Chapter 12: Tell Me When

Roxy's POV

"Byron," I said.

He stood with his hand on my nightstand drawer and did not move.

Morning light lay across his forearm and the green notebook he was holding.

I knew that notebook.

It had a bent corner and a coffee ring on the cover.

I had bought it at a drugstore in November, the week after my mother's birthday.

I had written one page in it, and I had hidden it at the back of that drawer under my tablets.

I had not touched it in eight months.

"That's mine," I said.

"Rox."

"Give it to me."

He held it out.

His hand was not steady.

I sat up in bed and took it from him, and the cover was soft with handling.

Far softer than something that had been shut in a drawer for eight months.

I opened it to the first page.

It was my handwriting, small and slanted, in blue ink.

It was dated the fourteenth of November, at three in the morning.

I remembered every second of it.

I had been lying in this bed hating my own body for not being able to sleep.

I had written down the one thing I could not say to anyone alive.

I want to be taken by men who don't ask.

I want to lie there with my eyes shut and let it happen.

I want to pretend I'm asleep, so it will never be my fault that I wanted it.

I want it so much I could die, and I would rather die than say it out loud.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Used While I Pretended to Sleep from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.