I wished I hated Darcy again. Things were so much easier when I hated him . . . but I couldn’t. I cared about him. I really liked him, and I felt sick that he didn’t feel the same way.
Sean looked at me with wide eyes. “You really care about Darcy? I mean, I always had an inkling, but it’s for real?”
“You th-think I would give myself up to someone who I didn’t have a-any feelings for?” I asked, annoyed he would think of me in that light.
Sean shook his head. “No, of course not. I know you’re not like that. I just mean . . . Since when do you care about Darcy?”
Since last night.
Well, it seemed I had always cared about him on some level; I just hadn’t realised it until last night.
I wiped my runny nose with some tissues from Sean’s glove box. “Things changed between us in his house. We called a truce. I thought we even became friends and things would be good between us . . . but apparently I was wrong, after hearing what he said to you and Justin.”
Sean cursed some more. I tuned him out, because the more I listened to him the more upset I got. I looked out the windows at the snow-covered trees and focused on them as we drove.
I felt sick with myself.
I couldn’t believe I’d acted like a sex-deprived maniac last night. I’d practically torn Darcy’s clothes from his body and begged him to take me. I was beyond mortified, and I was deeply hurt.
Why did he say what he did to Sean and Justin?
Was last night just about him pulling the ultimate prank? Stripping me of my virginity and making me enjoy it in the process?
I was so unsure, and that killed me.
I wanted it to be real, but the chance that it was probably fake gutted me.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore, Sean.”
Sean was silent for a moment; then he said, “I’m sorry, Sis.”
I looked to him and gave him a small smile. “Don’t be sorry; you did nothing wrong.”
Sean’s face fell, his mouth straightened to a thin line, and his eyes looked sad.
I hated that my situation with Darcy upset him so much.
I looked forward and folded my arms across my chest and enjoyed the silence of the rest of the drive back home . . . and when I say home, I mean my parents’ house.
“Dinner is in two hours,” Sean said as we pulled up. “Go get showered and into something warm – preferably something that covers your arse instead of exposing it,” he muttered.
His big-brother ways brought a genuine smile out on my face, so I leaned over and kissed his cheek as he parked his truck in my parents’ driveway. “I will . . . Thanks for saving me.”
“Always,” Sean mumbled, and sighed as I climbed out of the truck.
I folded my arms across my chest as I hopped around the truck and onto the cleared pathway.
“Watch out for black ice. I put salt all over, but I might have missed some spots,” Sean called out from behind me.
“Okay,” I shouted, and slowed my pace.
The freezing cold breeze had gone right through me by the time I reached my parents’ front door. I balled my hand into a fist and banged on the door.
“Cavewoman, press the bell,” Sean said from behind me.
I rolled my eyes and pressed the doorbell.
A moment went by before my mother opened the door. She was wearing a Mrs. Claus onesie and she had antlers on her head – it was enough for me not to take her seriously.
“You’re free!” my mother shouted.
I raised my eyebrows when Dustin’s voice shouted from the living room, “Frrreedddoooommm!”
I looked over my shoulder to Sean, who was grinning. “He watched Braveheart with us lads last night.”
Of course he did.
I turned back around and gave my mother a closed-lipped smile. “I need a shower.” And to be left alone.
My mother placed her hands on my cheeks. “You were crying.”
I blinked my eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
I moved around my mother and walked by the living room and down the hall to the stairs. My parents had never touched my bedroom when I moved out, so it was still the same as when I’d left it at twenty-two. It meant I had clothes here and everything was familiar.
Familiarity was something I needed right now.
As I headed up the stairs I heard my mother ask Sean, “Where are Darcy and Justin?”
“Darcy can’t make dinner today; he’s busy!” I shouted, and continued to walk up the stairs.
When I was in my old room I broke down, then almost immediately mentally scowled at myself for it.
“Stop it!” I hissed, and shook my head.
I forced my mind to think of simple things, like getting a shower.
Hot water. Shower gel. Shampoo and conditioner.
Heaven.
I stripped myself free of my blazer, dress, and heels – vowing to burn each item as it hit the floor. I walked into the en-suite bathroom and turned on the water. I waited a few moments until steam poured from the showerhead.
I stepped under the hot spray of water and sighed with delight. I did nothing for a few minutes but stand there and revel in the heat as each toasty droplet hit my skin and caused tingles to spread over the surface of my body. When I was relaxed, or as relaxed as I could be, I reached for my shampoo and squeezed a huge amount on my hand. I spread it out over my head with both hands and rubbed it into my scalp until a thick lather of suds appeared. I roughly scrubbed my scalp, then dragged the suds down my hair and gave the middle and ends a good cleanse. I washed my hair out and repeated the step simply because I hadn’t washed it once while I was at . . . while I was up the mountains.
I growled at myself for almost slipping up and thinking of the one thing that I refused to think of. I switched my mind back to my shower routine and conditioned my hair. When it came time to wash my skin, my hand automatically reached for my favourite shower gel, my vanilla-scented one, but I quickly grabbed the strawberry one instead.
I never wanted to smell the scent of vanilla ever again.
I began to wash my skin, and as I looked down to my chest I froze. After I moment of squinting I spotted a love bite on my left breast. I rubbed the loofah over the bite. I gritted my teeth and rubbed the loofah back and forth over the area until it stung, using the physical pain as a reminder to never let myself be hurt by Darcy again. I looked over my arms and legs and spotted some light bruises and scrapes from last night’s events with Darcy. When I thought of him I slapped the shower wall and burst into tears.
I couldn’t escape him.
I roughly scrubbed myself with the loofah, trying desperately to remove any and every trace of him from my body. When I was finished my skin was red, raw, and sore. I slid against my shower tiles as I sank down to my behind. I hissed when I sat down; between my thighs was tender and sore.
I cried harder with the reminder of why.
“I hate him,” I whispered.
No, you don’t.
I placed my face in my hands when my mind whispered the
dreaded truth. Hating him was the easiest thing I had ever done. I’d hated him for the last twenty years, but why did one night render that habit now impossible?
Fucking men.
I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore, and sat on the floor of my shower until the water ran cold. I turned the shower off and got out, then dried myself with the towel on the towel rack. I went back out into my bedroom and froze when I spotted my mother sitting on my bed.
“Tell me what happened,” she said.
I swallowed. “What are you—”
“I asked Sean what was wrong with you and he told me to come talk to you. But when I came in here I heard you crying in the bathroom. What happened between you and Darcy that has upset you so much?” My mother’s voice was stern.
I didn’t want to talk about it, but I did at the same time, and if I was unloading this on someone, it was going to be my mother.
I blinked my swollen eyes and whispered, “We slept together.”
My mother stared at me for a countless number of seconds in silence. I gripped my towel and stared directly back at her in silence. I didn’t know what else needed to be said, so I kept my mouth shut.
“You and Darcy?” she asked.
I rolled my tired eyes. “No, me and Frosty the Snowman got it on . . . Of course Darcy, Ma.”
My mother swallowed, but said nothing.
It was very unlike her, because, well, she never stopped talking.
“Say something,” I pleaded.
My mother looked up at me and with a serious face she asked, “Was he any good?”
What?
Fucking what?
“Ma!”
She unexpectedly laughed. “What?”
Really?
“You can’t just ask me something like that! Can’t you see I’m upset about the . . . situation?”
My mother frowned. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I just wanted to make you smile.”
“Tell me Darcy isn’t coming to dinner – that will make me smile,” I stated.
She sighed, and that instantly gave me my answer.
“I’m not going to dinner if he will be there, Ma. No way.”