Page 53 of Make You Beg

And how did it happen again with Lucas?

“I just…knew.”

We’re in her room, the one she shares with Lucas on the first floor. She’s sitting in front of the mirror by the dresser, straightening her short blonde hair with a flat iron.

Ugh, that’s…not helpful at all. “There has to be more than that?”

“There was more than that, honey.” Mom grabs another one of her curls and slides the straightener along it. “They were incredibly kind and caring, and they said all the right things. In other words, they treated me right.” She smiles at the mirror, satisfied. “Money was a factor in my last decision, too, of course. His deep pocket sure helped.”

I sit on her bed and sigh. “Of course.”

“You asked me how I really knew. I just knew. It’s not the butterflies in your belly, but a feeling you can’t explain. You’ll know, too, when that moment comes.”

“Great.”

“I don’t know why you’re asking me this, Maddy. I’m not the best at giving love advice. Sure, I got lucky with Lucas, but your father was nothing but a rocky road.”

A rocky road sounds more like what I have with Kayden.

Which is why I’m sitting here asking my mother ridiculous questions I could have asked Jordan. But Jordan isn’t married. She hasn’t been through life like Mom has.

I wish I understood these feelings I’m having whenever I’m near Kayden better.

I know it’s wrong. I don’t even want to think about the nausea swirling up inside me with the image of Kayden being pleasured by someone else. The rage that made me scratch my own arms. I can’t believe I saw that.

It’s been over a week, and it’s still carved in my mind.

A creeping thought has been haunting me, too. What if I were that girl? What if I were the one making Kayden feel that way?

That’s why I end up turning the notebook he gave me into a naughty thoughts diary, a journal documenting my personal fantasies. To let it all out, ease my mind.

Otherwise, I won’t be able to function. The images plague my mind way too often. Writing them out, as if they were sort of a story, as Kayden once suggested, has been helping a lot.

“Where’s the curiosity coming from, honey?” Mom asks, bringing me back to reality. She moves on to apply some makeup. “Is there…someone special in your life?”

I jerk back. “N-no.”

Only my bully of a stepbrother haunting my dreams.

“I-I want to be prepared if the moment comes.”

“When the moment comes, not if. You’ll fall in love someday, honey,” she reassures me. “But you don’t need to be prepared. That’s the beauty of it.” Mom smiles, applying a light peach lipstick onto her lips. “Love takes you by surprise and steals your breath away.”

“Okay, Shakespeare.” I bring my hands up in mock surrender. I think I’m done with this conversation, and I get off the bed. “Don’t go all poetic on me.”

Mom giggles, finishing her look with some mascara. “You’ll see.”

***

Kayden’s footsteps mimic those of bigfoot, so loud and clear that even though my room’s on the second floor, I can hear him. I’m lying in bed, reading my smutty bedtime story, staring at my phone. Almost midnight.

Kayden has been busy, out of the house since dropping me off from school.

I need to talk to him. We have to exchange numbers. We should have done so a long time ago. It would have saved me a lot of trouble. I could have avoided that car scene from being burned into my memory.

But I don’t want to seem too eager, so I wait a few minutes for him to settle first.

Okay, I should be alright now.