My knees shake on the tile floor as my hands fall lifeless to my sides.
No, it’s not him.
He can’t just figure me all out in one day. That’s not how it works in real life.
Besides, he could’ve only walked in on the heaving part and nothing else.
No matter how much I reassure myself, my lower lip trembles and I bite down on the tender flesh so I don’t give in to the need to run and hide.
You’ve got this, Kim. You’ve totally got this.
Taking a deep breath, I rise to unsteady feet and take my sweet time flushing the toilet. Maybe if I stay here long enough, he’ll disappear and leave me in peace.
Maybe the whole thing is a play of my imagination because of being jumpy since earlier.
The prickling at the nape of my neck says otherwise, though. Razor-sharp attention is dissecting me slowly, as if cutting me open from the inside out.
It’s all because of those avocados – I should’ve refused Elsa’s offer, I should’ve not taken them. But if I had, she would have started to suspect me, and then maybe she’d regret being friends with me.
I can’t lose Elsa. She’s one of the few threads that keeps me hanging on to this existence.
Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I turn around, silently praying all this is a nasty nightmare.
The moment my gaze meets that ocean-deep one, I confirm it is a nightmare.
A real one.
The one I can never come back from.
“What are you doing here?” I speak lower than I intend to, but at least my voice doesn’t shake like a pathetic idiot.
“The question is, what are you doing, Kimberly?”
Kimberly.
Kimberly?
I haven’t heard him call me that in…well, ever. When we were young, he used to call me Green, or Kim when he was mad at me. After I fell from his grace, I became Berly, that stupid bullying name.
The fact that he’s calling me by my full name is new and somehow…intimate.
Don’t you dare like it, Kim. Don’t you fucking dare.
“You never saw anyone vomiting?” I start past him towards the running tap, pretending he doesn’t exist.
The keyword being pretending. There’s no way in hell I can erase his presence, especially in the small space of the bathroom. My arm brushes against his and I falter for a fraction of a second, fighting the urge to close my eyes and soak in that contact.
I’m like a starved animal, waiting for a mere brush of clothes against clothes. What the hell is wrong with me?
I wash my hands, rubbing them harsher than needed until they turn red, and then take a gulp of the mouthwash I always keep in my pocket.
Maybe I’ve overestimated what he saw. It’s just someone vomiting, after all. Upset stomach, wrong food, bad weather. I have a multitude of excuses. Hell, I can even blame it on his existence and say it disgusts me.
Though, I’m not as cruel as he is – or as heartless.
“Why, yes. Of course I’ve seen someone vomiting.” His voice is calm and steady, even though the undertone is sinister. “Nasty business, that is.”
I spit out the mouthwash and clean my mouth. “Yup. Very nasty.”
“Especially when you stick a finger in your throat and make yourself vomit. Nasty, indeed.”
I freeze midway of pocketing my mouthwash. Shit. He saw it.
He shouldn’t have seen it. Why the hell did he see it?
Or the better question is, why didn’t I close the door?
Oh, I know why. I was in a hurry to lose the calories I gained from those avocados and meet Mum’s requirements so she doesn’t ship Kir away.
And I may have been rattled since I met this same arsehole outside my house and was forced to ride in his car earlier.
Me, in Xander’s car. I might have been too stunned all the way to remember anything about the journey.
“I just had an upset stomach,” I speak with a confidence I don’t feel.
Last summer, I was hitting rock bottom and Dad suggested I go on a spiritual retreat; he said it helped him when he needed clarity. I didn’t want to go, because of Kir, but when he said we could go as a family, I agreed. The trip consisted of Kir, Dad, and me. Mum had work – as always.
While we were there, I got to meet a lot of spiritual people from all sorts of religions, and although their beliefs didn’t interest me a lot, their life philosophies did. So much, I’m actually planning to visit that mountain in Switzerland again.
Back then, a Buddhist said that even if I’m not confident, I have to think of my goals and if need be, fake that confidence.
I call it, fake it until you make it.
One day, I won’t look in the mirror and practice how to talk, walk, or smile. One day, confidence will come naturally to me.
That day sure as hell isn’t today, so all I can do is continue to fake it.
“Do you always have upset stomachs?” he asks with almost a sympathetic tone.
Almost, because he’s faking it, too.
Xander’s mirroring my fakery and using it as a weapon against me in his dickhead style.
“Yes.” I don’t dare stare back or in the mirror, where I’ll find his eyes trying to dig a path into my soul.
No one needs to find a path to there, especially not him.
I don’t want him of all people to see the mess hidden underneath all of this.
He broke me, and he doesn’t get to witness the chaos left behind.
“That must be why you always carry the mouthwash, then.”
“Yup.”
“Funny, because I almost think you do that to hide your vomiting habits.”
My fingers tremble, but I don’t stop to let his words get to me. Xander might not have fat-shamed me, but he’s a bully. He laughed in my face, he mocked me, and he turned my life to hell like everyone else.
When I decided to stop being a secondary character in my life, it also meant not letting him get under my skin or see me at my lowest.
“Funny, because that’s none of your business,” I mimic his tone.
“You think it makes you prettier? Skinnier?” He laughs, the sound hollow and harsh in the silence of the bathroom. “You can’t hide behind layers of makeup, no matter how much you try to. If you think otherwise, then you need some awareness pills.”
I hit the tap closed harder than needed as I try to control my breathing. His words are like tiny needles getting under my skin and puncturing the veins one by each bloody one.
“I told you,” I grind out through my teeth. “It’s none of your damn business.”
A strong hand wraps around my wrist and I yelp as I’m yanked back so hard, the mouthwash bottle clinks against the lavatory and settles at the bottom of it.
My heart thunders so loudly, I’m surprised it doesn’t follow the bottle and sink somewhere.
He’s…touching me.
Xander has his hands on me. Those same long, lean fingers that are always lost in his hair or wrapped around a joint are now on my wrist.
Oh, God.
Xander’s skin is on mine.
Whoa. What the hell? Is it supposed to feel this overwhelming? It’s only skin against skin. Flesh to flesh. Anatomy.
But it’s not just any skin. It’s his skin.
Xander’s.
Before I can get my mind to concentrate on that fact, he yanks my pullover up my wrist. The same wrist he was staring at earlier.