Page 62 of Creeping Lily
“I’ve had a lot of time to think about what happened,” he says, slow like each word is deliberate. “I ruined you that night. But you took something from me too. And I’ve been chasing that piece of myself ever since.”
“How?” My voice sharpens, my anger finally pushing through the cracks. “What exactly did I take from you? Because last I checked, you walked away with everything.”
“Not a day goes by I don’t think about you, Lily. About us. About how I was a coward.”
I feel it—his words trying to crawl under my skin. But I’ve learned my lesson. I don’t let him in. Not now.
“You want to talk about cowardice?” I take a step toward him, heat building in my chest until it’s almost choking me. “Cowardice is leaving me to pick up the pieces while you got to disappear and reinvent yourself. Cowardice is pretending you’re here for closure when you just want to poke at old wounds to see if I’ll still bleed for you.”
A muscle in his jaw jumps, but he doesn’t look away.
“You don’t get to waltz back into my life and act like the last few years didn’t happen,” I continue, my voice rising despite the steady stream of students passing us, some slowing to watch. “You don’t get to say my name like it still means anything to you.”
For the first time since he stepped onto campus, Bentley looks like I’ve hit something raw.
“I don’t trust you,” I say finally, every syllable like broken glass. “I don’t trust your lousy timing. I don’t trust your motives. But if you want to talk, I’ll give you twenty minutes. That’s all you get. Then you leave, and I never want to see you again.”
Relief flickers across his face, but I don’t miss the shadow underneath it—the one that says this isn’t about closure at all.
“That’s all I ask,” he murmurs.
But we both know it’s a lie.
My rapist greetsme with a smile.
I don’t use that word often.Rapist.
It’s an ugly, jagged word that sticks in the throat and leaves splinters in the mouth. But right now, it’s the only word that fits. I don’t care that he was the boy I spent every summer with. I don’t care that we once shared secrets under starlight. That boy died the night he committed that one stupid, life-altering act.
And the man in front of me? He’s the ghost that’s been haunting me ever since.
Seeing him here drags it all back—every sound, every smell,every inch of skin I wanted to peel off afterward. I’ve never spoken about that day to anyone except my therapist. She says it’s normal to feel a connection to your attacker if you had a relationship before it happened. That some part of the brain can’t reconcile the before and after.
I’ve never understood that. My connection to Bentley Walker is made of barbed wire and broken glass. Even in his absence, I’ve fought to burn him out of my head and stitch myself back together.
And now here we are.
We meet at a local pizzeria because I chose the most casual, unromantic place I could think of. Bright lights, paper napkins, cheap checkered tablecloths—nothing that could ever be mistaken for intimacy. I’m not here to reminisce. I’m here to cauterize this wound once and for all. After tonight, there’ll be no reason for Bentley Walker to linger in my life.
When I told Justin I’d be meeting Bentley, helost it. And by “lost it,” I mean a full-blown, vein-in-his-neck, pacing-the-room meltdown.
I’d never seen him like that. And yeah, I’ll admit it—his jealousy wrapped around me like a warm coat on a cold day. But Justin doesn’t know the half of it. Bentley is my cross to bear. My mountain to climb. My ghost to exorcise.
I slide into the seat opposite him without a word.
Bentley looks up and smiles like we’re old friends catching up. “Thanks for meeting me.”
I shrug, pretending my stomach isn’t trying to twist itself into knots. He signals the waiter for drinks, and while we wait, the silence between us stretches taut. The guilt gnaws—Justin’s anger, Bethany’s cold shoulder—but I shove it down. I’m here for one thing: answers.
“So,” Bentley says finally, “I never got to ask how you’ve been.”
I let the pause hang, forcing myself to meet his gaze. “I’ve made peace with my past,” I say, my voice harder than I expect. “But your being here… I don’t know how to unpack that.”
His eyes soften, his head tilting like he’s listening to something only he can hear. “I didn’t mean to crash into your life. I wasn’t trying to stir things up with your boyfriend.”
The way he says the word boyfriend has edges—like it’s bait, like he wants me to correct him.
I don’t. I don’t owe him the truth.
