After a moment, he turns back around. This time his phone is in his hand, and he holds it out for me to take. My first thought is to escape into the bathroom and try to call 911, but I’m instantly distracted by the video playing on the screen. The footage shows a black Dodge Charger racing down the track.
Jesse’s black Dodge Charger.
I don’t know why he is showing me this video until the Charger goes sliding after the finish line and begins to roll. I see one flip, and another, and another. The car flips so many times I lose track. I bring a hand to my mouth as time stops. The only thing still in motion is that damn Charger.
I don’t understand. Jesse doesn’t race anymore.
The car eventually stops flipping and lands upside down. It rocks back and forth for a few more moments as the owner of the phone starts running towards the car. You can just make out someone saying, “Oh, shit,” before the video cuts.
I shake my head back and forth. No. Nononono. “What did you do? That isn’t real—Jesse doesn’t race. You’re lying. It’s fake. It has to be fake . . .” My words trail off as the footage of the car replays in my mind over and over again.
Marcus stands before me, looking down at me with disgust. “I told you what would happen if you defied me again. Do you believe me now?”
I lean up as far as the cuff will allow me and scream, “You son of a bitch! How could you?” I swing with my free hand as hard as I can, but he blocks it with ease.
“Let me fucking go.” I swing again. “Let me go! Do you hear me? Let me go, you asshole!” With each breath, I swing again.
I’m so lost in my rage that I’m not prepared for his next move. I hear the crack of his hand and feel the snap of my head a split second before the throbbing pain begins to pulse in my cheek. I fall down on the bed and bring my free hand up to cup the stinging, pulsing skin.
“You still haven’t learned your lesson, have you?” Marcus brings his mouth down to my ear and whispers, “Keep it up, and one by one they will all meet the same fate.”
I don’t move. I don’t respond. Instead, I succumb to the all-consuming pain in my chest. It radiates outward, spreading throughout my body, stealing my breath, and fracturing my mind. I’m not sure when the tears started but I wipe them away with a trembling hand as I suck in a deep breath and fight to hold in the scream threatening to erupt from my lungs. I won’t allow him to be witness to my heartbreak. He doesn’t get any realness from me. He doesn’t get to see me break. I’ve spent the last year learning how to hold it all inside, and only one person has ever been allowed to see the true me.
But Marcus? He gets nothing. He gets nothing except a lonely girl who will never see him as anything but the monster he truly is.
“He was never going to stop looking for you. No matter what. He was coming, so I solved the problem. Now we can be together with nothing between us. No one to stop us,” Marcus snarls.
“And something in that twisted brain of yours thought we would be together if Jesse wasn’t in the picture? You don’t get it. You’re a monster. A twisted, soulless monster that I could never love,” I cry out.
He backs up a bit, and nods while he shrugs and spreads his hands wide. “That may be the case. But where are you now? With me. And one day . . .” He closes the distance between us once more to slide a finger down my cheek. “One day, you will see that I did this all for you.”
“One day? One day, I’ll kill you, and I will never look back. You wanted me? Well you got me. For the rest of our time together, you better watch your back. Because one day, when you aren’t looking, when you least expect it, I will take you down,” I snarl.
He backs away and walks straight out of the room, slamming the door behind him once again, leaving me with nothing.
Nothing. I have nothing. Nothing except a shattered heart and a broken spirit.
“I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to enter. Your stuff is good,” Jesse says to me as I pack up my bag for school.
“Because those drawings aren’t for everyone to judge. They were—are—just a way for me to get some of this out,” I say, motioning to my head, where all my fears and hardships still live.
“I get that. But all of that is what makes it good. Your drawings are real and raw—which is why I entered you in the school art contest. I thought maybe if a bunch of strangers told you how good they are you might take it a bit more seriously,” he says as he holds up a sketch on the desk in my temporary room.
I walk over and grab the paper out of his hand. I run my hand over the lonely girl looking through a window in longing. I sketched it on that first day at Cherry Creek high.
I hold it up. “This is not for some stranger’s eyes. This is for me and my eyes only. You had no right to do that behind my back. I’m not your puppet like the rest of Cherry Creek. I’m your girlfriend. You have to
