EverWorld (Book 3 of the Down World Series)

Chapter Thirteen

Double update today! Did you read chapter 12 first?

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Once we got to my room, I needed to get the torture device of a dress off my weary body without opening up any more gaping holes in my flesh. I unzipped it gingerly, holding it out like a mushroom as I let it drop to the floor. Standing there in only a thong, fishing through my drawer for a T-shirt and sweats, I realized Adam was still in the doorway watching me.

Well, it was nothing he hadn't seen before. Might be a couple more pounds of muscle on my thighs from all those early-morning laps in the pool lately, but other than that, I hadn't noticed much change in the scale or the mirror since starting college.

"I'm just gonna..." he said awkwardly behind me, "wash off my hands."

"Down the hall," I called over my shoulder as I put on the T-shirt.

He came back a moment later, wiping his hands on his jeans. By then I was sitting on the bed, cradling the wound on my leg and trying to keep my fluctuating thoughts in check.

"You know, your boyfriend got one thing wrong," he said with a newfound smile.

"What's that?"

"The kid I beat up. His name was Jeffery Garrison, and he was a nightmare. Constantly threatening to break into the boiler room, find out what was down there. In my admittedly fucked-up 17-year-old brain, I thought if he was afraid of me, he'd stay away. It was my way of protecting him. Worked too. He never tried it again after."

But I wasn't letting him off the hook that easily. "Kieren said you made him cry."

He only shrugged in response.

"Now I was honest with you," he said lightly, taking a step closer to the bed. "Can I ask you to do the same?"

I nodded.

"Who are the birth control pills for?"

The words hit me like a slap, and I shot up out of my bed to face him, well aware of the fact that I was blushing from head to foot. "Oh my god, you went through my cabinets!"

"You left them on the counter."

"They're for me. What do you think?" I headed over to my jewelry box to take out the stud earrings I had worn to the wedding.

"That's not what I mean," he said behind me.

"They're... for nobody."

"I'm not judging, Marina," he said in a firm tone, "but you're on the pill, you're wearing underwear that barely covers your ass. I'd just like to know who it's for."

I had never wanted to hit somebody so badly in my life. How dare he come into my house with these questions. After a year! "You're not judging me? That's hysterical."

But he only gave me an unwavering look in return. He wasn't going to back off.

"I'm a first-year student at MIT, Adam. I fall asleep with a physics book every night. There—" I said, gesturing to the tome the size of Rhode Island sitting on my bedside table—"That's my boyfriend! I wake up with the creases of that book etched into my face."

"So you're not gonna tell me?"

"Jenny said you had a possessive side. I've just never seen it."

"Well, this is it. Happy?"

Was I happy? I couldn't tell. When I was younger, I had romanticized the idea of a possessive man who wanted me all to himself. But now that I apparently had one standing in front of me, flesh and blood and making me feel cheap for no reason, I just wanted to slap him.