The storm outside is wild. Trees scrape against the side of the house. Rain hits the windows in savage sprays. And I think it started hailing about an hour ago.
I haven't left the room all afternoon. I hate talking about the past. Especially the past involving Peter.
I went to see him after Lillian's funeral. Bastard didn't even bother to show up. And the bastard tried to hit on me as we lay in his bed and talked about her. That's probably my fault, though. I gave off the wrong impression by lying beside him, staring at the ceiling. I missed Lillian, and by proxy, I felt that if I lay beside her ex-boyfriend, I'd feel like her ghost was right there with us.
It wasn't. Her ghost was gone before she even slit her wrists.
The funeral ended around three in the afternoon and I was zonked.
A zombie.
I dragged my feet to her dorm room. It still had yellow caution tape on the door. It made her room look like a crime scene. Maybe it was. I only had my suspicious, I didn't have any proof. The yellow tape was cautionary. There was so much blood that poured out of her, they had to lift the linoleum floors to redo them.
Flowers were scattered on the floor and cards were taped to her locker. I'd been by almost every day since she died. Laying fresh flowers and tossing out the dead ones. The day of her funeral was no different.
I was going to place a red rose I took from her funeral, the last piece of her I felt like I had left.
But I wasn't the only one going to her room. Peter was there, too.
"Hey," I said, startling him.
He swallowed hard. "Hey, Zay." He sniffed, wiping his cheeks. "Sorry."
I'd been crying for days but seeing him cry didn't sadden me. It angered me.
I knew he was the reason she died.
I just had to prove it.
He cleared his throat and slumped his shoulders. "I can't believe she's gone."
I hummed softly. "Me either."
He frowned, shaking his head as he stared at her door. Hiding something. It was written all over his face. Or maybe I just suspected there was something to hide, so I was looking for clues. Something to prove my theories.
Did he always flare his nostrils when he was deep in thought?
Did the vein in his forehead always bulge maniacally?
And his fists, were they supposed to be clenched at his sides like that? Or was this always how he stood?
No, maybe I was looking too much into my suspicion.
He flicked his eyes to me. "You busy?"
I shook my head. "No."
He nodded, walking toward his dorm room that was at the end of the hallway. "Come on."
So I did. I followed him into his room and plopped myself on his twin bed, falling back. He did the same, adjusting himself so that his shoulder was up against mine.
Uncomfortable, I remember that.
And for thirty minutes, we didn't say a word. All we did was stare at the ceiling, hoping the pain from mourning would go away.
It didn't.
It never will.
I took a deep breath, turning my head to look at him. I had to hand it to Lillian, she found herself a model. Tall as a tree. Sharp jawline, big blue eyes, short brown hair with hints of blonde in it from the sun. Freckles on his cheekbones. He seemed untamed, wild. It's why I wanted to be wild with him when we met frosh week. It's probably why Lillian stayed with him. That fierceness in those soft eyes. He was a looker, and people noticed.
And right then, I was staring at him. Wondering what it would be like to stab his neck with the pen on my side of the bed that I sometimes used to take notes. Peter, Lillian, and I studied together often. We had a few classes together which made it more fun to study. Half of my books were always left in his room. I don't think he minded it, my dorm room was a mess. Still is. And Peter kept his clean for Lillian. She was a stickler for cleanliness.
"Why do you think Lillian killed herself?"
A cough left him from my bluntness. Breaking the silence with the harsh reality of our mutual friend. A friend we cared so much for it hurt us to know she was gone forever.
He shook his head. "I wish I knew. I didn't speak with her for three days before she did it. I tried calling her once, but she ignored it. Ignored my texts, too."
I turned on my side to face him. "Did she know that you guys weren't dating anymore?"
He gave me a side glance, then returned his focus to the ceiling. "Yes." He sighed. "No." He turned to face me as well. "I tried telling her a week before she died that we'd be better off as friends. I loved her and all, but I didn't love her the way she loved me." He shrugged, tonguing his cheek as his eyes glossed over. "I didn't wanna break her heart by leading her on."
I wiped the tear from his nose. "So you cheated on her, knowing she'd find out?"
He squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head, and turning it into the pillow to choke a sob. "No, I didn't expect her to find out."
I placed my hand on his cheek. The cold, bitter bitch who wanted revenge came pouring out of me. "You're the reason she killed herself."
He whimpered, sobbing with my hand on his face while his hands bunched up his blanket to his chest. "No."
"Yes."
He gritted his teeth. "Stop."
I didn't care anymore. I wanted him to know how much he hurt the people who cared about her. The people that loved her. He never did. Because if he did, then he wouldn't have slept with some sorority chick three nights before Lillian ended her life.
"Why?"
He rolled onto his back and let out a rush of air, sniffling, and breathing quickly.
