Page 69 of Let Me
I won’t.
I don’t cry. And definitely not over Caden Virani.
Tyler’s retreat ended, he took a flight back and came straight to me. We got my stuff from The Villa, and now we’re back in the city, in his shitty apartment that’s still less shitty than the one I’m going back to.
He’s passed out asleep on the couch and I’m in his twin bed, even though we argued about who would take it. I lost that argument when he started snoring in the living room while we watched Sabrina on Netflix. I wish I was a motherfucking witch.
I roll over again, my phone in my hand, my eyes closed. I want to sleep. I really, really do. But in the morning, I’ve got a flight back to North Carolina, thanks to Tyler and his savings account that is probably now depleted.
Adam has called me half a dozen times, texted more times than that. I’m thinking of blocking his number, but for some reason, I haven’t yet. Maybe because I’m lonely. Maybe because even though I know me and Adam would never work out, and not just because he cheated so publicly, it’s still nice to havesomeonewho wants to talk to me.
Besides that, Adam would have never filmed me without my consent. Then, to rub salt in my wounds, Caden had Benji come down the stairs while I was still half-naked. I’m no prude, and hell, Benji is hot. But that’s not the point.
Unless it was.
Because I didn’t really mind him coming down the stairs, and I think that makes me a twisted, twisted girl.
And the cameras…they really have no idea. They really just don’t get it. Which is my fault. Because I won’t tell them.
I shove a pillow over my head, squeezing my eyes shut tight.
Rolland has only called once more. I don’t know what he’s planning, but I know I’m not getting out of this without a few more bruises. For fuck’s sake, I might not get out of this alive. Caden and Benji are one thing, but Rolland…I don’t know what he’ll do. And this isn’t even his fault. It’s fucking mine. Because I let Rolland Virani entrap me.
Fuck him.
And Caden actually believed I would willingly sleep with his own father?
I know he thinks I’m a monster. I just didn’t know he thought I was a cold-blooded one.
“You awake?”
Tyler startles me, and I roll over, clutching the pillow to my chest. His sleepy golden eyes gleam in the light pouring in from his too-thin curtains. The city is always alive. I’m not sure how he sleeps at all here.
I slowly sit up, drag a hand through my hair.
“I am now,” I say playfully.
He comes into his room and sinks down beside me on the bed, one arm draped around my shoulders.
“He’s a bad boy, you know that, don’t you?” he asks quietly. I know who he’s talking about.
He still smells like paint. I wonder if he came back just to see me but brush the feeling of guilt aside. Tyler is a great friend. My best friend. But he wouldn’t leave Vancouver on a whim. His boyfriend lives there, too.
I nuzzle against his chest.
“Have you been working out?” I ask with a little laugh. Tyler has always been jacked.
He shakes his head and I feel his chest rumble beneath me. “You’ve always been good at dodging the hard shit.”
I laugh, snorting. Rather undignified, but it’s Tyler. “I don’t think that’s quite true,” I say, quieter than I really mean to.
His fingers squeeze my arm, gently. “No,” he answers softly, “you’re right.”
I sit up, twist around to face him, his arm falling from my shoulders. His ruffled dark hair is sticking up at all angles, courtesy of his rest on the couch. I told him everything on the way home earlier, everything except the truth of who’s in the video. He thinks it was a random hookup. I’m not ready for him to know the truth. He’s always been the one to say that it was only natural for Caden to blame me. People, he said, always want to blame someone when tragedy strikes. And it’s really, really hard to blame the victim, or even the illness sometimes, in cases of suicide.
It wasn’t Jack’s fault.
But these past few years I’ve carried the weight of his death like it was mine. I still think it is. But I just don’t know how long Caden wants to punish me for it. If he only knew his father already was.
