saw the post.
She refuses to believe it, shaking her head, denying the question.
“No one deserves to get humiliated for a mistake.”
I purse my lips together, letting the silence take over for a couple of seconds—maybe minutes.
“I’m scared, Cora,” I admit so softly that I don’t know if she can hear me. “If this was my burden, I don’t want to know what’s going to happen to Stan.”
It’s the first time that I’m talking about this with my friends, and I can feel my heart in my throat, choking me. My hands are sweaty, although it’s cold. My stomach is a mess, and I don’t want to feel this way, but it’s a consequence of putting myself out there, allowing myself to get into a vulnerable position. I need to admit my mistake. I don’t want her to judge me or scold me. I know that I did a bad thing and, even if it doesn’t make up for what John did, this is part of my punishment.
Inhaling deeply, I gather the courage to tell the truth to the bluntest friend I have. Once I start talking, the words pour out of my lips in a thread of confessions that come with tears and broken sobs. The sentences shattered with cries. I don’t know how I manage to tell her the whole story, but in the end, I can sense my face swollen, the mouth dry, and my breathing agitated.
Cora stays quiet, making me feel worse than I did before I told her the truth.
“Why did you do that?” It’s the only thing she says.
“I don’t know,” I say with honesty, my voice squeaking with the tears. “I was desperately trying to do something to save my dignity. I should’ve listened to Stanley, Cora. He told me to put on my big girl’s pants and assume the consequences. But I did it anyway. I never told you guys because I was afraid that you—”
“I’m not here to judge you, Bree,” Cora interrupts me in a sweet tone that I’ve never heard from her. “Even if what you did was wrong, it doesn’t give him any excuse to do this to you. He made his choice. He could’ve picked another way to confront you, but he chose to be a coward.”
I wipe the tears from my cheeks, erasing the rests of humidity from them.
“I know. Deep down, I know that he carries the whole responsibility for this, but I also know that none of this would’ve happened if I hadn’t been so fucking impulsive.”
“Many things could’ve been avoided without that,” she reminds me, her hand giving my shoulder a little comforting squeeze. “The only reason why you’re with Stanley is because of that incident. Do you regret that?”
Wiping my tears was in vain because a new wave of tears comes at her comment.
“Of course I don’t regret that,” I croak.
“Then you need to talk to him about it, Bree,” she advises softly, but her words carry strength among them. “Do you know that he’s still here? You should use that chance and have that conversation with him. I have a feeling that you guys need to clear some things.”
I close my eyes, giving in to my fear.
“I don’t want him to look at me differently.”
Cora sighs.
“The thing is that time keeps passing, and with every minute things get worse. Insecurities are the worst parasite. Carter inserted a horrible one in Stanley’s brain with that post. Remember what you wrote. If the situation was different and Stan had written a super embarrassing message professing everything that he wants to do to one of us, how would you feel?” Cora tries to use a weird sense of psychology, making me sick even to imagine that scenario.
I’m stubborn, and I have my parasite of insecurity that I can’t get rid of.
“It was months ago,” I excuse myself.
“And we know that, but you have to admit that insecurities aren’t measured by time. They just stay there in the back of our heads, making us feel like we’re not good enough, that we’re worthless,” she defends her point of view, beating some clarity into my skull.
I understand what she wants to say. Although it makes me anxious to think about Stanley breaking up with me because of this disaster, I realize that she’s right.
Biting the inside of my cheek, I start to consider it.
“Is he still here?” I interrogate in a whisper, wanting to make sure that she’s not lying to me.
Cora nods.
“He hasn’t left at all,” she reassures me, and my heart contracts painfully. “Stan’s a great guy. I don’t think that there’s a lot like him in the world. It would be a shame to let that go when it can be resolved with a simple conversation.”
Gulping, I try to get rid of the knot that inhabits my throat. I get what Cora’s trying to do, and she’s effectively convincing me of doing it. That doesn’t mean that I’m not terrified of the result of it, but I have to give it a shot.
I release a quivering sigh.
“Can you tell him to come in?” I plead because I’m not feeling strong enough to come out of the room just yet. I need to stay in my safe space where I still
have some confidence left.
It’s weird how someone can shatter the opinion of yourself with a simple post. I don’t think that people realize how much hurt you can cause with social media, with the nasty comments and their words. Just because it was through a tiny screen, it doesn’t mean that I’m not allowed to hurt. Because their words do hurt me. I’ve been broken down by humiliation while they laugh and take it as a joke. It’s easy to laugh when you’re not thinking about the target’s feelings.
“Of course,” Cora says and stands up from the bed. Holding the knob, her steps stop. “Bree? I really am sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing? You’re not responsible for this.”
“I don’t think that anyone should be in your position,” she answers with a shrug, smiling before disappearing.
I feel like an eternity passes before the door opens again. I avoid his eyes at all costs, but I know it’s him. The tension is rising in the room, shortening my breath. It’s different from last night, asphyxiating and painful. It solidifies the limbo that we’re into, the proof that we have no idea if we can fix it.
This is one of the things that I’ve never liked about committed relationships. No matter how much you try, the good moments are not eternal, and there are moments of doubt filled with pain, insecurity, and sorrow. It destroys your heart in a thousand pieces that never go back to the way they were before it happened. These are the over-claimed “tests” that people love to talk about; they’re an understatement for the moments where you doubt that you want to have that person with you.
I know that I want Stanley. We just made our relationship official less than twelve hours ago. Why do we need a test right now? We’ve barely been able to enjoy what we can give each other. It makes no sense. It’s a fucking mess.
I’m blocked and crushed as if someone was standing on my chest, threatening to break my ribs. I can’t think or put together the right thoughts. Panic closes around my neck, making it difficult for me to breathe.
Sweet Keeper (Sweet Talkers Book 1) Page 25