Page 115 of Aftermath
She kept repeating it over and over.
“I’m sorry,” I said, part of me meaning it.
Mallory was my friend, and it still hurt me to know she experienced such pain.
“I had to watch all those couples come to the pub and pretend like they were happy. I had to watch them get drunk and celebrate like everything was fine. It wasn’t fine. Those men would have left them like he left me,” she said, her eyes distant.
I could barely tell if she knew where she was. “I don’t understand why Ethan would help you.”
“He understood,” she said. “I sat there for months at that bar. He cared. He knew what it was like to be left, to be overlooked. I saw the way that women at the pub stared at him and judged him. It wasn’t fair,” she said, shaking her head.
The perfect team. They found comfort in each other, a way to inflict pain on others who had something they never did.
“You used Ethan,” I guessed. “You lied about the code needing to be changed that day, and you used him to deliver the threat.”
She nodded.“I needed you to stop looking.”
“You used him to place that last call?”
“It was easy enough to time the call with when I knew he made his weekly run to the warehouse for Bobby,” she answered and shrugged.
“And the falsified police reports? That was you?” I asked, trying to buy myself time.
“I told you Chris was someone to stay away from. He has more secrets that should stay buried than myself. It was easy enough to find proof and blackmail the sheriff.”
“I’m sorry, I really am, that your fiancé left you, but that isn’t a reason to hurt others. They didn’t deserve that,” I tried, my mind reeling.
“They didn’t deserve the pain. Don’t you see?”
“See what?” I asked.
“I see them,” she insisted. “I saved them. I gave them peace and made sure they never knew the pain I felt.”
It was all coming together.
“I never wanted to be saved,” I argued.
“You needed to be,” she said firmly and shook her head.
“I would’ve left him eventually.”
“He was only going to hurt you,” Mallory insisted. “I saved you.”
My stomach turned, and I held back the growing nausea. “Is that why you stopped?” I asked, my stomach thinking of every last victim who died at Mallory’s hands.
“When I saw how free you were because of what I did to you, I knew I’d fulfilled my purpose,” she said. “All this was meant to bring me to you. I know it was.”
“You knew who I was,” I guessed. “That day at the café when we first met. That wasn’t an accident?”
“Of course not. I knew who you were. I had to know. When you survived, I had to make sure you didn’t go back to him. When I met you, you were so sad. I knew you understood. I knew you felt the same pain as me. That’s why the world brought us together.”
The delusional thoughts only got worse the more I pushed. I tugged gently at the binds holding my hands, but they didn’t budge.
“I believed you, all these years,” I said, feeling the anger festering in my chest. Everything in me screamed at me to have some sense of self preservation, but I couldn’t stop the words tumbling out.
“I trusted you! You were my friend.”
“We still are friends! Can’t you see? I did all of this for you,” she cried.
