Kimberly: Nothing, as in nothing. Ever heard of the word? It means empty, nada. Now leave me alone.
Xander: So you can drown in that nothingness of yours?
Kimberly: Yes, which is none of your business, by the way.
Xander: Is that what you think?
I’m almost punching the keyboard with my fingers as I type.
Kimberly: Yes! You can’t come here and pretend to know me. You don’t, okay? You never fucking did.
Xander: Let me see, I know you dance to upbeat music on your own, and it’s the only time you’re not fake. I know you hide behind that makeup and new wardrobe because you see yourself as an ugly little monster on the inside. But not the hair, the green is you. It’s the only real thing about you, because you’ve always been obsessed with that colour. You stopped eating your favourite pistachio gelato and green M&M’s because they don’t go well with the whole look, but you still take notice and stare when you see others eating them. You like Elsa too much, so you do everything to appear perfect in front of her, and by doing that, you kill parts of yourself slowly, thinking if she actually saw your true self-harming, vein-cutting, pill-popping self, she’d give up on you. When you were talking to Jeanine that day, Kirian came to me frantic and told me about that night. He saw you fainted after you popped some pills, and for that reason, he’s been hugging you more often lately and asking me if adults keep their fucking promises. I know you don’t look long enough in the mirror, if at all, because you hate the person you see there, and if you stare long enough, you’ll be out to destroy her, so you choose to hide behind the designer clothes and the layers of expensive makeup instead. But here’s the thing, Kimberly, you can hide from the world and from your fucking self, but you’ll never be able to hide from me.
Oh my God.
Oh. My. Freaking. God.
My hands tremble as I re-read his words and pinch my thigh to make sure this isn’t some nasty dream hitting me out of nowhere.
How…how does he know all that? How can he figure out so much in such a manic, detailed kind of way?
Unless he’s been watching me, too? He’s been noticing me, too?
But Xander doesn’t watch people. He doesn’t stop to make room for me. He doesn’t even look at me most of the time.
I’m the only one who does. From afar. Like a stalker.
Xander: So? How well did I do?
Xander: I can go on if you want. I can psychoanalyse your relationship with Jeanine and Calvin and Kirian, and even with Marian.
Kimberly: How about the one with you?
Xander: You have no relationship with me. Know your fucking place.
I push the covers away and jump to my feet, my muscles pumping with destructive energy.
He can’t tell me all that and then decide he wants nothing to do with me. He has everything to do with me. Hell, he knows things I refuse to admit to myself. He can’t pretend nothing happened and that he didn’t just stab a different type of weapon in my already chipped armour.
That he isn’t peeling underneath it and seeing what no one else has seen.
Me.
It terrifies the fuck out of me, to be seen by Xander out of all people.
But at the same time, it feeds a starved part that’s been waiting for this since forever.
It’s time I confront him about this whole thing.
9
Xander
A buzz starts at the back of my head. It’s my cue that I drank too much and should probably cut it off.
Well, fuck that side of my brain.
I snatch a bottle of vodka from Summer’s hand and chug half of what’s in there in one go.