LOGINRheaI texted Anthony at half past two.*Meet me at the side entrance of the humanities block. Twenty minutes.*He replied in under a minute.*You’re texting me first now? Progress.*I put my phone in my bag and walked there slowly.He was already leaning against the wall when I arrived, hands in his pockets, that familiar smile sitting on his face. He looked me over once the way he always did, like he was taking stock of something he owned.“You texted me,” he said. “I’m touched.”“Sit down Anthony.”He raised an eyebrow but pulled out the low wall beside him and sat. I stayed standing. I set my phone on the surface between us face down and looked at him.“You look serious,” he said. “What’s going on?”“I want to show you something.”I picked up my phone and opened the gallery and turned it to face him and pressed play.He leaned forward slightly with that half smile still on his face, expecting something he could use, expecting me to have made some kind of mistake he could file away
RheaProfessor Silas was forty minutes into his lecture on Social Psychology and Human Behaviour, one of those broad interdisciplinary courses that pulled students from three different departments into the same hall twice a week, and I had not retained a single word he had said.I had the video on my phone—something huge on Anthony Lancaster.I had watched it twice already. Anthony and Marcus are in the back of a car fucking real good. Very hot video, I must admit. No question about what was happening or who was involved. And a second clip that made my mouth fall open when it started playing. The same man who had stood in a cafeteria and called someone a freak for being gay, had the same man choking on the fat head of his cock.The irony was almost laughable.I wanted to see his face when he realised I had it.I was practically vibrating in my seat and impatiently waiting for the class to end.Elora was beside me, head down, pen moving steadily across her notebook the way it always di
RheaI had been in the library for two hours and I was finally getting somewhere with the paper that had been sitting unfinished on my laptop for three weeks. The library was quiet the way I needed it to be. Just the sound of pages turning and keyboards and the occasional whisper from the far tables.Then Camila sat down across from me.I looked up. “No.”“Good afternoon to you too.”“Camila.” I kept my voice low. “I’m working. Go away.”“You’ll beg me to stay when you hear what I have.”“I doubt that very much.” I looked back at my screen.“It’s about Anthony.”I didn’t look up. “I’m handling Anthony.”“Are you.” She leaned forward slightly. “Because from where I’m sitting it looks like Anthony is still walking around this campus like he owns it and you are still sitting in libraries hiding from him.”“I’m not hiding. I’m working. There’s a difference.”“Rhea.” Her voice dropped lower. “I have something on him. Something that will end him. Not embarrass him. Not inconveni
RheaThe house was quiet when Brandon and I walked in.He came around me and stood in front of me, reached out, and removed a strand of dry grass from my hair. He held it out so I could see it.“We missed this one.”“Thanks. But you should try to keep your hands to yourself, especially at home.”“Are you sure you’re okay?”He had asked that more times than I could remember.“Brandon, it’s not the first time you’ve fucked me like you wanted to kill me. If I was fine when it was you and Jackson together, taking turns with me like I was some cheap whore, why won’t I be fine with just you?”He took a slow breath. “Fine. Go shower. I’ll fix us something to eat. I’m starving.”“You don’t get it, do you?” I said it firmly so he would understand. “We are done. Stop trying to be nice to me so that you can get back into my pants.”He placed a finger under my chin and tilted my head up so I was looking into his eyes. “I could get into your pants right now if I wanted to. Because your mouth alway
RheaHe didn’t let go immediately.I stood there with my arms at my sides and let him hold on for a moment because something about the way he was gripping me told me he needed the second. Then I stepped back.“I’m not your emotional support,” I said. “Get it together and tell me what happened.”He let out a long breath and ran both hands through his hair. He looked like someone who had been driving for hours with nowhere to go.“She’s not pregnant,” he said.I looked at him.“There was never a baby.” He said it like he was still trying to make it make sense. “She had a prosthetic. A fake belly. I found it in her bag before the scan.”I already knew. Some part of me had known from the moment Elowen showed me that tampon. But knowing and hearing it confirmed out loud were two different things.“I knew,” I said. “The first day she refused to go for a scan I knew. I just didn’t have proof.”He nodded slowly. Looked at the ground.“Are you okay?” I asked.He was quiet for a moment. “I was
BrandonI hated the smell of hospitals. But I had to be here because Rhea was convinced Danica wasn’t pregnant, and I was starting to believe her. Somehow I hoped she was right too. I didn’t want anything tying me to this woman.Danica hadn’t said a single word since we walked through the door.I had noticed it in the car that she was restless. The way she was sitting too still at first and then not still at all, her knee bouncing, her fingers finding her mouth. She bit her fingers whenever she was nervous. I had known that about her.I had asked her twice if she was okay and she had said yes both times without looking at me.Now she was sitting beside me in a plastic chair with her fingers between her teeth and her leg going like she was trying to wear a hole through the floor.“Danica.”“I’m fine.”“You’re chewing your fingers.”She pulled her hand from her mouth and folded both hands in her lap. Her leg kept going.I looked at her. “What’s wrong?”“Nothing. I just don’t like hospit
Rhea Jackson didn’t give me a chance to recover. Before the tremors could even leave my thighs, he hooked his arms under my knees and hoisted me up. In one fluid, powerful motion, I was flipped and draped over his shoulder, my legs locked around his neck and my back pressed against the wall. I was
RheaThe bet was settled, but the air in the room was just beginning to burn. I stood over Brandon, looking down at him with a heat in my eyes that matched the throb between my legs. I didn't say a word as I reached for the waistband of my pants, sliding them down my legs and stepping out of them u
RheaI was folding a sundress when my mother walked in.She didn’t knock, she never did. It was a holdover from the years in our cramped apartment where privacy was a luxury we couldn’t afford. I looked up from my suitcase, my heart doing a guilty trip against my ribs. I felt... different. My body
RheaI couldn’t stop thinking about the beach house and the freedom it promised. A whole week with Jackson and Brandon, away from school hallways and the suffocating performance of being "stepsiblings." A week where the air wouldn’t be thick with things we weren't allowed to say.A whole week of no







