boy for sexual molestation. I did what chauvinistic society did to girls who were raped. I blamed him. I believed it must’ve been his fault.
But it wasn’t his fault.
And it wasn’t fair to use my hurt against him.
The truth stabbed me right in the chest. “You didn’t sleep with her, Gil. She raped you.”
God.
She raped him and cut him off from everyone.
She—
I want to kill her.
Rip out her heart and burn it on a pyre.
My fingers turned numb along with my tongue, shutting down piece by piece. “She abused you. God, Gil, she took everything from you—”
He held up a hand, his entire frame shaking. “Don’t feel sorry for me. Don’t you fucking dare feel sorry for me. Do not be that good. Do not be that fucking kind!”
“But you were just a child. And she was our teach—”
“Stop it. I want you to hate me. You need to hate me.” He howled at the ceiling. “I need you to resent me with everything you have. Be disgusted with me. Curse me. Fuck, please.” He fell to his knees. “I can’t do this if you forgive all my sins. I can’t do this if you still love me...no matter what I fucking do to you.”
Another lash of heaviness slithered through my brain, scattering my thoughts before realigning. I blinked back the increasing lethargy. “You dealt with that...on your own.” I cried tears for the boy I’d lost. “You didn’t tell me. You didn’t trust me to help you. You were all alone.”
He rocked with his hands clasped in prayer, bowing to me, placing me in position of a goddess. A goddess of death and destruction. An offering to a bigger, more malignant power. “I thought I could keep you safe.”
“Instead, you cut me out.” My voice was silk-wrapped daggers. “You ruined both of us.” I longed to touch him, to hug him. If I touched him now, I might be able to stop him from doing this. I finally knew what’d twisted him up so badly. “It’s okay. It’s over now.”
My roped hands reached for his face to grant him absolution. To let him know, I might hate his actions tonight, but I didn’t hate him—no matter how much trust he’d shattered. “Gil...it’s over. Untie me. It’s not just your word against hers. I’ll stand beside you. We’ll ask for help together. We’ll save Olive some other way.”
“Olin.” His tears fell openly now. “Goddammit, I—”
My fingers grazed his five o’clock shadow. He reared backward, terror filling his gaze. “Don’t. I’ll break if you touch me. I’m breaking already.”
“Let me go.”
“I can’t.”
“You’re not alone anymore.” Another crush of exhaustion pressed into me, forcing me into haziness. My eyes unfocused on the rope around my wrists. My mind flickered on and off. I licked my lips, clawing my way back to lucidity. “I forgive you for this, Gilbert Clark. I forgive you for everything. Just let me go and...” Reality checked out for a second, my brain tiptoeing into sleep. I opened my eyes with a jerk, raising my heavy head. “What...what’s going on? Why am I so tired?”
He ignored me.
“Did you...drug me?” I licked my lips, the numbness spreading.
“I can’t do this anymore.” Scrambling to his feet, he grabbed something from his trestle. He placed a bottle of paint beside me while holding his palm open by my face. I couldn’t make sense of the small black dot in the centre. “I can’t keep making you believe the worst.”
I struggled to focus.
“I wasn’t going to tell you this.” His voice stayed low as if afraid monsters would hear. “You need to believe this is real...just like you believed the breakup at school was real.”
I laughed coldly. “That was real. You broke up with me and never spoke to me again.”
He shook his head, his hair a wild, untamed mop. “I meant to apologise that night and fix us. But you never went home, and then...I couldn’t.” He cleared his throat. “But this is different. I won’t keep you in the dark like I did that day. I need you to know, so I have the strength to finish this.”
“If the breakup wasn’t real...but it ended up being true...why do you think this will be any different? You think by telling me you have a plan, it will stop me from getting killed?” My thoughts scrambled again, unable to stay cohesive. I swam in question-filled quicksand. “Wait...why did you break up with me if it wasn’t real? I don’t understand.”
His jaw worked.