EVA
I stood at Jeremy’s window and knocked. I was numb. I wasn’t sure how I’d gotten over there in the dark. I wasn’t sure why I was here except I needed him. I needed him to look at the text messages I’d just gotten from some unknown number and tell me he saw them too. I wasn’t dreaming or hallucinating. Oh God, let me be hallucinating. Please. Please. Let me be hallucinating.
Jeremy’s window slid open. His sleepy face looked confused. As if he thought he were dreaming. “Eva? What’s wrong?” he asked, pushing the window all the way open and stepping out of it to stand in front of me.
I couldn’t talk. I just handed him the phone.
He looked down at it, confused, then looked back at me. “You’re scaring me, Eva. Is your daddy okay? Talk to me, girl.”
I shook my head. “It’s not my daddy,” I managed to croak out.
Jeremy slid his finger across the screen on my phone and the light from it lit up the small dark space outside where we stood.
“Holy shit,” he muttered, and slid his finger across it again. “Motherfucking bastard,” he swore. I knew he saw it too. I hadn’t been hallucinating after all. Oh God. I felt my knees give out. I curled up on the grass underneath me, pulling my legs up to tuck them under my chin. No, no no, not this. I can’t handle this. Not now, I can’t. I can’t.
“I got you, girl. Come here.” Jeremy was on the ground with me. He was pulling me against his chest. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to believe it, but I had to ask.
“Did you watch the video?” I asked in a low whisper.
He moved the phone, and I heard the sound of the noise in the background of the video. I knew what he was seeing. It was burned into my brain. Every moment of it would haunt me for the rest of my life.
“I’m going to kill him. I’m putting a bullet through that f**ker’s eyes.” Jeremy threw my phone from both of us, and he pulled me tighter against his chest.
“He was. . . he was. . .” I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t forget it.
Cage touching a girl’s bare chest, Cage so close to a naked girl’s face, he was about to kiss her. His chest was touching hers. Cage. . . Cage getting in a car with a girl dressed like a whore, and Cage kissing a girl. She was gorgeous. She was older. She wasn’t me. She was as beautiful as he was. Then he’d. . . he’d made out with her against a pool table. Then the picture of her in his bed with them both naked and all wrapped up together. Oh God, I was going to be sick.
I pushed away from Jeremy and threw up into the grass. I felt Jeremy take my hair and say soothing things to me, but they didn’t help. I kept throwing up until all I had was dry heaves.
“Come on, Eva. You gotta stop. Don’t think about it,” Jeremy begged.
My body was weak and spent. I sank back against him and closed my eyes. I had to forget what I’d seen. I had to block it out.
We sat there in the darkness while I whimpered, the images flashinh across my brain. I’d missed his calls earlier tonight because Daddy had gotten sick. It was an hour later when I’d finally been able to go back to my room. I had been tempted to call him, but I’d worried that he’d be asleep. But then an hour later, the unknown sender of the texts began sending them to me. With each horrific image, my heart was torn out of my chest and shattered. I would never be the same. Ever.
Jeremy stood and picked me up with him. I let him carry me because I couldn’t do anything else. He sat me inside his room and then crawled in behind me. He then picked me up again and laid me on his bed.
“You sleep here tonight. I’ll check on your dad and you.”
I shook my head. “Daddy’s okay. I gave him his medicine, and he’s in bed sleeping. Stay here with me for now. Don’t leave me alone.”
He looked torn, but then he crawled in behind me and pulled me against his chest.
“Sleep,” he whispered in my ear. But I didn’t. Not one wink. All night. Even after his breathing evened and slowed, I stared at the wall and wondered how this had happened. Those photos weren’t all in the same night. He wasn’t wearing the same thing in them. He wasn’t at the same place in all of them. How had he lied so easily to me? How had I believed him?
* * *
At some point before the sunrise, I must have dozed off, because my eyes flew open as I shot up in bed to see the sun pouring into Jeremy’s room. Looking around, I realized Jeremy was gone. In that brief moment I’d forgotten why I was here, but the memories came crashing down over me and my stomach rolled as each image played again in my head. I had to get out of there. I had to go somewhere. I had to do something. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t deal with this.
I stood up and noticed Jeremy’s phone lying beside me with a note in his scribble underneath it. I picked both up and read the letter.
Use my phone. I took yours. I don’t want you talking to that bastard or looking at those damn photos again. Call me if you need me. Your dad knows I’m gone and why. I spoke with him this morning but I didn’t give him the details just enough. He is at home waiting on you. Go curl up in your daddy’s lap and let him take care of you. He needs that. He’s worried about you. I’ll be back tonight late.
Jeremy
Where was he? Did he go to Tennessee? Surely not. I jumped up and looked for my shoes, then realized I’d walked over there barefoot. I didn’t want Elaine to find me in there. I’d call Jeremy when I got outside. Opening the window, I slipped out and headed for my house.
This wasn’t fair. I couldn’t worry about Daddy worrying about me. Didn’t Jeremy understand that? Dammit. I knew he meant well, but this wasn’t what I wanted him to do. I had needed someone last night, and he was all I had now to break down on. I stepped onto our property and looked up at the porch to see my daddy standing there, waiting for me. I started walking toward him and he stepped around the railing and down the steps. When he opened his arms to me, tears filled my eyes and blurred my vision. I managed to get to him without falling over something.