Memories That Still Haunt Us

Chapter Thirty-Two:

Iris and I have plans tonight. She's apparently met someone. He came into her family's restaurant with some friends, and at the end, when she handed him the receipt, he asked for her number. Now I'm being forced to go on a double date.

My hair is nicely curled. Rep lipstick on my lips and soft blush on my cheeks. I'm wearing a strapless black bodycon dress with black heels and golden hoop earrings.

Looking up at the main house, I see the lights off. I wonder if Ellis is going to wander into the kitchen late tonight and wait for me to come. Most likely, I won't be home until it's time to take care of Beck again tomorrow morning. Even if the friend is a complete asshole, I have every intention of having sex tonight. It's been too long. Plus, I've been drinking since this afternoon, and sex while intoxicated is the best.

When I move around the side yard and towards my car, I pull out my key and press the unlock button. My car chirps, heels clacking against the pavers. I open my door and go to step inside. That's when my eye catches sight of something, and a gasp escapes my mouth.

"What the fuck?" I hiss as I look down at my tires, which have all been slashed. The air is completely gone. My mouth is ajar as I move around to the other side of the car and see those tires slashed as well, followed by the word slut carved onto the side.

What the actual fuck? Who the hell would do this, and when did this even happen?

My heart pounds as I look up, eyes scanning the front yard, looking for the culprit, who's mostly long gone by now. The yard is quiet. Streetlights on. A breeze blows by, rustling the trees. My body shivers as I stare at the shadows in the yard, looking for movement.

Lake. It has to be him fucking with me. Of course it's him. He blabbed to Iris already about God knows what. Who knows what else he's telling people. He's clearly angry with me. Tired of my toxic bullshit. Lake has always been so cowardly, backing down to my ways, too afraid to stand up to me. He was patient with me, desperate to try to fix me. Now, he realizes how awful I really am and wants to get back at me for all the years I've put him through hell.

Fuck this.

I stomp towards the front door and use my key to get inside. The house is dark and eerily quiet. Moving up the stairs, I veer towards the master bedroom, where the light is off, indicating Ellis has already gone to bed. I'm full of rage. At Lake. At every man in the universe.

I've been called a slut a lot of times in my life—so often that it might as well be carved across my forehead. I might as well legally change my first name to it. Slut Thatcher.

Then maybe it wouldn't have so much power over me. It used to really get to me when I first started hearing it from people other than my parents. When my mom called me a slut, it was different. She called me that more than my actual name. I was used to it. The word coming out of her mouth just merged with the others. Spilled paint, creating one big blob.

Eventually, I started hearing it come from other people's mouths. Boys in school who grew angry at my lack of interest in them. Girls who envied me and thought I would snatch their boyfriends away. The men I'd hook up with in isolated locations would call me that in the midst of sex or after we finished hooking up. It stung and made me feel unworthy. Like I wasn't deserving of love or being treated as anything other than a sexual object. Often times, I never felt like a person. I disassociated so much of the time throughout eighth grade and high school that a person on the street could've raped me out in the open, and I would've been so lost in my mind and away from my body that I wouldn't have even known. I would have barely batted an eye. I floated, faked smiles and laughter, said things that I believed others would want to hear.

Seeing the word slut carved into the side of my ratty car feels like it's followed me from Salem. Like I'll never be anything besides it. It's a cruel reminder of what I tried to leave behind.

It makes me hate Lake. It makes me want to suffocate him. Who the hell does he think he is? Yes, I have treated him poorly. Yes, I have been cruel to him in the past. But he's the one who continued loving me. Who continued to chase after me. He thinks that because he knows what happened to me, he deserves something from me. That I should love him for it.

I knock on Ellis's bedroom door. The second time harder.

Eventually, I see a light flick on inside the room. The door opens slightly, and Ellis peers down at me, hair ruffled from sleep. Nothing but his gray sweats hang on his hips, flashing me all his glorious abs and muscles. My breath catches slightly as my eyes wander over him, forgetting for a moment why I came to his door.

"Reign?" His voice is scratchy, groggy from sleep. It sounds so wonderful that I want to capture it inside a music box and wind it over and over again.

"Can I borrow your car?" I ask him, my voice slightly clipped as I force my eyes to look away from his abs.

His eyebrows raise as he gives me a look of confusion. "Uh, sure?" He says more like a question. That's when he begins to take in my attire. My form-fitting black dress, the red lipstick, the curled hair. I'm dressed for a date, and my insides jump at the thought of him becoming jealous. I want him to become possessive. Pulling me into the room with him and not letting me leave. Ripping my dress off as he pins me against the wall.

I see his body stiffen slightly, his arm raising on the door. "The keys are in the kitchen in the usual drawer." He tells me, eyes meeting mine once again.

I stand in place, willing him to yank me inside the room. "You look beautiful." He tells me.

"I have a date."

He nods slightly. "Have fun."

That's it? My eyes narrow slightly. "Right, well, night." I go to turn and leave, but he quickly reaches out, grabs my wrist, and turns me back towards him. His thumb moves in circles on the inside of my wrist, sending a shiver down my spine as he pulls me closer to him. My hand rests on his chest as I look up at him. I feel his heart beating.

"Is everything alright?" He asks me.

"Everything's fine."

"What happened with your car?"

"The tires are flat."

He frowns. "All of them?"

"I really don't want to talk about it right now. I'm running late."

"Okay." He releases his grasp on my arm. "When will you be back?"

"Tomorrow morning."

I watch as he swallows. Kneading his hands together, he places them behind his neck, a strained look on his face that only lasts a second before going back to his normal serious expression. Just the slight slip of an expression lets me know he's jealous, and a small smile forms on my face.

His head cocks slightly. "What?"
"Nothing." I insist and stand on my tiptoes so I can kiss the side of his neck. It causes goosebumps to form there, and I love that his body reacts to me this way. His hand moves to the small of my back, pressing me into him.

Tell me to stay. Tell me. I'll do it.

"I'll see you in the morning." He tells me simply, then takes a step back from me, breaking our embrace. "Call me if you need anything, Reign."

It adds onto my anger. I seethe as I turn and make my way back down the stairs. My eyes avoid looking at my slutmobile as I pull out the driveway, my knuckles turning white as I clutch the steering wheel of Ellis's car and make my way towards the apartment I once shared with Lake.