Page 103 of Lesson Learned

When she doesn’t respond, I try a last-ditch effort. “Did you ever find Marnie, yesterday?”

“He made me give him my phone.”

I lay my hand flat against her door, resting my forehead on the cool surface, wishing I had the magic words to be let inside. To see what he did to get her to comply. To check she doesn’t need help. Medical or otherwise.

“I know, Floss. He texted me pretending to be you, but I promise, he’s not out here.” I glance along the corridor, seeing a break in the flow of foot traffic. “I promise you he’s not in a position to hurt you ever again.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“Please open the door. I don’t want to discuss it out here with everyone walking by me.” She doesn’t respond and the panic that absorbed me yesterday grabs a new foothold. “Don’t you have what you talked about before?” I won’t say the word gun out here, not for nobody. “Can’t you hold it while you let me in?”

I hear a click a moment later, and turn the doorhandle, pushing it slowly inward so I don’t spook her worse than she is, already.

Her hands are clutched around the weapon. Her forefinger is flat against the side, near to the trigger.

She’s shaking so badly, the barrel jerks around, moving in and out of danger zones with every rough inhalation.

I walk inside, turning to shut the door, locking it before I face her again. My arms lift to my sides. “I come in peace.”

Floss gives a harsh laugh, then wipes her dripping nose with her sleeve, swiping at her teary eyes. She lowers the pistol, then places it on her desk before stepping away.

I move to hug her, clasping her firmly and rocking her from side to side, trying to calm her the exact way that Conner calmed me. When I let her go, my eyes scan her from head to toe, checking for damage, injuries, something to support her obvious distress.

There’s nothing physical that I can see but I know all too well how he badly he could harm a girl without leaving a visible trace.

“Did he hurt you?” She tries to pull away, but I don’t let her go, holding onto her hand and squeezing, hoping the gesture offers some comfort. “You can tell me anything. I know what he’s like.”

“This is all my fault,” she says between sobs. “I should’ve left school when he first started up instead of dragging you into my mess.”

“You didn’t drag me anywhere,” I reassure her, pulling her back into a hug so fierce it pulls at my overworked shoulder. “And this isn’t your fault. James did this. He did all of it.”

The words leave my mouth as a reassuring platitude but a second later it hits.

This isn’t my fault.

This isn’t Floss’s fault.

It hits me not as a phrase I give lip service to, but a deep-seated realisation. A new truth that’s impossible to shift.

No matter what my trespasses have been, I didn’t deserve this. I didn’t want it, didn’t welcome it, didn’t invite it into my life to have a natter and a cup of tea.

Sluts get what sluts deserve.

And I shake off that voice too. The opinion of my uncle. A man whose voice I’ve taken far too seriously for far too long. In one giddy instant, I understand that if I wouldn’t take his advice, I shouldn’t wear his criticism.

Me enjoying sex doesn’t hurt anyone. I should take joy where I find it.

And thinking of the people in my life who spark joy, my mind turns to my best friend. The person who’ll be among those most affected by what I’ve done. “Did you ever find Marnie?”

Floss shrivels in my embrace, and I hate it. I wish I could take a moment with James again, to exult in his collapse as I sever something important in his spine, rather than losing the memory to long seconds of blind panic.

I think of Conner, squatting near the body, quietly surveying the damage.

When he shut the bathroom door, James was alive, his injuries probably survivable. When he opened it, James was dead.

And through it all, such calm. Like it was a situation he’d been in a thousand times before and would be in a thousand times more. I accepted his story, how growing up in his family was difficult, brutal, but I hadn’t connected to it.

To draw comparisons to my not fitting in with a group of men only interested in sports and getting the best of each other, isn’t right.

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