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And then came the pain.
Every thrust brought a hot, searing flash behind my eyelids, as if he was ripping farther and farther inside me. I had stopped taking in breaths, his hand blocking my mouth and one of my nostrils. It was as if my body refused to do anything other than focus on the pain.
His hand twisted around my hair, yanking my head back. Heat burned through my scalp, a welcome distraction from the agony between my legs. I focused on it, picturing every little hair being broken, leaving behind ragged roots.
And as suddenly as it started, it was done. I felt him crawl off me, but I couldn’t move.
“That was good,” he said over the scratchy sound of metal on metal as he pulled up his zipper. “I’ll see you downstairs.”
And then he was gone.
I lay there for a minute, terrified. Wondering if he would comeback or whether I was free to go. I knew every second I spent in his bed, I was begging for it to happen again. But it was as if I was frozen there, stuck to those crusty sheets, the smell of blood and something more sour flooding my nose.
I heard him clomp down the stairs. Then a few seconds later, his voice, jubilant.
“Twenty-six!”
Cheers followed. A mix of male and female voices. I had no idea what that meant, but I knew it had to have something to do with me.
When I finally got up, I didn’t have anything to wipe myself off with. I looked down at the sheets. They were covered in what looked like rust. It took me a minute to realize it was blood and then another to figure out where it was coming from. I collected my jeans from the ground and pulled them back up, thanking God they were dark, that they wouldn’t show anything.
I tiptoed out of the room, trying to make as little noise as possible. I could hear sounds from downstairs, laughing and muffled conversation.
I headed toward the stairs, stopping in front of the whiteboard. Eric’s name was listed at the top. Underneath were five groupings of lines, each of which had a diagonal line struck through it. Twenty-five.
My brain was cloudy. But not enough to prevent me from understanding what this was. I was number twenty-six.
When had the contest started? The school year? That month? Not that it mattered. I was just a number to him, and in a way, he was the same to me.
He was my first.
I stopped being quiet. Instead, I ran down the stairs, hittingeach one as hard as I could. I turned my head toward the living room before reaching the front door.
And at that moment, I saw the girl who had opened it for me. Her eyes were locked on me without any sign of emotion. As if she were empty.
I’ve thought about those eyes constantly. Despite all the rage I felt toward Eric, what that girl did seemed even worse. Opening the door, welcoming me in, knowing full well what was about to happen. She sat there as Eric led me upstairs, aware of what he planned to do to me. And then she ignored it, denied any effort to help.
And the rage is relentless. I try to dampen it, but even at my happiest, it’s always there. A sour taste in the back of my throat. A dull ache in my abdomen. Waiting for me to lower my guard so that it can crawl like dark ivy through my veins, choking out every other feeling.
Even years later, I spent nights awake, staring up at the ceiling of yet another Eastern European hotel, fantasizing about how I would ruin them—both Eric and the girl who let it happen. But that was all it was, fantasies. I knew I would never be able to touch Eric. I’d monitored him on social media, his six-figure starting salary at the finance firm on Wall Street, his happy marriage—to Cass’s old roommate, no less—a newborn baby rounding out their perfect family of three. He has enough charm, enough money, enough pull to get away with anything, especially when his accuser is a mildly successful travel blogger with a penchant for bikini photos. And he has friends, like the girl in the swim house that night, who will do whatever it took to cover for him.
I’d kept tabs on her too, of course. I watched the stories come out about her, her family. Thrilled she was going to get her comeuppance, that she was being named everything I had called her in my own head. But then after everything that happened—everything that she did—she got off scot-free. I was enraged, sickened that she manipulated her way out of the terrible things she had done. And soon enough, it became impossible to find her.
Until several months ago. I was in a hotel room in Romania, scrolling through past blog posts by another travel influencer I follow, when something made me stop. It was a mundane post, filled with photos the influencer had taken of her first scuba experience. But there was one picture squeezed in at the bottom that seized my attention in a choke hold. It was a photo of the influencer and three others, gathered around a small table loaded with drinks, a beautiful landscape of white sand and turquoise waves in the background. “Celebrating being scuba certified with the amazing staff at the Koh Sang Dive Resort!” she had captioned the photo, geotagging it as the Tiki Palms Restaurant. I skimmed over the two men at the table—one with a mashed-up nose and dirty-looking hair, the other a redhead with a kind smile—to the only other woman, her expression surprised as if she wasn’t expecting the flash. She was different, of course: the blond hair, the tanned skin, the new name. But her eyes were the exact same as they’d been three years ago.
Empty.
It was the girl from the swim house. The girl from the newspapers. Her.
I spent weeks learning everything I could about her, scouring the resort website and social media pages for any crumbs of information I could gather, each realization expounding my anger. She’dleft New York, started over. She had a brand-new life, a boyfriend, a job, a set of close friends on this paradise island. The unfairness of it cut me to my core. She didn’t deserve this, any of it.
So after a few months of saving and researching and planning, I spent everything I had to come to this island to find her. To see if she’d changed. And if not, to get revenge.
I went to the Tiki Palms the morning after I first arrived on Koh Sang, knowing we would cross paths eventually. I was so jittery I could barely sit still, my heart beating so hard I expected she would hear it as soon as she entered the restaurant. I thought for certain she would recognize me, convinced my plan would be destroyed before it even started. Despite rounding out my Kentucky drawl, my new hair color, and learning how to use makeup—thanks, Instagram—I still look like the girl I was back at Hudson University. But Cass was so guileless she never even questioned it, which only made my rage burn brighter. She’s the same person she was back then, desperate for the attention of those who shine bright, no matter the cost to others. And as a glittering new Instagram celebrity, I fit the mold pretty well.
I sit now, at the top of the hill leading to her house, because I’m consumed by the need to see those eyes that have haunted me every day since I entered that swim house. I need to see that she understands. I need to see that I’ve broken her as much as she did me.
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