Page 76 of Dirty Roulette
Payton: I don’t believe you.
Brody: Don’t believe me? He filmed this last week with her.
There’s another stupid link sent to me. Temptation dares me to click on it. My thumb trembles, my heart bleeding out with a knife Freddy Kruger chased me with. Dumb me opens up the tab to a video, and Ryder’s there with Brittni on his bed. He’s pinning her hands above her head. Her tan legs curl around his hips as he thrusts into her. They’re aggressive, she’s loud, and he’s cussing about how good she feels. The time on the video is an hour and six minutes.
My stomach doubles over within itself. I skim through it. There is no way I can watch the entire thing. It’s a razor blade to my heart, peeling back layers one slice at a time. She’s riding him, he’s taking her from behind, then her legs on his shoulders.
The only thing I can think of doing is turning off my phone, changing my number, packing, and leaving. I crawl over to the closet, pushing aside the mountain of clothes until I find my duffle bag. Anything that belongs to me, I stuff into it without even folding anything.
There isn’t anyone who can drive me home, and my only other option is paying for a ride. As I shake violently, I type in the address while Brody keeps sending me links and pictures.
A driver picks up the ride and is only a couple of minutes away. When it pings, they are outside. I throw the duffle bag over a shoulder and make a run for it down the hallway.
“Oh look, it’s Trash running away!” A sassy squeaky voice hollers.
Pounding feet stampeded behind me. “Come back, Trash. We won’t bite!” It’s Brittni and her stupid little preppy gang that hasn’t figured out how to grow up. I jog down the flight of stairs with them closing in behind me.
The concrete is wet and slippery. When I reach the final step, I slip falling to the ground. A throbbing pain surges through my knee, and drops of red liquid spill onto the sidewalk.
The headlights of a red car sit on the side of the building. I clamber into a run and race to the back door, opening it and throwing myself in.
A group of guys came down the steps laughing. Punching each other in the chests, shaking shoulders in complete hysteria. Brittni and Autumn follow behind them, leaning over the rails and flipping me the bird.
“Are you okay?” The driver asks, staring at me through the rearview mirror with furrowed brows.
“Yeah...” I lie, which is turning into pure muscle memory. “I’m fine.” With a hand, I wipe my cheek. Not a single word I say is true at this point. I’m not okay. All I want to do is go back to the trailer park and rot like my destiny calls me to.
***
Banging a fist on the front door at three in the morning is embarrassing. Mum wraps a robe around her naked self while answering. Cold eyes pull my heart down like gravity.
“God Damnit, Payton! It’s three in the morning!”
“I know!” I cry back.
I climb up the three narrow stairs into the trailer and storm down the creaky hall to my bedroom. The mattress is still stripped, and the pillow is worn and used up. I collapse to the one thing I know is real. My fingers burrow into the fabric as I finally let go, sobbing.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Mum asks, standing in the doorway with the dim hallway light bleeding in.
“Nothing! I just wanted to come home!”
“I told you to watch yourself. What kind of mess did you get tangled into?”
“I didn’t get into anything! I just don’t wanna be there anymore!” I sob like a two-year-old, clinging the pillow to my chest as if it’s the only thing in the world that’s going to save me.
Mum storms up and yanks the pillow from my grasp. “I can’t hear you when you cry like that!”
“College was a stupid idea! I belong here so I can rot and smell like the cat lady down the street.”
“Stop that!” She smacks the top of my head. “What the hell is wrong with you talking like that? I might live in a trailer but it doesn’t make me less of a person. Whatever is going on, let's make it a tomorrow problem. Now go to sleep.”
Mum leaves the room, and the linen closet creaks open. She comes back into the room with a thick crocheted blanket she made and tosses it to the bed.
“What's going on?” Rey mutters outside the door as they shuffle away to the bedroom on the other side of the mobile home.
“I’m not sure, I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”
I’m a lying piece of shit. I’d be lucky to meet a friend down at the gates of hell because that’s exactly where I’m going. Guilt washes over me and drowns me until somehow my eyes close, and I fall asleep. Blackness envelops me and my brain goes dark. For those hours nothing touches me, not a single thought, and I wish it lasted longer. When my eyes unfasten, it feels like I only got five minutes of sleep.
