Pretty When She Cries - Black Mountain Academy

He examines me, and I’ve never felt someone’s eyes on my skin the way I feel his right now. One of us moves, or maybe we both do. I grab his biceps to steady myself, and they are so firm. I want to study them to see if they’re even real. My stomach presses against his hips, and I feel something warm there too. It takes me a second to realize it isn’t just his body that’s hard.

The world tilts. Explosions detonate in my veins. Butterflies grow wings and take flight in my belly. I suck in a breath, and then it happens. Landon Blackwood dips his lips to mine. I release an involuntary gasp, and he swallows it. He swallows all my breaths. My fingers curl into his tee shirt, bracing myself against him as he steals my first everything. I’ve never been kissed before, so I have nothing to compare it to. But I already know there is nothing else on earth like this kiss. My lips part, and I inhale him. His tongue grazes mine, sweet like peppermint, and I think I die a little right then. It’s intense, so intense my knees almost give out, and when I stumble a bit, he catches me.

“You good?” His words are breathless as his forehead comes to rest against mine.

I nod, but at the same time, my stomach clenches, and I feel like I’m going to puke. I curse the universe for choosing right now to make me feel sick. I want this to last forever. I want to feel his lips on mine until the earth turns to dust. But my gut doesn’t care one way or the other as the alcohol sloshes inside violently, threatening to erupt at any moment.

“Is that a bathroom?” I choke out, eyeing the door across the room.

He nods and releases me.

“Okay, I’ll be right back.” I stumble my way to the door while Landon collapses onto the chair, staring up at the ceiling.

To my horror, I realize when I shut the door behind me that he’s going to hear me puke. I manage to turn on the water and flip up the lid on the toilet before it happens. My stomach heaves for a solid five minutes, and instinctively, I know something isn’t right.

My skin feels hot and sticky, and there’s a dull throbbing in my head that wasn’t there before. Everything seems blurry now. Misshapen. I’ve never had vodka before, but surely, it can’t be this bad. Tears streak down my cheeks as my stomach cramps again, and I barely have the strength to drag myself up to the toilet to vomit one more time.

It’s too much.

I had too much.

That’s the last conscious thought I have.My head splits open, brains spilling out of my skull. Or at least, that’s what it feels like. Everything is dark behind the curtain of my eyelids, but the distorted sounds around me bubble through my eardrums like I’m underwater. Hushed laughter. Whispering voices. The shutter of a phone camera.

I’m trying to connect the dots. I’m trying to make it make sense. Every second feels like a year. My senses come back at a snail’s pace, waking me to a reality I’m not prepared to face. I’m hot and sweaty with hair stuck to my face and neck. The pungent scent of alcohol seeps from my pores, swirling with the distinct solvent of a marker. There’s another familiar smell. Balloons, maybe? Or latex…

My eyelids are glued together from sleep and dried tears. When I open them, the blinding light on the ceiling stings, and moisture teeters on the edges as I blink, trying to dispel the blurriness. Where the hell am I?

Another phone shutter. More laughter.

“Shh, she’s waking up, dude.”

Groaning, I try to sit up. My limbs ache. Everything aches. It feels like I’ve been battered by a tropical storm and left to drown in the ocean. Movement doesn’t come easily. I’m weighed down with what I think are cinder blocks. My thoughts are so disjointed it takes me a moment to realize they are someone else’s hands. They are hot and sticky too, one clinging to my thigh, and the other to my naked breast.

My confusion comes out as panicked gibberish. The slurred words are followed by more laughter as I force my chin up, trying to make sense of what’s happening. When I notice my skirt bunched around my hips, my chest caves in. This can’t be real. This body doesn’t even feel like my own. But the more I examine my bruised thighs and arms, the harder reality hits me. My shirt is gone, nipples heaving upward as tainted oxygen explodes into my lungs. My body is covered in smeared Sharpie, dark slashes of words and arrows inked into my skin.

Was this from Truth or Grope?