Page 92 of My Girl
“Where are you?” he asks.
“I’m at the mall.”
“I’ll meet you out front.”
I clutch my hands around myself and walk toward the front of the building, my eyes scanning the darkness, searching for that mask—for the mall cop’s uniform, for Crave, for Officer Gaines, for whoever the fuck he is. It’s inevitable; he’s going to kill me now.
As soon as Ned shows up, I jump in his car, clutching the paternity results to my chest.
“I’m glad you called,” he says. “I was hanging out with my brother. He’s addicted to this new video game, and I swear, he made me promise to play with him for his birthday. I was bored out of my mind…”
His words fizzle to white noise. The street signs swirl into rainbow blotches. It’s like I’m not here anymore; I’m simply a color.
Officer Gaines harassed me. Raped me. Looked down on me.
But is Crave right? When he forced me to say that I wanted to lick his ass, did I actually want what he was going to do to me?
Did he know he was going to rape me like that the entire time?
How can Crave be my father?
“Are those the DNA tests?” Ned asks, gesturing to my lap. “Did you find anything out?”
I shake my head vigorously. Ned raises a brow.
“That sucks,” he says. “Gaines said you had a lot of results.”
Results.Gaines.
“Gaines?” I whisper.
“Yeah, Officer Gaines said you got a lot of mail at the mall or something.”
It doesn’t matter if I’m Craven Gaines or Michael Hall or some stupid masked killer named Crave. You are made for me. From me. With me. And I will always own you,he had said.
Craven Gaines.
I bite my lip, then blurt out: “You want to come over tonight?” I sway slightly. “I just—I guess I want company.”
No. I don’t want the company. I don’t even want Ned. But if Ned is with me, Crave won’t do anything. Not until I’m alone again. And maybe there’s something about Ned that’s supposed to be comforting. He’s the kind of man who will take care of me, who always respects me, who wants to do everything for me. He makes me feel like a bird kept in a cage, but at least that cage is safe. At least the master comes to feed the bird. The master even lets the bird out sometimes.
If Crave is my father, there’s a chance he’s stalked me my whole life. To Crave, I’m not a pet locked in a cage. I’m his prey.
He can’t be my father. He just can’t.
“Rae?” Ned asks.
He puts a hand on my thigh, and I jolt from the contact. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
“I can’t tonight,” he says. “But do you want me to come by in the morning?”
My eyes glaze over. I nod. Ned checking on me is a good thing. Even if I don’t care about him, he cares about me. If something happens to me, he’ll report it. He’ll make sure justice is served.
Won’t he?
“Thank you,” I say.
Inside of my apartment, I pace back and forth, gawking at the cameras on the wall. Then I physically unplug all of them.
