Page 19 of Let Me
He cocks his head, and the anger isn’t there, even though I know he’s pissed. I know I shouldn’t have said that, just as he shouldn’t be talking about this.
“I went to prison for assault,” he says evenly. “I would do it again, too, if it meant reliving that night over. I’d do the same fucking thing. But can you say the same, Caden? Can you say you don’t regret anythingyou’vedone over the past three years?”
“She killed my brother.” I don’t know what the fuck he doesn’t understand about that.
He shakes his head. “No, man, she didn’t. He killedhimself.”
“Benji, she lied to us both. She sent him that video…” I take a shaky breath and bury my head in my hands, just for a second. But then I sit up straighter, because I’m not crying over that bitch again. Not anymore. “She sent that goddamn video, and we both know it. She’s fucking trash.”
I remember how he found out. Or rather, I remember what he did when he found out. I remember holding her, before. I remember taking her from that party. Remember my hands all over her. Thinking, maybe, that after all this time, maybe we could talk. Maybe I would be more than her boyfriend’s older brother that intervened when Jack was being an arrogant, possessive shit.
Something had been wrong that night. I just hadn’t known it wasthat.
She was there, when I got the call. She had been in my lap, when I finally thought she had a chance at beingmine.When I thought I might not have to share her anymore. When her body was forme.
“I know,” Benji says with no emotion. His face darkens. “She lied. She was embarrassed. So what? You were fine with it when it wasyou.You knew she had been fucking your brother. You didn’t mind when she was on top ofyou.You didn’t mind her moving on with you, asshole. Don’t be a hypocrite.”
“How can you say that?” I throw up my hands. Benji is usually on my side about this. But what hurts the most is his words kinda hurt. Because they’re true.
“I loved Jack, too. I think she’s a bitch. But you didn’t care when she was dry humping you because you wanted her.” Benji shakes his head and leans back again, flinging an arm over the side of the booth. “You still want her. You’vealwayswanted her. Especially back in the day, when you couldn’t have her.”
When she was a teenager and tiptoeing around my parents’ house like a mouse. When I realized she was probably hiding out from her piece of shit mom. When I heard Jack torment her over and over again, and I couldn’t stay away. Couldn’t look away. She always seemed so full of darkness, and not just over Jack. Like it was in her, dying to come out. And I wanted to hold her then. Every time she came over and I was at the house to see her, she seemed so frail. So sad. Scared, even. I thought Jack was probably too busy dealing with his own testosterone to notice, and I wanted to pull her to me every time I came by the house and saw her scared little face.
But I never did.
Because she was Jack’s. He made damn sure I knew it. That everyone knew it. Especially her.
Then we connected, because she happened to be in the right place at the right time. And suddenly, I didn’t have to pine after her anymore. Because she came with me.
I shake my head.
“I don’t want to talk about her anymore.”
Benji arches a brow. “You mean like last night, when you wouldn’t let that fine girl with the fake tits finish sucking you off? How’s not talking about her working for you, man?”
I feel my face darken and Benji must see it because he cracks a smile.
“I don’t want her. I want tohurther.” He knows as much. It’s why I wanted Adam to come out last night. It’s why Benji texted her. I wanted her to feel just a little of what I felt. Of what Jack must have felt before he didn’t want to feel anything anymore.
I wonder if she thinks she’s special because he killed himself over her. I wonder if she pats herself on the back over it. I wouldn’t be surprised. She’s always been a little sick and twisted.
Benji takes another drink of water and I motion for the waitress to send me another beer. She does, setting it on the table at my side with an overly friendly smile, but I ignore her.
“The only way you can hurt her is by drawing her in and then cutting her loose.” Benji mimes scissors with his fingers, cutting an imaginary string. “But I don’t think you can do it. I don’t think you can cut her off if you get pulled into her vortex again.”
I sigh, take a long pull from the beer. “I guess there’s only one way to find out.”
Benji shakes his head, and for a moment I think he’s going to try to talk me out of the plan he just put in my head, but then he shrugs.
“Cheers,” he says, and lifts his water, clinking his glass against my bottle.
Cheers indeed.
TWELVE
Present
I CAN’T MOVE my flight because I can’t afford the change fee, and I can’t get out of seeing Rolland forever. We have plans tonight, that I insist aren’t at the condo. I don’t know how much longer it’ll be before he finds out that Adam and I aren’t together, and I don’t know if it’ll change anything at all—I’m not a teenager anymore, and he’s kept his distance, physically—but I’m not going to risk it.
