AFTER BEING DRAGGED to my room, I rush to my pillow with the awareness of my notebook and the truth in those pages my only thought. My entire reality of that event is logged by nonsensical words and drawings. I didn’t lie. I withheld a very personal truth from a stranger.
There’s a difference.
With the chilling scene of Clay’s friendly smile tightening the hold betrayal has on me, I scramble along the mattress and retrieve my tether to that night, to Benji’s murder. I look at it, wishing I had told Clay the absolute truth yesterday or the day before that. Wishing I had told him when he was asking for it while cradling the kid in my stomach.
He cared about us then.
He wanted to know.
But he smiled…
At Landon.
‘No, it was a practised smile,’ I lie to myself and rush back to the bedroom door.
When I grab at the handle and turn, it resists, unmoving and stiff and—those a-holes have locked it. The fist around my notepad shakes violently with fear and anticipation and guilt, and all those feelings combined with about a thousand others. They locked me in!
‘Bolton! Let me out!’ I scream, beating the door with the brunt of my clenched hand over and over. ‘Anyone!’ My mind suddenly jumps to Jasmine. ‘Jasmine! Can you hear me? Let me out.’
The pad of my fist starts to ache, so I kick the door a few times before stepping back and testing the strength in my shoulder. Hitting the wooden door, the hinges barely rattle. I try again. The image of an old cult film where a group of men used their shoulders to burst into a woman’s house, flashes in my mind. Then the memory of Benji’s smile as he handed me the popcorn during said movie, crumbles my knees, and I drop to the carpet. I failed. If Clay believes Landon, then I’ve failed Benji. He’s dead. He’s fucking dead, and those manipulative arseholes are going to get away with it.
Jake gets away with it.
The truth dawns on me like the sky falling, and I feel its weight on my back. I lay down on the carpet, pulling my knees up as the thought knocks me around. I think Jake hurt him to get to me. I feel it in my bones. The way he used to watch me was unnatural. He would tease me relentlessly.
Mock me.
And watch…
But Clay won’t believe me after he finds out I lied. Why would he? The police didn’t. My foster mother didn’t. Why would he when I’ve given him every reason not to trust me by omitting the truth.
My body shakes.
Landon is going to serve him twisted lies. I fucked-up by keeping this from Clay.
I fucked-up by… falling for him.
My heart tightens as I pull the notepad to my chest and rub the place over the frantically beating organ with my knuckles. I let my mother’s romantic genetics win, instead of the powerful blood my father filled me with.
I have feelings for Clay. Lose my mind when he was around. Forgot the entire reason I’m here.
God. I’m so stupid.
He doesn’t care.
He was friendly with Landon.
Friendly…
I groan as lumps of betrayal clog my throat, making it hard to breathe past them. The smile on Clay’s face, so perfectly set, so patronisingly pointed at me. They are talking about me right now. They are laughing at me. At my stupidity, my gullibility, naivety, silly, stupid—eccentric—self.
A sob escapes me, and I curl in tighter.
