Home > Shame (Ruin #3)(8)

Shame (Ruin #3)(8)
Author: Rachel Van Dyken

Guilt nagged again as the harsh words about Mel came flooding into my line of vision. If what he’d written was true, she’d been in hell with him.

I pushed it away.

I wasn’t the good guy anymore — the one who never swore, drank, or did drugs. I was going to become him, if only for a semester. I would use his journal as a guide, and, in the end, God willing, I’d find peace.

I patted the journal in my coat pocket. “It’s okay. You’ll finally be at rest.” I was going to discover what had really happened if it killed me. I owed him that much.

Guilt nagged again… I swallowed it down, unwilling to admit that everything I did was driven by fear. The pill bottle in my pocket rattled. I slapped my hand over it and swore aloud.

He’d found the only way to be free.

I didn’t want that same destiny.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Do you still love me?” she asked one night while we were lying together in bed. I always stayed at hotels with her, never at the house. I didn’t want to mix business with pleasure.

“Of course I do, baby.” The lie was smooth, effortless. “Why?”

“You seem distant.”

Because I was, because she was nothing to me, a body, a means to an end, an entertainment, a pet, a project, a distraction. Didn’t she realize by now? I didn’t feel things; it was impossible with all the drugs I’d taken for my sickness, or whatever the hell my parents called it. Please, if I was a sociopath, I would have been bombing things. Instead, I bullied kids, I entertained myself, and I did drugs. There were worse things in the world. Right? —The Journal of Taylor B.

Lisa

“JUST HOLD STILL!” I yelled, holding up my phone while Gabe gave me the finger. I grimaced and dropped the camera away from my face. “Nice, thanks for that.”

“I’m a giver.” He smirked.

Saylor, his wife, smacked him on the arm and rolled her eyes.

“Ouch.”

I scrunched up my face when he leaned in and took Saylor’s mouth with his, kissing her senseless in the local Starbucks like they were doing a romance scene in a movie. I coughed.

They didn’t pull apart.

So I took a picture.

I earned another finger, but Gabe still didn’t dislodge from his wife.

“Whoa!” Wes’s voice sounded from behind me. “They been at it long?”

“Are all newlyweds disgusting?” I voiced aloud.

Wes moved around the table with his wife, Kiersten, and gave me a goofy shrug. I wanted to roll my eyes, but Wes was too nice and hot. Let’s not forget the hot part. Both he and Gabe were like walking poster boys for GQ. Both blond, now that Gabe had decided to dye his hair back to his original color. It was like staring at two really bright superstars.

Hating them was like hating the Easter bunny. Try all you want, but you’ll eat every piece of chocolate in the basket, just you wait.

“So, classes?” Kiersten leaned forward. “I heard you got stuck with that hot new psych prof.”

Wes growled low in his throat.

“Down boy.” I braced my hands on the table and laughed. “Besides he’s not that hot.”

“A girl passed out.” Kiersten’s eyebrows shot up. “Like in class.”

“Dehydration?” I shrugged, taking a sip of coffee.

“Or…” She leaned forward. “…the rumors are true.”

“Rumors…” Gabe backed away from Saylor, his lips swollen. “…are always based on truth.”

“So you really did do a naked dance in your underwear last week after getting drunk downtown at Pike Place Market?” I tilted my head and waited while Gabe rolled his eyes and popped his knuckles. “Exactly.”

He opened his mouth.

I took a picture.

With a grimace, he snatched my phone away from me. “Never thought I’d have to tell you to lay off the pictures, Miss Paparazzi.”

I slumped in my seat. “It’s for an assignment with that hot professor.”

“Aha!” Kiersten jabbed her finger at me. “I knew it.”

I pinned her with a look. “Sarcasm, friend, sarcasm.”

“Boys get girls pregnant,” Gabe offered, while Wes choked on the coffee he’d just stolen out of my hand.

Serves him right!

“Don’t date them.”

“You’re going to be a great dad.” I smiled sweetly. “What? You’re just going to lock your girls in their rooms and go—” I mimicked his voice. “—uh, you see boy parts are bad, they make girls have lots of babies, like rabbits, and you know how rabbits make dad nervous and—”

“Hilarious,” Gabe’s eyes narrowed. “And please don’t talk about kids yet…”

Saylor laughed quietly next to him then squeezed his arm.

My heart dropped.

A very long time ago, I’d wanted to be that for Gabe, then Taylor happened and well… I shuddered, blocking out the painful memories, the things I’d done, the things he’d done, the things we’d done.

“You okay?” Wes asked, his voice soft. He was way too perceptive for my taste. If I’d wanted to share, he’d be the guy I’d talk to, but I was a vault. Sharing meant admitting my guilt, and admitting meant I’d probably go insane just like he had.

“Yeah…” I straightened in my seat. “…I just don’t want to fail my class, and I need to write down nonverbal cues and take at least one picture. And pretty sure I need to ace this first assignment on account that I was late to my prof’s class, and I got in trouble.”

   
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