“We didn’t. But she thought we were. She ran for her fucking life. She was so scared that she had a panic attack.”
I swallowed every last question, landing on one. “Then what happened?”
Cade looked down at me, and his white teeth sunk into his plump bottom lip. “Do you really want to know?”
I nodded, and he turned away. My favorite little jaw muscle of his ticked again, barely visible from behind his hood. “We seduced her to bring her out of it.”
I said nothing because he had no idea how unsurprising that was to me. It seemed Cade and I were more alike than I knew—which, again, was unsurprising.
“Say something,” he whispered, placing his knife on the windowsill in front of us. The irony of putting a knife in front of me in the same psych ward I was placed in because everyone thought I cut my wrists was not lost.
“Seducing someone to get a different reaction is my specialty. I would have done the same thing.” I paused. “I mean, if the roles were reversed.”
Now it was his turn to be silent, and it was as if I could read the question brimming behind his closed mouth. “Don’t ask me what happened here.” My head dropped, knowing I would probably hate myself if I said it out loud to him. I was torn, feeling slightly sick over the things I did, but even sicker when I buried it deep down. Maybe I should tell someone. Maybe I should tell someone that what I did was considered unethical in a way, and the thought of it made my stomach ache, but I was also proud that I saved myself.
Gemma came to mind for a split second, because she saw it first-hand. She saw what I could do when she was here and how I managed to get my way around this place. I cleared my throat, taking his silence for submission. “I–I don’t know if I can even say the words.”
“Did someone seduce you to make you stop panicking, Journey?” His voice was cold, freezing me there against the window.
I turned toward him, startled. “What? No.” I paused, knowing exactly what he was thinking and why. “No one touched me like that without permission.” But they did touch me.
The confusion lingered as he was trying to piece together the jumbled words coming from my mouth. The thought was there, flashing in front of me like a billboard standing alone on a highway. “I feel like a victim, but at the same time, I don’t.”
“Have you told anyone what happened here? Anyone at all? Besides Gemma.”
“I haven’t told Gemma anything. Why do you say that?”
Cade sighed. “I overheard a conversation between you two when you first came back.”
So he knows? I blinked a few times, unsure of how I felt. “So you know what I’ve done? What I had to do?”
“No.” He turned toward me with a steely expression. “Gemma didn’t tell me anything. She said if you wanted to tell me, you would.”
I sucked in a tiny breath because, in a way, I did want to tell him. I wanted to tell him that every time I touched another guy to win over their affection so I could use it as trickery, I felt sick because it wasn’t him. I wanted to tell him that every time it was over, I’d run into my bathroom and throw up with tears streaming down my face with the taste of someone else. “I don’t think I can tell you.” I shuddered, looking away. “Not because I think you’ll be angry, but because you might lose respect for me.”
His tone was low and grumbly as he gripped my chin and pulled my watery gaze to his. “That will never fucking happen.” His Adam’s apple bobbed, and I hated that I couldn’t read his mind. “And if you can’t tell me, then why don’t you just show me?”