Page 19 of Bedding Rose
Maybe I am going a little crazy.
I did set up a video in her bathroom.
Only to make sure she didn't ever do that shit again.
And I just tried to check on her.
When Rose stonewalled me and then her mother made use of the room ... I saw an opportunity. I took it.
Evil?
Yeah. Maybe.
But she didn’t see herself that night. She didn’t see how broken she looked. Who could leave someone looking like that?
Especially her?
Rose has always been innocent. Delicate. Naïve in this endearing and adorable way that makes her walk with a skip in her step and smile at strangers, not recognizing their leers. Someone shattered that.
I’ll be damned if I let them get away with it.
Her hatred is the price I'm willing to pay in order to get a name. So if I have to hold this video over her head, that’s what I’ll do.
I press down on the gas again and keep navigating through the neighborhood until I get out onto a main drag. There's a fast food place with a drive-through and I pull in, ignoring how the silence has become as thick as cotton.
Rolling down my window, I place an order for two coffees and a large French fry.
Turning to Rose, I ask, "Milk or sugar?"
She's sitting with her back against the passenger door, her head tilted, gaze dangerous, no doubt measuring me for my coffin. "You care what I want? Since when? Since you dropped that blackmail note on my bedspread—"
I roll up the window so the fast food people don't get an earful too.
"I tried talking to you first. You blocked my number and avoided me."
"I didn't want to fucking talk!" She throws out an arm and ends up clenching her fist at me.
"What you want and what you need are on entirely different planets, little girl," I snarl, pulling forward to the drive-through window.
A smiling teenager with a zit-scarred face and a greasy blue streak in his hair greets us.
"That'll be six ninety-five," he says.
"Can you please call the police, sir?" Rose leans toward me for the first time since she realized I was driving. "I've been kidnapped." I roll my eyes and hand the guy a twenty. "Keep the change. And please excuse my little sister. She's got her phone hidden, doing some dumb TikTok challenge."
The guy rolls his eyes and just points at the next window. I doubt we're the first TikTok prank to roll through.
But I'm seething. I turn and breathe fire. "What the hell?"
"Your sister!"
"You trying to get me arrested?"
"You deserve to be arrested!"
"Do I? Do I? If I'm getting locked up, then so are you, lil reina. Padded fucking cell." Goddammit. I've devolved to threats. I didn't want to get here. I told myself I'd stay calm and cool and get names out of her. “I didn’t mean—"
I can’t even get my full apology out before she screams a full-on banshee screech that shreds my eardrums. “You are ruining my life!”
