More Than This: A More Novella Read Free Page B

been raped, the possibility was still there. And it terrified me, especially as I didn’t remember anything.
    What had I done?
    I’d clearly taken all my clothes of. Had I done it myself? Or had he? If I’d done it myself, had I been the one who’d been forceful towards him? Had I sexually assaulted him?
    If not, if we’d both been into it… now what?
    Jakob was hot, sure, but… I couldn’t imagine pursuing anything more with him. I didn’t want to have sex with him either—and if I had had sex with him, it surely wouldn’t happen again.
    There is one last possibility…
    That we hadn’t had sex at all. But was that plausible when we’d been naked? Or I’d been naked, all I’d seen of him was his bare chest. But I was willing to bet that he’d had nothing on underneath the duvet.
    “Dammit!”
    I drew the duvet up to cover my face, muffling a frustrated sound in it.
    Someone knocked on my door.
    “Maria? Are you awake?”
    I froze.
    It was Iselin.
    “Yeah, come in.” I pushed myself up into a sitting position, but instantly regretted it as my stomach protested wildly.
    Iselin came in, gaze lighting up as she saw me.
    “Could you get me a bucket?” I asked, as I felt the bile slowly rise.
    Her eyes widened, but she dropped something she’d been holding to the floor, and all but ran out of the room.
    She returned with a bucket, and she just managed to thrust it in front of me as the vomit erupted from my throat. I clung to the bucket as I threw up and retched and threw up again.
    “Damn, Maria.” She stroked my long, blonde hair away from my face, holding it up and out of the way of the bucket and my puke. “How much did you have to drink last night?”
    Way too much . But I was too busy retching on an empty stomach to manage to give her an answer.
    Once I stopped being sick, I fell back down on the bed. I wrapped my duvet around me again and groaned miserably.
    Iselin disappeared with the bucket, then came back with a glass of water she made me sip at.
    “I’m never drinking again,” I pledged.
    “So they all say.” She smiled down at me. “So where’d you go last night? You disappeared on me. I figured you went home without telling me. Without your jacket and everything.”
    I blinked at her, then slowly turned my head to look at what she’d dropped on the floor when she first came in.
    It was my jacket.
    “You took my jacket with you?”
    She nodded. “I couldn’t find you, so I figured you went home. I took it with me so you wouldn’t lose it.”
    “Thanks,” I muttered, grateful for the fact she’d thought of me. Still, I hadn’t gone home, had I? I didn’t know what I’d done, besides ended up in bed with Jakob.
    “Do you want me to get you some painkillers? Or something to eat? It might help.”
    Iselin was sweet. She always was. Sweet, kind Iselin, who’d been my best friend for years.
    “I don’t think I can stomach anything.” My stomach roiled by the simple thought. “I’ll just stay here. Sleep the day away. Hopefully I feel better tomorrow. If not, I’m so skipping school.”
    She tilted her head to the side. “I didn’t see you drink that much. We stayed together for a while, and you only had cider with me.”
    Yes, that was right. So where I had got hold of stronger stuff? Because surely I’d had to got hold of it, with my blackout and all.
    Some flashes ran through my mind, of being handed a glass with something clear in it. Of Jakob smiling. But I had no idea if he’d been the one to give me that glass or not.
    “I wish we’d never gone to that after-party.”
    Iselin raised her eyebrows. “Are you feeling that bad? I admit not much happened there, mostly we just sat around talking and drinking, but it was fun. Meeting new people, I mean.”
    Now that Nik, my other best friend, had moved away, I spent all my time with Iselin. We were loners, we didn’t have a group of friends around us. It was just the two of us.
    “I thought you didn’t like