Page 121 of As the Rain Falls
Smaller. Barely visible, crammed between every insult like it’s just an afterthought. Buried like it doesn’t matter. But the lines were traced over and over again with the pen, like someone needed it to be seen.
Nathaniel Rivera is a rapist.
My whole world falls apart in a second.
Someone knows?
Kayla knocks gently on the door. “Cassie? Are you okay? Please, open the door.”
I unlock it without thinking and walk out. She spots the poster on the floor.
“Did you just rip that down? Because, you know, we’re really not allowed to…”
Her voice dies when she sees the writing. Too shocked to say anything, I freeze and stare as her face twists into a grimace, looking pained, like the words physically hurt to look at.
“That’s so disgusting…” she trails off, looking horrified. “Who would even do that?”
I shake my head side to side. “I don’t know.”
“They need to start taking my warnings more seriously.” Kayla traces the surface of the door with her fingers. “I keep telling theadministration that harassment is becoming a huge problem, but no one ever listens to me.”
“Do you have any markers on you?” my own voice comes out hollow.
She blinks, caught off guard. “What?”
“A permanent marker. I need one.”
“Oh,” she hesitates before opening her purse, then starts digging through her stuff. “I even have glittery ones, if you—”
“Anything black?”
She hands me one. I take it, march back into the stall, and start scribbling over the words. I press hard. Too hard. The marker squeaks.
“What are you doing?” Kayla asks, alarm creeping into her voice. “Cassie!”
“What does it look like?”
“Wait, we should be telling your dad! Maybe he can help!”
“Help with what?” my voice cracks, and I shrink into myself, feeling my chest hurt so bad. “What’s he going to do, Kayla? Paint all over it so we can act like it never happened?”
I can’t go to my father. He is going to see what was written in it and assume that I must’ve said it to someone else. I can’t risk having this secret come to light. It’s mine. It belongs to me. If I can’t face it, no one else should be trying to expose me either.
This is not fair.
Kayla grabs my wrist, stopping me.
“Cassie, please,” her voice is more gentle than before, and I can tell she is picking each word carefully. “Lucia probably never even saw it.”
Lucia.
She didn’t see it. She’s not seeing it.
She’s seeing the words written about Lucia. She’s not seeing… How is she not seeing it? It’s written right there. How is she not—
“But what if she did?” My vision instantly blurs. “Beckett thinks something happened to her before she passed. What if this was it?”
What if… What ifsheis the one who wrote this?
