Page 9 of Save Me

Chapter 4

Andie didn’t noticethe coffee mug being held in front of her at first. Wiping the tears from her eyes she squinted at Juliet.

“Sorry, I’m such a mess. I just can’t believe this is happening. Two weeks ago everything was great. I was about to graduate, I had a boyfriend who wasn’t a lying, cheating asshole, and I made bank at the hottest club on the strip. Now I have no boyfriend, no job, and I lost my apartment cause my roommate stiffed me on three month’s rent.”

Her friend winced. “You forgot the possible drug charges.”

Her stomach roiled. “Oh God. Do you think they’ll report me to the cops?”

“I don’t think they have a choice,” Juliet said, sipping at her own mug. “Do you want me to ask Mike when I go in?”

Juliet was also a waitress at Lynx. She wasn’t a close friend, but she did owe Andie her job. The younger woman had been good friends with one of Andie’s cousins. They had both grown up in Las Vegas, but Juliet had a rougher time of it than Andie. She had gotten kicked out of her house as a teenager for being gay, and had bounced around friend’s houses or in shelters.

Technically, Juliet hadn’t been old enough to work at Lynx when she applied. All the staff had to be over twenty-one, but she had gotten a fake ID somewhere. She asked Andie to put in a good word for her with the hiring manager, which she had done. It had been a small gesture on her part, but Juliet was still grateful—enough to give Andie a place to crash since her roommate had bailed on her.

It was a good sign that Juliet was willing to talk to Mike. She had gone through some bad shit at the hands of the men in her family, and Mike was an intimidating motherfucker until you got to know him. Andie was still a little bit nervous around him, but he had obviously earned her friend’s trust.

Andie leaned back on the beat-up couch. It was an alley discard, but as street couches went she’d slept on worse. “Thank you, but if they’re going to the cops then I should do something now, right? Like go talk to them.”

Her friend held her mug closer. “In my experience, going to the cops and expecting them to help you is a bad idea. Maybe getting out of town for a while would be better.”

Andie rubbed her face. “And run away? I get what you mean about the cops, I really do, but if the shit is about to hit the fan maybe I should get out in front of this.”

Juliet raised a brow. “You think the cops are going to believe you when you tell them the drugs just showed up in your locker?”

“I hope so. I mean what else can I tell them? I don’t have a record, and I have a degree now. Or at least I will when I pay my last outstanding library fine. That has to count for something, right?”

Juliet didn’t look convinced. “It would be better still to give them someone else to suspect.”

Andie’s brow creased. “Like who?”

“Like Todd, the shithead you caught banging another girl in the bathroom,” she said, crossing her arms. “He was pissed when you broke up with him wasn’t he? He would totally do something vindictive like this to get back at you.”

Is she serious?

“They weren’t technically banging. Not yet.” Andie tapped her nails against the coffee mug. “You don’t think he’d do something like that? Todd’s not into drugs. He still swims like fifty laps a day. I’ve never seen him do anything stronger than shots. He’s one of those my-body-is-a-temple douchebags.”

Juliet nodded, “Just because he likes to exercise doesn’t mean he’s not selling shit or isn’t above some sort of petty revenge. Doesn’t he have your locker combination? Cause I think I saw him opening it once.”

Andie drank more coffee. “Did you? I don’t know anymore. I don’t think I gave it to him, but I never changed it from the default one Mike gave me, even though he told me I could. I guess I should have. But even so, I’m not sure Todd is the one who did this. He wants to get back together. He’s still texting me, trying to convince me what I saw in the bathroom was totally innocent.”

“And you buy that? You already suspected him of hooking up with other girls. Why else were you dropping in on your nights off?”

Andie stared down into her mug as if contained all the answers. “I was trying to catch him cheating,” she admitted. When she finally had, she’d broken up with him right away. But it was long overdue.

Todd had jerked her around for so long about so many different things—where they ate, what she wore, who she talked to. She wasn't a doormat, however, and she tried to call him on his shit when it came up. But Todd had this knack for convincing her she was the one in the wrong. He was so skilled at it, her thoughts had grown so muddled, she had started to doubt her right to question him.

There was a word for that. Gaslighting. She’d written a paper on it in college, and felt like a fool when she realized she had been experiencing it for months—albeit in a less extreme form.

I’m done with those fucking head games. Maybe she should give the police his name. Todd could be out for revenge.

“I’ll think about mentioning him.” If he hadn’t done it, she was doing him a major disservice. He may have been a crappy boyfriend, but he wasn’t a criminal.

“Think hard,” Juliet said, pointing at her. “You have to look out for yourself, cause in my experience no one else will.” She put down her mug and checked the time on her phone. “I should jump in the shower and get ready for work.”

Andie winced.

“Sorry.” Juliet wrinkled her nose. “I’m sure you’ll get your job back. Or better yet, you can start searching for jobs in nursing.”

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