The Vows We Break - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,6

a shitty example.

Shoving some of my takeout her way, I bribe her with Kung Pao chicken, and murmur, “Please? I get a little lonely—”

Her eyes widen at that, and she stops staring at her salad.

Yeah, she’s eating salad.

While I’m having takeout.

Not because she doesn’t have the money. Nope, she ordered this.

Because her dad calls her fat.

I mean, I guess she’s big boned, but she’s gorgeous. Like her bright red hair is pretty much ‘STOP’ sign worthy. If I was gay, I’d gape at her for her hair alone. Then, she has big boobs, a curvy butt, and she has the taste to pull it off—even if she always shrouds at least one part of her body in something massive to cover it up.

She should have all the guys around here panting after her like the dogs they are.

Instead, it’s like she’s Typhoid Mary.

Sheesh.

I have to help the girl, or she’ll be a virgin until she dies.

Nudging her in the side, I mutter, “Go on, have some. There’s too much for me.”

There isn’t.

That’s a whopper of a lie, but I don’t think I can be condemned for it.

She needs me.

She probably needs me more than anyone else I’ve ever come across—well, except for the boy I tried to save when I was seventeen.

I only found out in the obituaries that his name was David McKenna.

To me, he’ll always be ‘the boy I failed.’

I refuse to fail with Diana. Whatever her dad is doing to her, whether it’s just undermining her confidence—because, yeah, that’s a ‘just’ in this scenario—or if he’s hurting her physically, mentally, or sexually, I have to figure it out.

Have to break the seal on what’s happening to her.

“You’re never alone. You have so many friends... how can you be lonely?”

She speaks so softly that she might as well whisper. I swear, I need an ear horn just to hear most of the stuff she says.

“Never seen Lost In Translation?” I waggle my chopsticks at her, already mourning the Kung Pao I offered her, which she tentatively bites in case I Rohypnoled it or something. “That was like, proof on how you can be in a city full of people but feel totally alone.”

She blinks at me, then her disbelief starts to shine through. “You’re too sanguine to be lonely.”

I pshaw at that. “It’s a crime to be egregious? Ebullient? Friendly?”

Her lips twitch. “Not a crime, no, but still, you like your own space. I know you do. There are a bunch of people you could choose from for a roommate.”

I shrug. “I don’t want them. They might stink. Or fart every time they eat ice cream.” My brow puckers. “I don’t think I could deal with that.”

“You mean you want a roommate who isn’t lactose intolerant and you’re willing to specify that during the interview?”

Her lips have started twitching, and I feel like I’ve seen the light of day at last. Every time we get together, it takes me a good ninety minutes to break her out of her shell.

I hate having to do that. Hate it with a passion. Not because it’s boring or tiring—which it is. It’s really draining—but because whatever he does to her? It makes her turn into a tortoise.

“You don’t fart when we eat ice cream,” I tease.

“And that’s why I’d be the perfect roommate?” She grins at me, revealing the most perfect teeth I’ve ever seen. I know she isn’t lying when she says she didn’t have braces, but fuck, this girl was blessed with a banging bod, teeth that belong on an advertisement for toothpaste, hair that should be on a shampoo commercial... in fact, she should be a model. Period.

Yet it’s like she has an arrow overhead telling guys she has Chlamydia.

What the ever-loving eff?

Huffing inwardly at the thought, I chivvy, “You know you love the spare room here.”

I found a great place off campus, and because my grandparents are fucking awesome and are paying my rent, I don’t actually need a roommate, but I like the idea of being able to send some money back to them.

Mostly, they just don’t want me to be influenced by the wrong sort.

They don’t know, of course, that I attract all kinds of people—good influences and bad—but they never affect me.

I affect them.

But my personal space is important to me. Really important. It’s the only place I can be myself, where I don’t have to...

Well, do this.

But that she knows me well enough to recognize how important my personal space is tells me