Tears were rolling down my nose as I watched him. Tears for her. My best friend. The only person in this world I ever gave a crap about. "She loved you so much and you didn't even have the decency to break up with her before you fucked someone else...how many people did you fuck, Peter?"
A soft growl rumbled through his chest. But I continued, getting a rise out of him so he knew how I felt.
"I'm her best friend and she couldn't even tell me what was wrong because I told her from the start you were nothing but a scumbag. She didn't listen and look at her now. She's buried six feet underground in that lilac dress she used to wear all the time." I scoff, turning onto my back as well, knocking his shoulder. "Thanks for coming to the fucking funeral, dickbag. It was this morning."
He growled again and turned over, laying half on top of me. He placed his hand on my throat, slithering it to the back of my neck. "I know it was this morning, and I was there. At the back because I couldn't stand to see them lowering her casket into the ground—" He paused, boring deeply into my eyes. "I couldn't love her because everything she did reminded me of you. The way she smelled was just like you. How she clicked her tongue before telling me something exciting. How she always called you after sleeping with me. It was you, you, you." His thumb brushed my lips. I knew what he was getting at, but I didn't want him to say it. I wanted to forget it as much as I wanted Lillian to come back to me. "You think I'd forget the night we met? The night you came into my life and took hold of it. No, Zaynab. I can't forget that night."
I turned my head away from his thumb. "You have to. Lillian didn't know about that."
He lowered his mouth to mine but didn't kiss me. "Every time I was inside her, I was thinking of you." He growls. "We reap the consequences we can't predict, don't we?"
I licked my lips, feeling the tears well up from yet another mistake I made. "Were you thinking of me when she killed herself?"
Disgruntled.
Angry.
Sad.
He slammed his lips on mine, forcing himself on top of me.
I tried to get out from under him, but the way he pushed down on me, I was trapped.
His kissing became savage, shoving his tongue in my mouth and making me gag.
I was pleading, pushing, gasping. And still, I was helpless under his strength.
He grabbed my hands and held them above my head, squeezing my wrists together without knowing the wound on one of them was opening up.
I tried to scream, but every time I opened my mouth, there he was. Breathing in my air, taking away my dignity.
I heard his zipper, I felt his dick on my leg.
I felt the tear of my stockings, my underwear, and the release of my hands so he could force himself inside me.
I ripped my mouth from his and spat at him. "You think raping me will make the pain go away, you fucking asshole?!"
His hand met my mouth. "Shut the fuck up!"
I screamed under it as loud as I could, trying to bite down. But the more I moved, the harder he'd push.
Until his door opened and his roommate came in. Startled. Wide-eyed. My savior.
Peter looked down at me and mouthed, keep your fucking mouth shut.
I shoved him off me, fixing my ripped clothes. "You're gonna pay." I hissed and spat at him again. "Go fuck yourself, Peter."
I stormed out of his dorm room so fast, I didn't take notice of who was in my way when I turned the corner and bodychecked Adam. I looked up at him as shock flooded his face, but I couldn't help it. I started weeping.
And he held onto me as I cried.
We didn't know each other then but he held me for ten whole minutes, letting everything pour out of me. Letting the thought of almost being raped by the man I was positive led to the death of my best friend take hold. The life I once knew was no longer. The savage inside me was loose, and soon, I'd be unrecognizable.
When I finally calmed down and his soothing shushing and back rubs stopped as well, I sniffed and looked up at him. "I'm sorry."
He grinned, smoothing out my hair. "Everyone can use a hug every once in a while." He picked up his books and backpack from the ground. "Are you going to be all right?"
I nodded, wiping my cheeks and slowly walking away. He stood there, watching me with a grin until I pushed open the doors to the stairwell. He waved and his smile grew.
I met Adam that day without knowing what an impact he'd make on my life. But our story didn't start there—no. It started weeks later after my partying, drinking, drugging, and sexing.
I met Adam when I got clean.
*
The storm is picking up, crashing, and smashing things outside. It's nearing dinner hour and I'm getting kind of hungry. Only eating a pickle the entire day will do that.
Riggs is sitting on the couch. One arm draped on the back of it, the other on the armrest, and holding a bottle of beer. He's asleep, his head rolled back and snoring softly.
He's handsome.
That manly kind of handsome you know will destroy you in the bedroom.
I look back at my open door and sigh. It would be easy t leave again. Easy to escape, but with the rage happening outside, there is nowhere for me to hide without the chance of getting hurt. This storm is insane. So I choose not to leave and not to find his gun.
I choose to stay and ride out this storm. I have a few days left to escape again, and I'll attempt it again when there isn't chaos on the other side of the windows.
I drop down beside him, bringing my knees up on the couch as he snorts, inhaling sharply. He blinks a couple of times, looking over at me as if he forgot I was in this cabin with him.
But I am. And I will be until Friday.
I'm going to confess every damn thing running through my head. I hope Riggs doesn't mind listening to my ramblings.
