Hash by Nikita Slater

Author:Nikita Slater [Slater, Nikita]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-03-10T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

Peyton

I’m spiralling and I hate myself for it. Bryce and I are barely talking to each other.

It’s because she thinks she can fix me. I can’t imagine why since she’s got her own demons.

One day, we’re walking through the forest, side by side, Freud running ahead of us. We’re not talking, then she says in that flat voice of hers, “You’re not eating.”

Tension ripples through me. “I’m not hungry.”

“Are you anorexic?”

So blunt, so invasive. I stop in my tracks, but she keeps walking as if it doesn’t matter what I have to say.

My head goes hot, buzzing, and anger explodes out of me. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

She jerks around, her eyes wide. If I weren’t so angry, I might have been pleased that I finally got the marble woman to crack. “It was a question. That’s all.”

“Really?” I say as I stalk up to her. “Are you bi-polar?”

“What?” she chokes.

“Or schizophrenic? Or clinically depressed? Maybe bulimic because you’re almost as thin as I am, but you eat a lot.”

Her face reddens. Her hands curl into fists. Her chest rises and falls. She’s caught, realizing that she’s stepped over a line. “No.” It’s softly said even if it has her usual bluntness. She hesitates as she gathers her emotions together, then everything about her turns to stone again.

“You think I’m stupid. Everyone does.” Tears that hardly ever fall, burn my eyes. “Why? Why?”

“I don’t,” she denies.

“Maybe you think I am because I care about Hash.”

“I don’t think that,” she lies.

“Bullshit.” The anger feels good as it flows through me. I never do this with anyone, not even Hash. I tiptoe around him because I don’t want him to leave. But Bryce? I wish she would get the hell away from me.

“That night,” I say, referring to the day the twins were kidnapped, the day their parents were killed. The day Bryce almost died. “You weren’t the only one traumatized. Put yourself in my shoes for one minute. I was a Blackbeard bitch who betrayed them. I didn’t know if the Jury was going to skin me alive and throw my body on Crip’s doorstep. I didn’t know if they were going to turn me out and let the Blackbeards finish me. And not one single fucking person thought to reassure me.”

My body shudders as I recall how afraid I was. “Hash was the only one in the room who saw me. Hash was the only one who made sure I was looked after. So I care about him. So much it hurts.”

I don’t think Bryce likes losing an argument. She licks her lips, then bites the lower one as she contemplates me. “You’re confusing love with gratitude.”

I think back to Hash’s anger the day I tried to show him my gratitude through sex. “How do you know it’s not the same thing with you and Coyote? He saved you, didn’t he? Gave you and your kid a home. Gives you anything you want. What’s the difference between you and me?”

Her tone is almost hostile when she answers.

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