Page 73 of Let Me
This campus is beautiful. All stately brick buildings and neatly trimmed grass, students buzzing around the brick-lined walkways, a gentle hum of voices in the air. Even during the summer, this place isalive. I hear the church bell toll in the distance and remember why I’m doing this.
To preemptively save myself.
This education was never mine to have, really. It was all borrowed time here, borrowed from Rolland’s vile mercy on my reputation. When I sign the withdrawal paperwork, the registrar asks, kindly, if there’s anything she can do to change my mind.
I almost laugh out loud.
Instead, I just shake my head and leave. My new shift at work doesn’t start until morning, and while I could look for another job now, I just want to breathe.
I sit at a little stone bench outside of a fast food joint I can’t afford, and connect to the free wireless internet to save my data, scrolling through job listings that fit the hours I have left in my day before and after the gym.
But then I get two texts from a recently saved number, and my heart clenches. One is a video.
A fucking video.
The world seems to disappear around me, and for a moment, I stay in the mobile browser looking for jobs, not opening the messages. I don’t want to open them. Because Benji wouldn’t be sending me any video that could possibly mean somethinggoodfor me. My fingers shake as I open the message.
Look over your shoulder, little girl. We’re going to find out who this is.
I put a trembling hand to my mouth as I press play, even though I already know…I already know from the still shot, and I feel like I’m going to faint. It’s a forward from a number I don’t know, meaning Rolland sent it out again. Dropping out of school was the right idea.
I mute the sound, because I don’t want to hear it, but I can’t look away. Even though I lived it. Even though I was there, I can’t look away. I can’t stop watching the night I ran away from a bad man, only to run into the arms of a monster.
Benji doesn’t send anything else and I cradle my head in my hands, right in front of everyone sitting outside on campus, and I let the tears fall. Because Caden probably thinks it was me again, and if Rolland has sent it, it’s only a matter of time before he tells him who it really is. And if Caden hated me before, well, now…
Now there’s no going back.
THIRTY-THREE
Present
“WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?” Benji asks me for the hundredth time.
I can’t sit still long enough to think about what I want to do, and I’m pacing back and forth before the pool, the sky darkening overhead. Benji is the picture of calm at the patio set, legs stretched out before him, ankles crossed. Only his eyes move as he watches me.
“Kill them both,” I manage to say in answer to his question.
That’s an understatement. I want to tear them both apart. I want to rip them limb from limb. I thought I’d never be able to actually hurt Riley. I thought I’d never be able to give her any pain she didn’t want. But I thought wrong.
The video came anonymously, again, and I find it hard to believe it’s a coincidence Riley just went back to the States pissed off at me, and I get this shit again.
She looked so young in it. Not that she looks old now, but there was an innocence about her, which is ironic, considering what was happening. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it, even though I had already memorized all of it. Every second of the minutes-long footage.
But I’ve got my own footage.
I stop pacing and bring my knuckles to my mouth, then shake my head. “Thatbitch.” The words come out hoarse, and suddenly, I don’t think I can stand. I sink to my knees. Right in front of Benji. In a flash, he comes up behind me, arms wrapped around my chest, and for a moment, we stay that way, two grown men and he’s holding me up.
Then he helps me to my feet and into a chair. He doesn’t sit down, just stands over me. I’ve spent all day wanting her back, thinking of how I could get to her, of how I could have her forgive me for what I did.
Now this.
I want to throw up.
I think I’m going to be sick.
She’s twisted. I’m twisted. I thought that’s why we were supposed to be together. I thought that’s why I’d make her happier than my brother could.
My brother.
