I didn't sleep.
Every time I closed my eyes, I felt his hands on me. His mouth on my neck. The sound of his voice telling me to let go. And then the shame would roll in again, hot and suffocating, and I'd be wide awake staring at the ceiling.
By the time the sun came up, I felt hollow. Empty. Like something had been scraped out of me during the night and I didn't know how to fill the space.
I stayed in my room as long as I could. Listened to the sounds of the house waking up—footsteps downstairs, voices I didn't recognize, the hum of a vacuum somewhere in the distance. The cleaning crew, probably. Erasing the evidence of last night like it never happened.
Maybe I could do the same. Pretend it was a dream. Pretend I hadn't let him touch me like that, make me fall apart like that, while his friends were just down the hall.
My stomach growled.
I couldn't hide forever.
The stairs felt longer than usual. Each step was an effort, my legs still heavy from the sleepless night, my chest tight with something I didn't want to name. I kept my eyes on my feet, counting the steps, trying to prepare myself for whatever was waiting at the bottom.
The kitchen was bright when I walked in. Winter sunlight streaming through the windows, catching on the marble countertops, making everything look clean and new. Two women I didn't recognize were wiping down surfaces, speaking to each other in low voices that stopped when they saw me.
"Morning, miss," one of them said. "There's breakfast on the island if you're hungry."
"Thanks."
I grabbed a plate. Toast. Fruit. Things I could eat without thinking about. I was reaching for the orange juice when I heard footsteps behind me.
I knew it was him before I turned around.
He walked past me like I wasn't there. Opened the fridge, grabbed a water bottle, closed it again. He was wearing a grey t-shirt and black joggers, his hair still messy from sleep, and he looked completely unbothered. Relaxed. Like last night hadn't happened at all.
I waited for him to say something. A good morning. An acknowledgment. Anything.
He unscrewed the cap, took a long drink, and scrolled through his phone with his other hand.
Nothing.
I stood there holding my plate, feeling stupid, feeling small, feeling like I was seventeen again and waiting for a boy to tell me I mattered.
He looked up. Our eyes met for half a second. Then he looked back at his phone and walked out of the kitchen.
That was it.
I ate my breakfast alone at the island while the cleaning women worked around me. The toast tasted like cardboard. The fruit was too sweet. I forced it down anyway because I needed something to do with my hands, something to focus on that wasn't the ache spreading through my chest.
What had I expected? For him to pull me aside and talk about it? To acknowledge what happened between us, what he did to me, how he made me feel?
He was drunk. I was drunk. It didn't mean anything to him.
I should have known that. Should have felt it in the way he sent me upstairs like I was a problem to be managed. In the way he fixed my clothes and walked away without looking back.
I was so stupid.
I spent the day in the painting room.
The door had a lock on it—I'd never used it before, but I turned it now. Needed the barrier. Needed to know that no one could walk in on me, not Margaret, not the cleaning crew, not him.
The canvas from before was still there. Those dark colors, that half-formed shape I still couldn't identify. I picked up a brush and tried to work, but my hands wouldn't cooperate. Everything I put down looked wrong. Angry. Chaotic in a way that felt too revealing.
I gave up after an hour. Sat on the floor with my back against the wall, knees pulled up to my chest, and stared at nothing.
The shame was still there. Quieter now, but present. Sitting in my stomach like something I'd swallowed that refused to digest.
I kept thinking about the bet.
Two years ago. Marcus. The boy I thought loved me.
We'd been together for three months when it happened. Three months of dates and texts and him telling me I was special, different, not like other girls. I believed him because I wanted to believe him, because he was popular and handsome and he chose me.
The night of the party, he'd asked me to go somewhere private. Said he wanted to be alone with me. I was nervous but excited, that fluttery feeling in my chest that I thought was love.
Afterwards, I thought we were closer. Thought I'd given him something meaningful, something that mattered.
I found out three days later that the whole thing was a bet.
His friends had dared him to get with me. To see how far the good girl would go. He'd recorded it without me knowing and shared it with them as proof.
By the end of the week, half the school had seen the video.
I remembered the way they'd looked at me. The whispers that followed me down hallways. The way my best friend had turned her back on me like I was contagious, like being seen with me would infect her too.
And now, here I was. Different country. Different boy. Same pattern.
Letting someone use me because I was too weak to say no. Too desperate for connection, for touch, for someone to want me even if it was only for a moment.
Asher didn't even have to work for it. Didn't have to pretend to like me first. One party, one dare, one kiss, and I was his for the taking.
What did that make me?
I already knew the answer.
Evening came slowly.
I forced myself to leave the painting room eventually. Hunger won out over pride, and the house had gone quiet with the cleaning crew gone and Margaret off for the night.
The kitchen was dim when I walked in. I didn't bother turning on more lights, just moved by the glow of the under-cabinet lighting, reaching for leftovers in the fridge.
"Didn't see you all day."
I nearly dropped the container in my hands.
He was sitting at the island. Same spot as always. Phone face-down in front of him, a glass of something amber beside it. Whiskey, maybe.
"I was painting," I said.
"For twelve hours?"
"I lost track of time."
He didn't respond. Just watched me as I moved around the kitchen, heating up food, grabbing a fork, doing everything I could to avoid looking at him.
I sat at the far end of the island. As much distance as I could manage without being obvious about it.
The silence was suffocating.
I couldn't take it anymore.
"About last night—" I started.
"We were drunk." He cut me off before I could finish. His voice was flat. Bored. "It didn't mean anything."
I stared at him.
He picked up his glass, took a sip, set it back down. Didn't look at me.
"Okay," I said.
"Okay?"
"That's what I was going to say. That it didn't mean anything."
A lie. We both knew it. But I wasn't going to sit here and beg for something he clearly didn't want to give.
"Good." He stood up, pocketed his phone. "Then we're on the same page."
He walked out.
I sat there for a long time after, my food growing cold in front of me, my chest aching with something I refused to call disappointment.
This was better. Cleaner. No complicated feelings, no messy entanglements, no expectations that would only lead to more hurt.
We were step-siblings. Our parents had just gotten married. Whatever happened last night was a mistake fueled by alcohol and proximity and nothing else.
It didn't mean anything.
I repeated it to myself as I threw away my uneaten food. Repeated it as I climbed the stairs to my room. Repeated it as I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, waiting for sleep that wouldn't come.
It didn't mean anything.
Maybe if I said it enough times, I'd start to believe it.