Make Me (The Submission Games book 1)

Make Me: Chapter 1

Sloane

I unlock the door and step inside Tessa's apartment. The dark hardwood floors are clean, and a light grey leather couch and glass coffee table rest on a fluffy white sheepskin rug in the living room. On the coffee table, a large book of nature scenes of the world's most beautiful places lays perfectly centered.

A small, flat screen TV hangs on the wall above the fireplace. Maybe... I stride over and crouch, hoping for remnants of a note, a letter. Tessa used to write letters to the universe and burn them to make them come true when she was depressed, as part of her recovery. No ashes dust the bottom of the fireplace. Just clean, dry emptiness.

The kitchen is equally disappointing. Food in the fridge means she was eating, and the quality of the food shows she wasn't binging on junk, but I throw out all the perishables that are starting to spoil.

She's still keeping her apartment a little too neat, but there's a dirty coffee cup and a plate with crumbs on it in the sink. If she was really in a bad state of mind, there'd be no dishes; she'd have been unable to leave them unwashed.

No laxatives or castor oil in the medicine cabinet to indicate she's been binging and purging. The bottle of stomach medicine creaks when I remove the lid, leaving a bit of pink dust in my hand—she hasn't opened this bottle for a long time. When her obsession with order turned inward, the only things she'd eat were vitamin pills and things to make her stomach feel better. It's safe to assume she's been eating healthily and not falling back into her eating disorders.

It's one positive sign that I cling to. There's literally nothing in her apartment to indicate she's in a bad place emotionally. It also makes me feel worse. All signs point to her being fine until I came along and told her she was sick. Who knows what my words have done to her?

How could I not have known she's been involved in this for two years? I know her schedule better than my own. The harsh words I said to my twin in our last conversation coat me like a second skin made of guilt.

"I've wanted to tell you this for a while, Sloanie, but didn't know how."

My heart throbbed painfully with worry. She'd pushed me away once before, only to spiral into a darkness so deep I barely found her in time. I'd hovered protectively from the day I found her in a pool of her own blood when we were nineteen. What was wrong now? My expression must have given my thoughts away.

"I'm not going to hurt myself and I'm not in danger," she huffed. "I didn't want to tell you like this. I'm into kink, Sloane, and I'm tired of hiding it from you."

We're identical twins and I'd thought I knew everything about her. But this threw me big time. "What, you like reading kinky books?"

Tessa had stood and paced back and forth. "Not like the books. Like in real life. I'm into BDSM."

"Bondage and..."—I struggled to remember the terms—"sado-masochism? You mean where people get gagged and whipped?"

She laughed dismissively. "It's not like that."

All I could see was her blood, her bruises, the way she used to cut herself to relieve the emotional pain I couldn't protect her from, her nearly starving herself to death to gain

the illusion of control over her life, and I pushed back against the idea—hard. "Why are you doing this, Tessa?"

"Everything is consensual. Besides, I've been doing this for years. Obviously, I'm fine."

"This is so sick. And an ingenious way to self-harm without inflicting the injuries yourself."

She was silent for a long time. "I thought you'd understand or at least be open-minded."