I freeze at the sinister tone in his voice. He moves my hand deeper into his lap, until I brush against something long and hard.
He nips my ear. “We’ll never be jealous of each other, because we always share our toys.”
Chapter Thirteen
Trinity
I’m staring up at the ceiling later that night, toying with my curls as I try to make sense of the day, when Jasper slips into our room.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few weeks awake while everyone else was sleeping with thoughts swirling around my head like water going down a drain.
It never gets any less frustrating, especially when I know sleep could whisk me away to peaceful oblivion for a few hours.
“Hey,” I greet him, going onto my elbows.
Jasper walks stiffly over to his bed, kneels on the mattress, and lowers himself down with his back to me.
“Everything okay?” I ask. Pretending not to know what happened to him is as difficult as straight-up lying.
“Fucking peaches,” he mutters back.
I wince in sympathy, and then I’m glad it’s dark and he’s not facing me because I’d probably have given myself away.
My ointment is still in my top drawer. Should I leave it out and hope he notices it, or did Miriam give him his own bottle?
Twenty lashes.
Should have been thirty.
No one can survive thirty.
Fuck.
“I know you got lashes,” Jasper says.
I sit up straight. “What—why would you think that?”
“For the drawing,” he says without turning to face me.
My heart is suddenly beating too fast. “What drawing?”
Jasper maneuvers around until he’s facing me. If it wasn’t for the moonlight streaming through our tiny window, I wouldn’t have seen him rolling his eyes at me.
“The one of Rutherford banging you.”
I say nothing as my cheeks start to warm up.
I’d forgotten about Cass’s prank. “Yeah. So what?”
“He likes it, you know.”
“What, the drawing?”
“Beating people,” Jasper says through a world-weary sigh. “He gets off on it.”
He…what? I’ve heard some strange things before, but that? It doesn’t make any sense. And Zachary might be cold and calculating, but…a sadist?
“I don’t think he—”
“He loves beating people as much as he hates gays.” The whites of Jasper’s eyes shine in the moon’s silver glow. “If you don’t believe me, try telling him you’re a lesbian. You won’t be sitting for a week.”
Jasper turns around again.
Even if I could speak, what the fuck am I supposed to say to that?
I need air.
I’m already in my pajamas—yoga pants and a tank top—so I grab my threadbare dressing gown from the foot of the bed where it keeps my feet warm in this ice-box of a room, shove my feet into the fur-lined boots I use as slippers, and shuffle out of the door.
For a while after dinner there was quite a lot of traffic in the hallway. Boys coming and going, laughing and roughhousing. But now all the doors are closed, and the passage is quiet.
Cass came by about half an hour after I’d gotten into bed. It was the first time I’d heard him call ‘lights out’ since I’ve arrived. I’d almost peed myself at the thought that he would slip into my room, but I guess he wouldn’t risk it in case Jasper was there.
I use the restroom before heading back to my room.
I feel sorry for Jasper. It sucks that he and Perry ended up in a place like this, where their relationship is considered a cardinal sin. I wish I could tell him Zachary doesn’t feel that way.
Maybe Jasper and Perry can be open about who they are when they leave Saint Amos. I’ve never had an issue with other people’s sexuality. If you love someone, truly love someone, then things like gender shouldn’t matter.
That’s the one thing I’d admired about my parents. You could tell they were wholly devoted to each other. They weren’t passionate lovers or anything like that—I’ve only heard them making love once, and it only lasted a few minutes. But they spent every moment they could together. I guess my mother’s miscarriages brought them closer together. They happened way before I was born, but I’m sure they played havoc on the marriage. Luckily they tried one last time before she had a hysterectomy, else I wouldn’t be here.
To hear them tell it, God was the one who saw them through those dark times.
I think it was love. A love so strong, it could survive anything. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that they chose each other—and God—over me the night of the accident. I was never