14

Marianna.

"Oh my god." Alina's eyes widen. Her mouth drops open. "You are a virgin, aren't you?"

Actually, I don’t really want to bring this up.

I—I’m not a virgin. But my sexual experience… isn’t extensive. To be honest, it’s only happened once—at my house when my parents weren’t home, back when I was with Marcus.

Marcus said I shouldn’t be so scared. He could definitely tell I was terrified, trembling so hard my teeth chattered. Then it all just happened—way too fast. His penis went inside me, and I felt like I was being split in two. The pain was blinding.

I pushed him away and he immediately started saying accusatory things. His face twisted with frustration, telling me, “You’re playing the victim here just because you have a frigid, screwed-up complex about sex.”

I told him to “Get out of my house.”

And in the end, as he grabbed his clothes, he looked back at me and told me, “You’re a mess.”

I’ve never mentioned this to anyone. Except maybe Marco, who might have a vague idea though he doesn't know the details.

So, when I looked at Alina’s face—her shocked, pitying expression—I couldn’t say a word.

She was right. In a way.

"I..." My voice is a frail, hollow whisper. "I should go to my room."

"Oh, honey." Alina's voice drips with something that might be pity, but feels like poison. "I didn't mean to embarrass you."

"I need to go," I say. "Excuse me."

Behind me, I hear the shower turn off. I hear Alina's bare footsteps heading back toward the master bedroom. Hear her voice, low and sweet, dropping the cruelty entirely: "I'm ordering Thai food. You want the usual?"

His response is too quiet for me to hear. Which is fine. I don't want to hear it.

I close the guest room door behind me. Lock it. I slide down to the floor with my back against the heavy wood, my legs crumpling underneath me, my cheap Target blazer bunching up around my shoulders.

I don't cry.

I must have fallen asleep at some point.

I don't remember getting into bed or changing out of my interview clothes. The room is dark. The city lights outside cast weird shadows on the ceiling, shapes that move and shift like living things.

I'm dreaming.

I know I'm dreaming because everything has that thick, underwater quality. Reality stretches like taffy into something unrecognizable. The grey guest room vanishes, replaced by the familiar, claustrophobic walls of my childhood bedroom.

I'm lying on a bed. My old bed. And Marcus is there.

He’s heavy, pressing me down into the mattress. He’s rough, his movements frantic and impatient. His hand moves aggressively to my breast, his grip bruising. A sharp spike of physical pain shoots through my chest.

I gasp, my eyes flying wide open, staring up at the ceiling of the dream.

"Marcus," I choke out, a reflexive, desperate protest.

"Shh," he murmurs, his mouth trailing hot, wet kisses down my neck, stifling my voice. "You're fine. You're doing so good."

I can't breathe. The air in the room is gone. He moves his hand lower, his knuckles dragging against my skin, hooking his fingers forcefully into the waistband of my underwear. He pulls them down with a violent yank. Then, his fingers reach into my vagina.

It's a sharp, invasive shock. I try to thrash, try to push him off, but before I can move, the nightmare fractures.

Marcus's face suddenly vanishes.

The walls of my bedroom dissolve, replaced by a deeper, absolute darkness. It's like I've been dropped into the Marianas Trench. It feels exactly like drowning—the crushing pressure, the icy panic, the total absence of light. But there is no water. Just the endless, suffocating void.

And the hands.

It isn't Marcus anymore. It is countless hands. They emerge from the pitch-black space around me, multiplying by the second. They are everywhere. Touching me. Grabbing me. Hot, invasive palm prints burning into my arms, my legs, my stomach. Fingers wrapping around my ankles, brushing against my thighs, pressing into my shoulders.

I am completely, utterly terrified.

I try to fight. I try to kick, to twist my body away, to push the phantom hands off my skin, but my body isn't listening. I am completely paralyzed. I am made of stone, or ice, or nothing at all—just an empty vessel for whatever this horror is doing to me. The hands keep moving, slick and relentless, pulling at me, trying to drag me down into the abyss where I will disappear completely. It is a visceral, skin-crawling terror, the absolute destruction of my own agency.

Someone is speaking. Voices murmur from the dark, words I can't understand, muffled and distorted like they're coming from miles underwater.

I open my mouth to scream.

Nothing comes out. The darkness rushes into my throat, swallowing the sound. It swallows me. I am dissolving into it, being torn apart by the countless hands, becoming nothing, becoming—

"Marianna!"

My eyes fly open in the real world.

I'm gasping, choking on air. I scream, but what comes out is more of a croak, a broken, terrified bird noise that gets caught in my teeth. My arms come up instinctively, defensive, wildly warding off whoever is standing over the bed.

"Marianna. Stop."

That voice.

Duane.

My body moves before my brain catches up, desperate for an anchor, desperate for something solid in the dark. I lunge forward. My arms wrap tightly around his torso, my face burying itself instantly into his chest. He's solid. He's warm. My fingers dig into the fabric of his shirt like a lifeline, my breath coming in ragged, hysterical gasps against his skin.

He goes completely still.

And then—slowly, horribly—reality filters back in. The smell of his cologne. The hard plane of his chest.

I'm hugging Duane Richter. Oh god.

I release him like he's made of fire. I scramble backward so fast I nearly fall off the edge of the mattress, my back hitting the headboard.

"I—" My voice is a strangled, humiliating thing. "I'm so sorry. I didn't—I wasn't—"

I look up at him. The ambient light from the city filters through the windows, casting him in pale silver.

His expression is incredibly grave. The hard lines of his jaw are locked tight.

Say something. Please say something. Tell me I'm pathetic. Anything is better than this heavy, crushing silence.

"I was dreaming," I manage to whisper, my throat raw. "I didn't mean to—"

"Marianna."

I stop talking.

He still hasn't moved. His grave, piercing gaze doesn't leave my face.

"Go back to sleep."