“Where is she?” is all I say. I don’t need a lecture from her.
“I was going to ask you. She took off like a bat out of hell. She was…” She inhales and exhales. “I’ve never seen her so upset. Broken.”
I broke her.
Getting in my car, I drive to her house and breathe out when I see her car parked badly in her driveway. At least she came home and got here safe.
Banging on the door gets me no answer, so I try the handle, but it’s locked.
Fuck.
“Chastity,” I call up to her window, desperation bleeding into my voice.
Silence.
After four more attempts, she appears in her window, the glass raised up so she can lean out.
“Why are you here?” She sounds so hoarse, so lost, so defeated. I did this to her, made her feel this pain.
“I love you,” I say. Truth is all I have.
“I was a task to you. A dare!” she screams.
“That’s not true,” I plead.
“You let someone film us and then shared it. With her, Rhett. Of all people,” she sobs.
“It wasn’t me. I didn’t…I would never…”
“Stop lying. You’ve been caught. The game is over. You won.”
“It’s not a fucking game. Please don’t do this. I need you.”
She studies me in silence for a few minutes, then shakes her head. Her eyes dart to something behind me, a passerby stopping with her dog to be a nosey cunt.
“Fuck off, you nosey bitch,” I bark, trying to find any place for my anger. Her jaw unhinges, and she scuttles off, pulling the poor dog along with her.
“You’re a real piece of shit, you know that, right?”
“Chas, let me in. Let’s talk about this please.”
“There’s nothing you can say that will make this okay. You let me love you.” She chokes on the words, her hand coming to her mouth like she’s going to vomit.
“Don’t ever call me. When you see me in the corridor, pretend I don’t exist—because I don’t for you anymore.”
A knife would have been less painful. Defeat wraps me in a chokehold, and I struggle to fill my lungs with needed air. It’s over.
Love is more dangerous than lust. I knew it and played into the game unwillingly, until it was too late. I lost.
Dragging my ass back to the car, I grab the bottle from the backseat and drown in self-pity.
The price of loving someone is too much, too hard. I’m not going to make it through this.
Liquor warms my blood and gives me false hope, then dooming misery, when I try over and over for her to come to the door. Hours pass as I go between her house and the car.
My motor functions become less coordinated. She doesn’t even come to the window, and when I tried to climb the flower wall thingy, I fell in the bush—and I’m pretty sure cat shit.
My feet stumble as I throw my hands in the air, defeated. It’s really over. Tears burn my eyes, and I don’t care if I’m being a pussy. This shit hurts more than I ever thought possible.
Dousing my throat with the Jack Daniels, I find myself walking past the car and down the road, through the brush, until I find the hidden park.
I pull my cell phone out and drop it. Every time I try to pick it up, I stumble a little. It’s the worst game ever. Finally grasping it, I open it on God’s name and dial the number.
Two rings and he answers. It doesn’t matter what’s happened with us he will always be my brother.
“I’m in,” I slur.
“Rhett?”
“I’m in and I lost her.” I hiccup, then croak, “It cost me her. Someone recorded us. She saw it. Thinks it was me.” I’m crying, the words slurred and my heavy breathing making a weird sound into the phone.
“Where are you?”
“Nowhere. I’m lost at sea again. She was my lighthouse, my Juliet, my good girl.”
“Rhett, where the fuck are you?”
I end the call and go lay on the slide. It’s cold and damp, but I’m too drunk to give a shit.
The stars spin above me. When did the sun set?
Voices echo through the trees, and I must be dreaming because it sounds like God.
“There,” someone shouts. Is that Sloth?
I try to sit up and focus, but my eyesight blurs.
“Woah, this is cool,” Sloth says.
“It’s creepy,” God tells him.
“Rhett?”
“How did you find me?” I wheeze, my throat raw.
“Tracked your cell phone. You have GPS on.”
Well…shit.
“You should turn that off. Anyone can trace it.”
“It’s probably how someone caught him and the girl…”
Fuck.
“Thanks for coming for me, God, I know things are weird between us right now.” I hiccup.
Shaking his head he makes a pstt sound.
