Page 165 of Craving Consequences

I stand with sweat and forest still clinging to my skin and hair. Tears dry on my cheeks. I stare at the hallway. The coat rack still holding my dad’s summer blazer. The rug Lauren and I picked up at a flea market in Mayfield. The photograph of my parents and me on the side table from our vacation to Maine.

It hits me then.

Everything all at once. An onslaught of guilt, pain, sorrow, bone deep agony.

The keys clatter from my fingers with a metallic rattle that explodes through my system. My legs fold. There’s no warning, just an absolute collapse as I hit the floor hard on knees alreadyscarred from my earlier abuse. My good palm catches me, and still, the collision rattles across and down my injured shoulder. Pain bolts through the fracture, but I feel nothing as I’m squeezed from all sides.

The sobs rip through me. Big, gasping, hollowing sounds that tear from my throat in heaving pants. It’s distant through the sea of blood roaring between my ears. The high shriek of whistles announcing the dismantling of my sanity.

My good hand fists into the rug like it can somehow keep me from falling apart. I’m trembling, a violent quake I can’t stop as waves of realization slam up over me.

I was almost raped.

I nearly died.

I committed a crime so heinous that if anyone ever found out ... if Lachlan ever...

I vomit.

The hot explosion of my stomach empties across the back of my hand. It soaks into the rug. I heave and gasp around the second attack.

Still, even through the assault on my already tender gut, it’s not remorse for my actions that have me soaked in sweat and blinded by tears. It’s the knowledge that Lachlan will never forgive me. He will hate me on a level I may deserve. My fear has nothing to do with a lifetime in prison, but the possibility of him looking at me like I’m dead to him.

My breath wheezes around the stuttering hitch in my chest. Panic claws up my throat and I try to process through it, but I can’t. My vision tunnels. The house spins. I feel like I’m dying in slow motion, sinking into something black and bottomless.

And there’s no one to blame this time.

I made my choices. I created this version of myself out of the betrayal I had to endure and ... what? It resolved nothing.

I lost Lauren.

I lost Van and Lachlan.

I lost my town and community.

But Bron is gone,the voice in my head points out, maybe to be helpful, but all I can think in return isso what?

Was it worth it? Did he simply win in the end? It’s hard to say when I’m the one sitting in my own sick, battered, bruised and completely alone.

You saved a lot of other women,the voice persists.

There is that, I suppose.

It hadn’t been my intention in the beginning. I hadn’t been aware of that side of Bron when I wrote my list. My goal was to remove him from my life, cut him out like a cancer. I wanted him isolated and alone, torn from everything and everyone. I wanted to take it all away the way he took my best friend, my money, time, energy and self-worth. I wanted tomentally dismantle him the same way he dismantled my confidence and self-esteem.

So, I deliberately showed his true colors to the town. To Lachlan. I intentionally goaded him, let him explode before an audience. I made sure it went on record that he was unhinged, abusive, and violent.

I took away his chances of getting the full-time position at Hearth Realty. I made sure the person he hated most got what Bron wanted, even if it cost me my home.

I took away his money like he took away mine. Technically, I suppose I got my money back. Most of it. I knew Lachlan would never let that slide. He’s a proud man with morals. And I knew he had access to Bron’s inheritance.

Once his job was gone, his home with Lachlan, his income stream, I made sure everyone in town knew what a deadbeat piece of shit he was, destroying any chance he had of rebuilding in Jefferson. Not even the friends he would mock me in front of would be brave enough to go against the hive.

Even if today never happened, even if he hadn’t done what he did, Bron’s time was at an end. He made the mistake of letting that temper drive the last nail in his coffin.

And mine.

I crawl to my feet, feeling no better, but coming to a morbid sort of acceptance. The quote fromConfuciussprings to mind as I stagger lamely to the stairs.

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