All Chapters of CRAVING MY BULLY STEPBROTHER : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

SIENNA“Fuck, why are they so boring today?” The problem with watching people was that eventually you started seeing things they didn't know they were showing.I had been watching Lucas Graham for two years. I knew his patterns the way you knew the layout of a room you had crossed in the dark so many times. The way his jaw shifted when something bothered him. I knew all of it.And for two years none of it had ever been pointed at someone like Isabelle Barrett.That was the part I couldn't file anywhere sensible.Tuesday I sat in the library three tables back and watched.Wren slid into the seat beside me with her coffee and immediately followed my eyeline.“You're doing it again, the whole watching or spying thing.” She set her cup down.“I'm studying for a test, I don't know what you're talking about,” I replied.“You haven't opened your bag or your books. And since when does Sienna study?”I looked at the table across the room. Lucas with Cole, laptop open, apparently working. Isab

ISABELLE I woke up to the grey light and the sound of rain that had decided to finish what it started. I didn't move. The couch and the foil blanket. The emergency exit sign still casting its red light across the ceiling. Then I saw Lucas sitting at the other end of the couch where he had been all night, his head dropped back against the cushion, asleep finally, his jacket still on. My hand was loosely around the edge of his sleeve. I looked at that for a moment. Then I carefully let go and sat up; he didn't stir; he was deep into his sleep. I sat in the early grey light and looked at him sleeping. Nothing had happened last night. And yet something had changed so completely that the room felt like a different place from the one we had entered. After a few minutes, the lock clicked open. The building power cycled back with a low hum, and the corridor lights flickered on. Lucas's eyes opened immediately. He looked at the ceiling, then at me, already sitting up with my bag on

LUCASJust like I predicted.Sienna found me the next day. It was quite early; 7 am. I saw her waiting at the exact spot I usually parked my car.It made me wonder how creepy she could be."Walk with me, please,” she stopped me.“I have practice in twenty minutes."“This won't take twenty minutes, I promise. It is important,” she pleaded.“Five minutes,” I muttered, joining her.The path along the east building was empty at this hour. She stopped halfway along it and turned to face me.“I have proof,” she said out loud. I tilted my head confused as I stared at her.“I mean, I have proof of what was said in the common room,” she smirked. “I recorded part of it.”I kept my expression level as she spoke. But deep inside of me, I wanted to yell at her for being such a creep.“Through the gap at the bottom of the door, the acoustics in that corridor are better than you'd think.”I scoffed, crossing my arms. "Okay, play it; I want to hear everything we said.” “Wh… What do you mean?” She st

ISABELLETyler texted the next morning.*There's a place on Meridian. Small bakery shop, back room, usually empty on weekday mornings. Meet me at ten?*I typed back yes and put my phone down and sat at my desk for a moment with stillness.So, I got dressed. I passed Lucas's door on the way out and I went downstairs and left without breakfast.The place on Meridian was exactly what he had described. Small, warm and a woman at the counter who didn't look up when the door opened. Three tables in the front room, all occupied by people with laptops and no interest in anyone else.The back room had two tables and they were both empty.Tyler was already at the one nearest the window, a muffin on the table, jacket over the back of his chair. He saw me come in and didn't smile in the usual way, so, I sat across from him.He pushed the muffin towards me, I wrapped my hands around it. We sat there for a moment."I'm going to say something," he said. "And I need you to let me finish before you wr

ISABELLEI couldn't believe I had my first boyfriend and my first heart break in one month. It started small by Monday, I ate half of breakfast and told myself I wasn't hungry. Then I started to skip lunch because the cafeteria felt like too much noise for the amount of space I had inside me. I sat in front of my online language class and watched the screen and absorbed nothing and closed the laptop after twenty minutes and lay on my bed until the session ended.I knew what was happening. I had been here before, in the first year after the accident, when the world had become too loud and too present and my body had started making decisions on behalf of a mind that had run out of capacity. I knew the specific texture of it. The way food stopped making sense. The way sleep became something that happened around you rather than to you.I knew it and I watched it happen anyway because stopping it would have required energy I was using for other things.Like lying and staring at ceiling t