Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 101796 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101796 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
She won’t care that I’m sorry, not that I blame her, but I have to try to get the message across. I’m out of the truck almost before I have the chance to put it in park, running up the front steps of my house with my heart pounding and blood rushing in my ears.
“Elliana?” I call out once I’m inside. The house is silent, the lights off except for in the kitchen. I run in there to look around—there’s a half-eaten sandwich on the counter, telling me she was having dinner when the world fell apart. Because of me, at the end of the day. Tiana sent those pictures out, but I’m the reason they existed.
My feet pound the floor, then the stairs, Elliana’s voice ringing out in my memory. Telling me about how she was bullied. How she could have died the night they threw her in the pool. All that defiance she hit me with in the cafeteria, reminding me she had already been through so much and that I couldn’t do any worse.
There is no way she won’t take this as my response.
The sound of her heartbroken sobs crushes me, but comforts me at the same time. She’s alive in her room, at least, with the door locked against me. I mean, everyone’s got to have a breaking point. She’s strong, but she’s not invincible.
Knowing she’s alive, if devastated, is still better than the alternative. “Elliana, I didn’t send those pictures out. It was Tiana. You’ve got to believe me. I fell asleep at Kellan’s after I told her off, and she was pissed, so she went into my phone to fuck with me.”
No response. “You know that’s the kind of thing she would do, right? I’m not making this up. Other people saw her do it. It wasn’t me.”
Fuck. Even though I’m telling the truth, I hear how hollow it sounds. I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me. It was all her fault. Sure, it is Tiana’s fault, but I am not blameless. The girl on the other side of the door knows it, too. No amount of truth will ease her agony, because it can’t unsend those pictures. It can’t erase the memory of every person who has looked at them since they went out.
Touching my forehead to the wood, I plead, “Open the door. At least let me see you. Let me apologize face-to-face. We’ll figure out a way through this, but I need you to open the door.”
I’m talking to myself. All she does is cry a little louder than before. Because of me. I wanted to ruin her, didn’t I? I wanted to make her suffer the way I only thought she made me suffer.
I didn’t understand real suffering until just now, sliding to the floor with my back to her door. Wanting more than anything to make it up to her, knowing I can’t. My punishment is listening to her cry and knowing there’s not a damn thing I can do to make it stop, because I’m the one who made it happen in the first place.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I call out. Does she hear me over her sobs? I don’t know, but I have to try. “And I can wait forever if I have to. You have to talk to me, eventually.”
But when I put myself in her shoes, I know damn well I would rather starve to death than face the person who destroyed me. I only hope she doesn’t decide to take it that far.
TWENTY
Elliana
“All you have to do is open the door, and you can eat. I know you’re hungry by now.”
I hate him. I hate him so much. Even more now than I ever did before. And not only because of the pictures, though that would be enough of a reason for me to dance on his grave.
“There’s a big, thick turkey sandwich out here for you.” Saliva floods my mouth at the sound of his voice, telling me all about the food he brought up for me. “And there’s chips, too, and a couple of chocolate chip cookies. You might want to grab those now before I eat them, because they’re really good. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to go without taking them for myself.”
He can’t leave me alone. Like it’s his purpose in life to find new ways to torture me. Of course I’m starving—I haven’t eaten since last night, at least until that text came in and ruined what was left of my self-esteem, which wasn’t all that much in the first place.
My empty stomach twists in a knot, and I curl into a tight ball, buried under blankets, closing my eyes and wishing he would go away. Forever, preferably.
Once again, the last voice I want to hear now or ever floats in under the door. “You know I’m not going away, right?”