Page 538 of Lessons in Cruelty

Smiling, I reach for his shoulder.

I wonder how high he’s going to jump when I touch him?

I hope he squeals like a girl, then I can lord it over him every time he⁠—

Kai’s shoulders jolt once, almost like he’s coughing. Then a raw, broken sob rips out of him.

I pull my hand back, fingers curling into a tight fist against my breastbone.

What the fuck?

Another sob, this one more harrowing than the first.

Jesus, it sounds like he’s dying.

Kai’s back bows, his head falling into his hands, elbows on his knees. It muffles his sobs, but seems to intensify the shaking in his body.

I cringe away, horrified that I’m still skulking in the dark, witnessing such a private moment. Every sob is an emotional gut punch. Soon, my eyes are brimming with secondhand despair.

I don’t dare move.

Don’t dare announce that I’m here.

What the hell was I thinking?

I want to scream at myself for just sitting next to him while he crumbles into pieces. What the hell was I thinking? I jerked off to my best friend while he was shattering. Who does that?

Ten, maybe fifteen minutes later, those awful sounds taper off. Kai sniffs, drags his hand over his face, and slowly collapses onto his side. Slowly, with his back to me, he curls into a fetal position, shudders, and passes out.

I want to go. Desperately so.

But I can’t leave him after what I just saw.

I don’t know what the fuck he’s going through, and he might not know I’m here, but maybe…maybe he does know.

Like how I always knew when he’d follow me home from school. The first few times it happened, it made me mad he thought I couldn’t look after myself. But the shortest route home was also the dodgiest, and more than once I regretted turning down that alley between the factories.

Looking back, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t still be around if Kai hadn’t made sure I got home safe.

So I’m staying. Watching. Making sure he’s safe, just how he made sure I was safe.

I’m so tired, so drained, that it only takes a few minutes of listening to his slow, steady breathing before I slip away into sleep.

The sun is shining and birds are tweeting happily outside when an arm slides around my waist and drags me across the bed until I’m nestled against Kai’s warm, hard body.

“When did you get here?” Kai rasps in my ear.

My eyes flutter open to take in the warm light suffusing his room.

“Not long ago,” I lie.

“How’d you get in?”

“Through the window.”

“You what?” Kai chuckles—throaty and warm—into my ear. “You could have broken your neck, Heavenly.”

It’s such a fucking wholesome sound compared to those I’ve recently been subjected to. Bastian whispering filth. Kai growling about what a slut I am.