"I don't think Adam loved me very much, or even at all." I shrug. "Have you ever been in love before?"
He clears his throat and sits upright. Shaking his beer and draining it. "Loaded question."
I sigh, leaning my head on my hand. "Yeah."
He returns his attention to me. "You all right?"
I nod. "I never told anyone that before."
He rests his ankle off his knee. "If it helps I've done bad things in my life, too. Killed lots of people. Fucked lots of people. Hurt many people. A lot of the guys in the club never bat an eye at what we do. But I ain't like them. Every time I held the gun to someone's head, all I thought about was their family. What brought them to this point in their life to be on their knees looking up at the barrel of my gun? But here we are."
I killed one person and I'm still messed up over it. He killed lots and it doesn't seem to bother him. How can taking someone's life not eat away at him like a nagging tick?
I poke a scar on his cheek, making him flinch. "What happened here?"
He swallows, putting his arm on the back of the couch again, resting it on mine. "Crew did that. Said it would always be a reminder of my fuck-up that almost cost us the club."
"What happened?"
He inhales sharply. "This girl I was screwing was a rat, sniffed her way in, and bugged the entire place. I didn't fucking know, but that didn't stop the men I call my brothers from beating me senseless. Almost disowned me and threw me out of the club." He shakes his head. "It ain't ancient history yet, though. I gotta feeling this whole thing your boyfriend got you into has something to do with me, too."
I study the scar, a small X on his left cheekbone right under his eyes. A mark to remind those of what he didn't do. We're all marked in some way, aren't we?
"We reap the consequences we can't predict."
His fingers graze my forearm, pebbling my skin. "What's that mean?"
I clear my throat and scoot closer to him, leaning my head on his shoulder. His body tenses, but that's fine. I just want to be held right now. "The guy I killed said that to me after Lillian introduced me to him, then said it to me before he tried to rape me." He tenses after I say that; he tenses at a lot of the darkness I reveal from my past.
I take a breath as Riggs's arm falls onto my back. "Lillian was my best friend. But I hid something from her that no one, not even Adam knows." I'm fiddling with the hem of my dress, Peter's face flashing through my mind. "About two weeks or so before Lillian and the guy I killed started dating, we hooked up at a party. I thought nothing of it. Just a guy I slept with during frosh week. I didn't want to break her heart knowing that this guy she was so madly in love with was nothing but an asshole. I can't even explain why he's an asshole, probably because when she introduced me to him, he acted like I didn't exist. Like what we shared that night meant nothing to him. He was the first guy I slept with when I got to university, only the second guy to make a notch on my bedpost. But he didn't care. Didn't even call me after I left his dorm the next morning. I left him a note on his pillow and everything."
I shake my head, remembering our night like it was yesterday. I saw him walk into the party before he even came up to me. Those intense blue eyes could never go unnoticed. We hit it off, instantly. Even through his nerves. How we floated naked in the water, watching the stars, how we kissed and there was this instant spark, like we knew we were meant to be. We weren't. He was just like the rest of the guys who weren't Adam. Assholes who viewed me as some hole to keep their dick warm for a few minutes.
His wicked ways hurt my best friend. Drove her off the ledge because he was too selfish to understand what he did was wrong. She was fragile. "I believed he was the reason she killed herself. No, I know he was the reason."
"So you killed him."
"I did."
Riggs runs his fingers through my hair, relaxing the memories of that horrid night from my mind. A night I wish I could forget.
"My first kill was the scariest thing. Then the next wasn't as bad. And the next was even easier, until I didn't feel a thing anymore." He pulls my legs onto his lap, tracing the scars on my knees I got after falling off my bicycle as a kid. "I've killed so many people for this damn club. Maybe all this shit happening is my karma. It's deserved."
My fingers meet his chest, tracing the tattoos in the same delicate fashion as he's tracing my scars. "We only deserve the things we regret."
He chuckles, that deep guttural sound moving through him. "The list is endless for that, sunshine."
I lift my head off his chest and meet his gaze. "Do you regret screwing me?"
He takes a deep breath, his focus on the wood-paneled ceiling, then slowly rolls his head to the side to look at me. "Under these circumstances, yes. I do regret screwing you."
I'm not expecting to be upset by his answer. But I am.
A regret.
I don't think I've ever been anyone's regret.
At least, no one ever said I was.
But it's out there now.
This man, who my legs are draped on, regrets being inside me.
I can't really blame him. I've caused nothing but trouble.
I am trouble.
But I don't want to be regretful trouble.
I swing my legs off him and rise. "Goodnight, Riggs."
He frowns, reaching for my hand. "You just got out of your room."
"And now I'm going back in it." I snatch my hand from him, letting his comment hurt me more than it should. "Goodnight."
He doesn't follow me.
He tongues his cheek and sighs, falling back on the couch as I slowly close the door and bask in the craziness that is the storm outside.