Ruin Me (35 page)

Kai steps forward and cups my face. “Do you feel better?” he asks.

I force a smile. “Yeah,” I lie.

He raises an eyebrow. “Something else on your mind?”

I inhale deeply to let the cool air chill my throbbing insides. “No,” I answer. I lean in to give him a deep, reassuring kiss. “I’m going to swing by the ladies’ room,” I say as I reach for the doorknob.

“Okay,” he smiles. “I’ll see you in the auditorium. Hey—”

I feel his hand on my arm and I pause in the doorway. “Yeah?”

Kai steps closer and rests his forehead against mine. “You’ll be fine.”

“I just want to get it over with,” I say. I scoop my graduation robe off the table and hang it over my arm.

“Enjoy it,” he says. “You’ve earned it.”

I nod quickly. “Love you.”

“Love you.”

I pull away and step down the hallway, striding fast towards the restrooms. Kai thinks I’m freaking out about my speech, but it’s really the farthest thing from my mind at the moment. I’ve given a hundred different speeches to thousands of people. This one will be no different than the last.

I push open the bathroom door and breathe a light sigh of relief when I see it’s empty. I stare at my pale, white skin the mirror. Usually, taking a ride on Kai’s cock is more than enough to make my cheeks pink and perfect, but not today. I felt a moment of blissful euphoria when he made me orgasm, but it quickly dissipated and nausea came back with full force.

I fill my palm with water and take slow sips from it. I told myself I wasn’t going to freak out about it until finals were over. Then I said I wouldn’t freak out about it until after graduation, but today, my body has other plans.

I get myself cleaned up and pull the graduation robe over my head. Unlike the shiny, maroon-colored robes of Belle Academy, these are black and plain. I don’t mind, though. Black is more my color anyway. My long, raven-colored hair blends with it as I let it fall down over my shoulders.

My fingers grip the sink as another wave of nausea plows through me.

Fuck…

I coat my face with cold water and stand still a few more moments until it passes. Finally, the waves end and I quickly dry my face and rush out of the bathroom to make sure I make it to graduation on time.

One more day. I can wait one more day before I have to freak out about this.

Chapter 34

Kai

“Does Piper look different to you?”

I look to my left. My best friend, Shawn Monty, sits next to me with squinting eyes. “No,” I answer. “Why?”

“She looks off.”

“Off how?”

“I don’t know.” He tilts his head to look around the black cap in the row ahead of us. “Sick or something.”

“She’s fine,” I tell him. “Just nervous is all.”

Shawn shrugs and gazes around. “This is going to take forever.”

I nod and glance around the stuffed auditorium. Shawn and I sit lost amid the sea of black caps and gowns of our graduating class. As I look around, I realize that I don’t recognize a single fucking face. Not one. It’s a little culture shocking. At Belle Academy, I knew the face and bio of every single person that walked across that stage (mostly because I had been
inside
of half of them) but now… I don’t know any of them. Except for Mandy Black. She sits on my right with her arms crossed about her chest.

“Hey, Mandy—” Shawn whispers across my lap. “Does Piper look sick to you?”

“No.”

It’s brief and direct. I glance over at her. Her big, brown eyes point straight ahead, focused on the speaker yammering away on the stage. Shawn slinks back into his chair when he realizes that’s all he’s going to get out of her. I’d feel worse for my good friend, but he kind of had this one coming.

Shawn and Mandy have spent more time apart than dating over the last year. Honestly, I expected them to be back together by this point, but Mandy has stubbornly put her foot down this time. She’s ready for something more serious, she told me herself, and Shawn just isn’t the serious type. Even now that we’re college graduates —
adults
more or less — I still can’t see him settling down for any reason.

Then again, I’m not so sure about myself settling down anymore either.

I look at Piper sitting on the stage and a smile catches my lips. Piper
fucking
Lynch. My lover, in every sense of the word. Sure, I’ve tossed the word
girlfriend
around a lot, but I don’t think it quite covers what she is to me.

Or
was
…

Don’t get me wrong. I love Piper with every piece of me, but things between us have changed recently. At first, it was nothing but secret hook-ups, dirty text messages, and fiery bliss. Now, after three years… it’s more or less the same, but as time passes, expectations grow, too. I think Piper’s happy with how things are, but I know our family sure as hell isn’t.

There was some serious judgment in the beginning. Piper and I are step-siblings, after all. It took some getting used to, but after a while, it was like old news. I thought that was what we wanted all along, for everyone to just chill out and let us
be
, but then I was pulled into my stepfather’s study last Christmas and spent an hour getting grilled about
my intentions
. I guess a father gets nervous when his only daughter dates the same man for a few consecutive years.

It’s not just Philip either. My mother began asking questions last summer after my father got remarried. That’s when our relationship jumped from
interesting happenstance
to
cosmic joke
.

