I happen to know a thing or two about excusing abuse for the sake of keeping your shit cogent.
Eventually, Vandy got fed up with it all and pulled her outside the dorms. They talked for half an hour. I’m not sure what was said, or why Sydney returned with a blank, tear-streaked face, but she gave Georgia the nod and that was that.
Aubrey, Vandy, and I all sat in the car while the two of them disappeared behind the doors of the station. We listened to the radio for an hour, then sent Aubrey off to get us some burgers from across the street. We ate and waited. We talked and waited. We waited and then waited some more. They didn’t get out until midnight, both returning to the car with tired eyes and grim faces. Their expressions said it all.
This wasn’t the end of a fight.
It’s the beginning of one.
I’m still doubtful it’s a fight Sydney is willing to finish, but eventually the other girls will learn. You can’t force someone into seeing themselves as a victim—as a survivor. It has to be something they realize themselves, and even then, the hunger for justice isn’t a universally shared ache.
What Doug did to me was untenable, but the thought of trying to bring him down—legally, officially—makes me physically ill. Maybe that makes me the kind of person who doesn’t stand up for herself. Or maybe that makes the kind of person who does—by acknowledging that it’ll only hurt me more. Because the truth is, the thought of looking back at it makes me tired.
Sebastian was right that day in the garage.
I’m tired of fighting.
I’m still tangled in these thoughts when I hear a knock at the door. It’s so gentle, so quiet, that I almost question if I
heard it at all. But who knows? It could be one of the Devils, coming to check on their girls.
So I climb out of bed to open the door.
Sebastian’s leaning against the far wall, head hanging low on his shoulders. His blond hair is messier than it was when I last saw him, a tangle of golden chaos. He’s wearing a heavy jacket that’s opened, revealing his bare chest, hands shoved into the pockets.
When he lifts his head to meet my gaze, it feels like the floor has fallen from beneath me.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
It was all for nothing.
It’s a horrible, selfish, myopic sort of thought. The kind that I’ll be kicking myself for later. Georgia needed to report Heston because he hurt her. In a way, so did Sydney. It was never really about stopping the fight—not at its core. It was about making sure that there was something on record. Proof that Heston Wilcox is dangerous. A predator.
But seeing Sebastian standing there, eye almost swollen over, face bloody and bruised and battered, I can’t help but think that it isn’t fair.
“Hey,” he says in a rusty voice, slurred with something I’m hoping like hell is just the same exhaustion I saw before. “Should see the other guys.”
Guys? “Plural?” I think he tries to smile. It ends up looking more like a painful twitch of his cheek. “What are you doing here, Sebastian?” It comes out plaintive and quiet, and not at all the way I intend it. What I mean to ask is why he isn’t at the nearest urgent care center.
But he just rests his head back against the wall, staring down his nose at me with those tired eyes. “Showing you something honest.”
The words make every cell in my body come instantly to life. Unwilling to let him see this, I prop a shoulder against the door jamb, ducking my head. “You honestly look like you’re about to collapse in my hallway. Why aren’t you in yours?”
His shrug is a loose, lazy thing. “I wouldn’t be able to sleep,” he says. Even his inhale sounds exasperated with it all. “Not until I told you that it was all bullshit. Every word of it.”
Softly, I reply, “I know,” but even though it’s still nice to hear it like this—said aloud, to my face—it doesn’t take it all away. It soothes the hurt, but deep down, the sting remains.
“I don’t know exactly how to fix it.” He pauses, shoulders sinking impossibly lower. “I just couldn’t let another night go by with you thinking I don’t love you. And I doubt I’m currently in the position to do shit like think, or make promises, or tell you that I’ll do whatever it takes to get you back. Because I think I’m sort of a loser, and not worth it for you.”
“That’s what you think?” I ask, lifting my eyes to see his heavy nod. “Then you’re right.” I watch his face fall, shaking my head in response. “You’re not in the position to think right now.”
His eyes spark, head lifting from the wall in order to watch me closely. “I’m really fucking not.”
I shuffle my feet, taking in his crazy hair and fucked-up face. “Wait here a second.”
Leaving him in the hall, I throw on my coat, reaching under my bed for various supplies. I pause to look at Georgia and Aubrey in the bed, still sleeping soundly. Truthfully, it used to make me a little jealous, how close the twelve of them are. They’re always calling each other their boys, or their girls. Maybe the Devils are some dumb, pretentious, over-the-top secret society, but they’re also so much more. They love each other—sure, in their own weirdo, messed-up ways—but it’s a kind of love, nonetheless.
That’s why I leave a note, quickly scrawled on the back of someone’s old Bio homework: