Page 70 of Little Paper Games
She slapped her hands down on the top of the table and turned on me again.
“Donotcall me that! For the last time!” She was screaming. I took a long look at the woman before me. She wasn’t just infuriated and being a shrew. Her eyes looked just as panicked as they did pissed.
“Okay.” I put my hands up in defeat. “I won’t call you that. But I seriously need you to talk to me. Tell me. Tell me everything. What happened in high school?”
She sat down, as defeated as I felt, in the kitchen chair. I stayed exactly where I was, not wanting to give her the opportunity to bolt.
“I’m talking about what happened in my sophomore year. With Christian and Devin?” She looked at me as though that made it all clear.
“Keep going.” I didn’t want to agitate her further.
“At the fall formal?” she added, waiting for me to understand. I racked my brain, trying to figure out what she was talking about.
“My junior year. They had that corny theme. Real hokey decorations. You wore that deep purple dress.” I thought back, trying to figure out what happened between us that night. I certainly had noticed her. She looked beautiful, but she was still a pain in the ass. Christian and Devin both had an unofficial thing for her. They’d had one since about seventh grade. They used to tease me about it constantly.
“Yes. You took Adalyn to the dance. You guys went off in that weird corn maze…” she trailed off again. I remember it vaguely, but nothing was shooting off warning bells on something that happened that night.
“Were you upset that I took her into the corn maze? That’s odd, Kenna, but—”
“I’m mad that you took her there while you sent your stupid cronies after me!” she spat at me, standing up again, slapping her hands on the table. Her breathing was coming in fast pants.
“What are you —” but she wouldn’t let me get a word in.
“You sent them after me! Was it some sick joke? Your way of getting back at me for being a pain in the ass kid? Jesus, Jude! I was barely sixteen years old!” she cried. There were tears in her eyes, but the pain and anger I saw there outweighed everything else.
Sick joke? Sent them after her? I shook my head, thinking the worst.
“Kenna, did they…” I trailed off, unable to put those words actually out into the universe.
“You know what they did!” I felt like my blood was running cold.
“They what? They raped you?” I felt the bile rising up in my throat. My hands were clammy and cold.
“No! Of course not! They hurt me!” Her tears were running down her face now.
“What!? What happened? Why didn’t you tell me?!” I hollered back. She flinched away.
“Tell you? You’re the one who set it up! Why would I tell you!?” I began pacing the floor, listening to her words.
“I knewnothingabout this, Kenna! I’m serious! What the hell happened?” I knew that Christian and Devin had a thing for her, but why would they hurt her?
“I don’t believe you.” The look on her face when her eyes met mine cut me to the core. She didn’t believe me. Not at all. “Those two told me that you had planned it out. They hurt me. They teased me. They wrote words on me. They cut my dress up. And they left me there. Huddled in the locker room. I was humiliated.”
I sank to the floor as she spoke. The emotion and pain turned her voice raspy and high pitched. My stomach rolled. Why would they do that to her? What was the motive? And why had no one said a word all these years?
“Kenna, I honestly had no idea. They wrote on you? How did they hurt you?” My voice was gravelly, the nausea and the unshed tears making my entire being feel clogged up.
“I don’t want to say,” she whispered.
“Please tell me,” I begged. I could barely look at her. She thought I was behind this? She started to walk away, and I let out a pained sound that stopped her.
“I’ll be right back. To answer your question,” she spoke again. The pure hurt and anger and despair in her voice killed me.
When she returned with her laptop, I got worried.
“What’s that for?” I asked, feeling the dread rise. She didn’t answer me. She just opened her computer and pulled up what looked to be a password protected folder. She opened it, and turned it to me. What I saw made me sick.
They were pictures of her from that night. She had a towel clenched around her body and words were written on her in what looked to be black sharpie.
