Shame (Ruin 3)

I checked my watch and groaned as I stepped into the hall. If I didn’t run, I was going to be late. Again.

CHAPTER FOUR

I never had a pet growing up. What I had was Mel. Damn, she was spirited. I enjoyed breaking that spirit; I relished in the evil I’d made her do and laughed when she started falling with me, when I no longer had to pressure her to pick on the weak. My greatest accomplishment was the day she’d come up with the idea to end all ideas. A death dare for all the new recruits in our group of friends. That was the night I told her I loved her — but I didn’t really love her. I loved what she made me feel. I loved that, instead of being afraid of me, she fed the beast. She fed me more than my heroin addiction, more than the coke, more than the girls, the fast cars. She filled me temporarily, but I knew it would come to an end someday. She had a conscience, whereas I did not, so it would end, and I’d have to change tactics with her. —The Journal of Taylor B.

Tristan

I HADN’T EXPECTED her to be so docile. It was a direct contradiction to what Taylor had written about in his journal. For a minute, possibly a second, a seed of doubt started to grow, but I squashed it down. I was doing this for me, for my family. I had no proof that she was the same girl Taylor wrote about, only a sneaking suspicion; the names matched, the description matched, and I’d found a few pictures of her in that same journal.

What had happened? How had she pushed him over the edge? Why hadn’t she told someone? She was so young; so was he. Granted, I knew an apology was probably in order, but I didn’t even know what the hell I was apologizing for or how to do it. I was torn between feeling guilty about how he’d supposedly treated her, and furious that she’d been responsible for him jumping off that bridge.

My body gave an involuntary shudder, pissing me off all the more. I wasn’t this guy, the one hell-bent on revenge. I didn’t even recognize the foreign feeling anymore. On the outside I was the same; but inside it was like a storm was brewing, just waiting to implode from the inside out. I gripped the edge of the desk and took a few soothing breaths, closing my eyes, returning my focus to the words on those pages, the words that sealed my fate, the ones that sealed hers.

She’d helped destroy him.

So by rights — I should destroy her. That’s how life worked, the yin and the yang.

If my parents could see me now. Yeah, it wouldn’t be pride; then again, they’d done nothing to help. If anything, they’d been the first catalyst, followed by her.

Her bright blue eyes flashed in my line of vision.

They matched that blue streak in her hair.

The one I couldn’t stop staring at, the one that kept distracting me from my lecture. I hadn’t actually planned on ending class so early, but the woman was too distracting. One look and I was just as lost as he’d been. She was like a poison, one I needed to suck out, to destroy.

Falling for her would be easy.

Getting her to fall for me would be the hard part. Relationships were built on trust, and I was going to gain hers. But first? A healthy dose of fear and respect. After all, I knew exactly how her mind worked. She responded to challenges. Fear gave her courage. So I was going to be a damn fearsome professor — and she’d love me more for it.

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.