My father married Piper’s mother in a small, private ceremony at his house. There were only five people there: My father, Penny, Piper, myself, and a judge. Afterward, my mother obsessed over just how
hilarious
it would be if Piper and I got hitched as well. After the joke caught on, it was on everybody’s lips.

So, where’s the ring?

School is almost over. Settling down yet?

Better find a good job to afford a house and put down some roots.

It makes me cringe every time. Piper isn’t the issue. I plan on her being in my life for a long time, no problems there. But the idea of
settling down
is a death sentence to me now. I can’t imagine myself that way. Husband, wife, kids, dog, and picket fences. It may have been plausible when I was younger, but now… that’s crazy talk. That’s boring. That’s…
ordinary
. Some men can look into the eyes of the women they love and see that life peeking back at them. I look into Piper’s eyes and I see…

I see her head leaning against the window, sleeping lightly as the train car shakes gently down the tracks. I see the sun setting on the horizon of a passing vineyard behind her. I see a one-way ticket to anywhere we want to go.

“I’d like to introduce this year’s Valedictorian, Ms. Piper Lynch!”

My eyes jump back on the stage. Before I can clap for her, I hear the loud whoops and hollers from the seats far behind us. I follow the voices and chuckle when I see my father and stepmother on their feet, waving their hands and whistling for her. Even my mother and Piper’s father are standing next to them in celebration of her. It’s strange to see the four of them being so friendly together after so many years of battles and feuds. But I guess that’s family for you.

“Thank you, Dean Rogers.”

Piper’s voice brings my attention back to the stage. I look up at her and a wave of nostalgia washes over me. Years ago, this was all that Piper was. It was an act, mostly, but no one knew that at the time. Piper seemingly lived for the spotlight and all the attention it brought her. Nowadays, she’s much more private and quiet. I like her better now.

Her lips curl with a quick smile as she gazes out at the students sitting ahead of her. I smile back at her, knowing that she probably has no idea where I am in the sea of black robes, but that’s fine. It’s been a long time since the days when I used to watch her, when I could see her but she couldn’t see me. Somehow, watching her sleep every night doesn’t feel the same as this.

Piper takes a deep breath and pauses as her eyes suddenly spot me. She smiles again, but this time, it strikes her eyes, the way it always does when she smiles just for me. We share a silent moment in time, gazing at each other, ignoring the other thousands of eyes watching her as well.

She finally looks away and flawlessly transitions into her speech.

An oddness takes hold of me. There’s something strange in the way she moves, something I can’t quite pin down.

Maybe Shawn’s right. She does look a little different.

***

“You okay, buddy?”

I turn around as my dad walks into the room. “No,” I mutter. I look out the window again and watch as the movers carry boxes into the moving truck one-by-one. “I am objectively not okay.”

He throws on a sympathetic face. “Oh, come on, Kai. It won’t be that bad.” I feel his hand slap against my shoulder. “You’re gonna get to live in a big mansion with a pool and a maid. It’ll be great.”

I slowly look at him and he quickly loses the fake smile. “Why can’t I just stay here?”

“I wish you could, Kai,” he says, “but the judge says no. I have to do a lot of traveling over the next year for work and I can’t leave a minor home alone for weeks at a time.”

“Still…” I glance around the empty room. “I grew up here. I don’t want to leave.”

Dad traces the same pattern around the room with his eyes. “I know, but…” he sighs. “Sometimes, things don’t go exactly as planned. Life is gonna throw some curve balls at you. Right now, you and I… are just going to have to make the best of a few bad pitches.”

“Just doesn’t seem right is all.”

“And it’s not,” he says. “Listen, buddy…” He steps closer and throws his arm around my shoulder. “One of these days, you and I are going to look back and we’re going to laugh at this. I promise.”

“I highly doubt that, Dad.”

“I’m serious. That day is not today, but someday, it
will
be today. Okay?”

I nod, but I don’t believe a word of it. “All right.”

“In the meantime, I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing and you’re going to go live with your mother… and the man that’s fucking her.”

I cringe. “Jesus, Dad…”

“I’m sorry, Kai,” he says. “I’m a bit bitter. But hey — you’ll have Piper to hang out with. She’s… a nice girl.”

I chuckle and shake my head. “Yeah, right.”

“You’ve been friends forever. I’m sure you guys can bond over this.”

I stand up a little taller. Piper Lynch. Belle Academy Female #13.

Maybe there’s a silver lining to this after all.

Chapter 35

Piper

My father holds up his glass. “I’d like to propose a toast,” he says.

I roll my eyes and look around the table at everyone. A few years ago, if someone had told me that Kai and I would someday be sitting around the dinner table at my father’s house surrounded by the smiling faces of all of our happy parents, I would have told them to go fuck themselves. Nothing that’s come to pass so far has felt quite as surreal as this moment.