“Dude, I’m pissed I had to come traipsing through mud and forest and shit to save your drunken ass.”
“I’m dying,” I confess, scrubbing my hands over my face. I want to be left here to rot.
Let the land claim me back.
Gripping my arm, God tugs me up, slings my arm over his shoulder, and grips around my waist. “Not today you’re not,” he grumbles.
I can’t walk. My body feels too heavy and night keeps threatening to steal me away.
“I’m surprised he’s still breathing. He smells like a brewery.”
“Gone,” I mumble. “She’s gone, lost her.”
“Shhh. Like always, I’ll figure this shit out,” God tells me.
Toy soldiers dance over my scalp, banging their drums. Woozy sickness stirs in my gut, and thirst grips me. I crack an eye open and sigh when I see water on my bedside table.
I briefly remember God tossing me on the bed last night. How the fuck I ended up with him is a mystery.
And then the pain crashes into me, stealing my breath.
Chastity. As if my heart beckoned her, she appears in my line of vision. Am I dreaming?
“Am I dreaming?” I ask, rubbing my eyes.
“God came to me last night. He confessed it was him who filmed us and you didn’t know. Some task that was too important to fuck up or something that made no sense to me.” She shakes her head. “Point is, I know you didn’t film me…us…it…”
“I would never. I’m so sorry this happened.”
Nodding her head, she frowns. “I know you are. I don’t understand all this. Tasks…and was I a dare or something?”
Sitting up despite my skull cracking into two, I reach for her and almost cry like a bitch when she doesn’t pull away. Her little body lowers to the bed, and she studies my hands holding hers.
“Have you ever heard of The Elite?” I ask, laying it all out there.
Her eyes snap up to mine, then she closes them.
“Of course you’re part of The Elite.” She exhales a shuddering breath.
So she has heard of it.
“My father spoke about The Elite to me. I was to tell him If they ever approached me.”
“Have they?”
“No.” She shakes her head.
“When you’re recruited by them, you’re given a task to complete.”
“Okay.”
“I met you before I was ever given my task. It was pure coincidence the two mixed.”
I’m not explaining this well.
“Getting into The Elite meant everything to me, Chas. It was all I wanted—until you. I gave my chance up because I refused to hurt you like that.”
“I don’t understand why they would want you to hurt me?”
“Me either. I’m sorry. But you should know, Lillian is a member, Chas, she wears their mark.”
Sighing heavy she shakes her head. “That doesn’t surprise me even though it should. Her family, her brother, is a very powerful man.”
Gripping her hands tighter I implore.
“I didn’t know initiation would be something so …”
“Disgusting? Degrading? Personal? Illegal?” She says, pulling her hands free from my hold.
No. She can’t leave me.
“Please don’t leave me.” I put my vulnerability out there. Raw and true.
“Your best friend’s an asshole and I’m not okay with what he did or you being a part of this Elite. They’re bad news, Rhett. But those few hours without there being an us was like death. Never again. Let’s make a pact now that nothing will come between us again.”
“I promise.”
My world centers when she crawls into my lap and allows me to hold her.
I inhale her scent, touching every inch of her. I’m never letting go.
I know God wasn’t the one who filmed us. He wouldn’t stoop to that shit. He only told her that to bring her back to me.
And I’m never letting her go.
“You need to forgive him.” I tell my mom as she picks at her food, sat opposite me in the restaurant. We’re finally having our dinner together, minus my father.
“He trashed my car, Rhett. I’ve known that boy his whole life, love him like my own.”
I stop eating and implore her. “I know and that’s why you need to offer him a little slack, he would never intentionally do anything to hurt you.”
Holding up her hand she nods. “I know that, and of course his father can be persuasive into letting things go.” She rolls her eyes.
“Four even offered to pay off your school fees.” She snorts offended.
“Like I need him to put my son through school.”
“Not when I have my own father to make me earn the tuition fees.” I mock.
“I pay your fees and all I expect is effort with classes, Rhett, that’s not too much to ask.” She scoffs sipping her drink.
Wait, wait… “What?” I ask, bewildered.
My mother sits opposite me, looking a little confused.
“I paid your school fees at the start of term. Why would you think your father was paying?”