Page 115 of Love Takes Home

“She is. She wants to check in on the kids, anyway.”

“Good.”

The door opens, and Claire sticks her head out. “I think you all need to come see this.”

The look on her face barters no argument, and we all follow her back into the room. Ginny looks pale on the bed, and as soon as I register her, I hear it. Trish is holding the phone out towards us.

“How are you going to explain all of this?”

“That’s easy. And also the fun part. See, your blood is going to be all over this room. You went crazy and destroyed everything because of the guilt you’ve been feeling, taking your own life in the process.”

"Why am I killing myself?”

“Well, you realized that the greatest mistake of your life was walking away from me and when you tried to get me back, I turned you down.”

“And absolutely no one is going to believe that.”

“You don’t get to walk away from me without my fucking permission!”

“Enough,” I say, hoping someone will turn it off.

Trish pauses it, but Ginny speaks up. “No. You need to hear the next part. Please continue, Trish.”

Trish looks from Ginny to me, and I nod. If Ginny’s strong enough to listen, so am I. I hope. Trish pushes play again, and the conversation continues.

“And people with a broken heart do crazy things, like destroy what’s around them.”

“Again, not a single person is going to believe that bullshit.”

“I can’t help that you no longer have the will to live without me.”

“Well, that’s kind of pathetic. You could at least come up with something better.”

“I don’t need to come up with something better. Because it doesn’t matter.”

“What doesn’t matter?”

“At the end of the day, you don’t matter. You’ve been nothing but a pain in my ass since I met you. You were so fucking desperate for a little bit of love that you bent over backwards to make yourself what I wanted. But then you got too high on your horse and started questioning me. I don’t like being questioned.”

“So, you’re pissed off that I ended us and I have to die for that?”

“No, you fucking bitch, you have to die because you and your fucking Scooby Gang were getting too close to a truth I don’t want you to know. And if you’re out of the fucking picture, they’ll be too fucking sad to worry about what I’m doing.”

“But you just said you don’t do the dirty work. You’re going to kill me?”

“I thought I could make an exception this one time.”

Ginny nods to Trish, who stops the video. I feel sick to my stomach, and Davis looks like he wants to go punch something.

“What the fuck?” I say out loud.

“I’d say that lends credence to my earlier theory,” Sammy practically snarls. He doesn’t look like he’s in a much better place than any of us right now.

“You really need to hear all of it,” Ginny says, still whispering. “But I don’t need to. I remember everything.”

“Why don’t you boys go to the cafeteria or take a walk outside?” Claire asks in her way.

The 'I’m giving you the appearance of a choice, but you’re going to end up doing what I say, so save your breath and don’t fight me because I’ll win' look.

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