Venom & Virtue

chapter 22

I didn't sleep for the rest of that night, or for the next two after it.

"You look ill, did you catch something?" Adrian asked over dinner the next evening, an indication that the light purple crescents under my eyes had caught his attention.

"No, I'm just stressed about classes," I shrugged, the lie grating the roof of my mouth as I said it.

I'd gone through every wave of emotion since the intimate embrace at the top of the Astronomy tower.

Shock, despair, confusion, anger, acceptance, curiosity, and worst, most shameful of all, longing.

On the second day, it had been horrifying to realise that a part of me wanted to do it again, missed the feeling of lips on lips, frightfully so in fact.

That had been the one aspect that I couldn't make peace with, no matter how hard I tried.

It was a distressing reality, to guiltily admit that, even despite my great objection to the boy, my body had a wanton regard for him

I hated myself for it.

But the hardest part, was having to pretend as if everything were fine.

Earnestly bluffing my way through each hour, even when Adrian shot me concerned glances, or in Violetta's case, suspicious ones.

My paranoia grew so tremendous that I was sure she knew in some way, as if she had a direct beeline to her brother's thoughts, or into my own nervous brain.

Part of me hoped she did, and that she would confront me, that I would have someone to confer with about the confusion of it all.

But then I realised she might not take it well, that perhaps it would anger her to find out that of all students, I'd kissed her brother.

Would she consider it betrayal?
Or merely an accident not to be repeated?

It wasn't as if I would ever be able to talk to her in detail about it, not the way she did when it came to telling me about Tom.

It would be too weird, too uncomfortable.

So I kept it to myself, relying solely on my fellow criminal to provide reassurance that I wasn't crazy, that it had happened.

The first morning, when I'd glanced over to his usual spot on the bench and found him absent, I'd assumed a plethora of excuses.

Perhaps he'd slept in, or had work to do, or gotten caught up in a meeting with a professor.

I'd paid particular attention to Pansy that breakfast time, knowing that if he'd shared the truth in any way, she'd at least be casting me a surly glance.

Yet there was no such expression, not even a glimmer of a glance my way, she seemed her perfectly normal self; churlish, listless.

But then, as the days passed by, with no appearance from him at any of the mealtimes, I knew that he'd done it on purpose.

And that's when I became angry, infuriated that I was forced to endure the lonely guilt and horror by myself.

I thought that at the very least, we should be mutual in our suffering, each having to survive casual conversation at the dining table as if nothing had occurred.

Just when I thought about hunting him out, confronting the boy and calling him a wimp for running away, word came.

Theo dropped the note on the table the fourth morning, shooting me a smile as he returned to his group.

Today
9am

I turned the parchment over, frowning when I saw there wasn't anything else written, not so much as a 'hello', or a 'about that insane thing we did the other night'.