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My vision tunneled. I felt like his voice was coming from far away.
“You can still be prosecuted for murder—did you know that, Jennifer?” he asked.
“I didn’t murder anyone,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Pardon me—I should have said that you can still be prosecuted forattemptedmurder,” Lewis Bryson said. “I’ve found your victim, by the way. He is a character. He had all sorts of stories about you.”
I felt like I was going to be sick. “I gotta go.”
“Do what I say, or your past is going to become your present,” Cole’s father said. He hung up.
I sat there, reeling.I’ve found your victim. Your past is going to become your present.My heart thudded in my chest. I needed to run, hide, and get the hell away from Lewis Bryson once and for all.
You can still be prosecuted for attempted murder.
Shame swept through me, flooding my senses. I never wanted to think about the past… My past. I’d done something so bad that I’d cursed myself. I could see it now. There was a reason all this was coming back to haunt me. I’d fallen in love and finally thought I was safe and with someone I could trust. I thought I might have a future.
That’s when all my snakes reappeared.
I should have known better than to hope. I should have never let myself fall for Cole and dreamed about having a family with him, a home. Girls like me didn’t get happy endings like that.
My phone pinged—it was a text from Auntie Theresa.Jesus.When it rained assholes, it poured.
Need more money.
Pronto.
Was she freaking kidding? I had sent her money only two days before—alotof money.
I just sent you ten thousand dollars.
How could you possibly need more?
It’s not enough. I owe people.
Besides
There’s a lot to make up for, and you know it.
I couldn’t even muster the energy to be disgusted. After staring at Theresa’s texts for a few minutes, I simply Venmo’d my aunt another ten grand without even thinking it through. By the time she was done with me, I’d have nothing left.
But it didn’t even matter. I felt like I had nothing else to lose.
I was caught in Cole’s father’s web. He wanted me to take Cole’s phone and pretend to be Cole to get what he wanted. As if lying to the man I loved wasn’t bad enough, now his father was asking me to do this. He was making me complicit in his fraud and betrayal.
And if I didn’t do what he asked? He’d bring back the man from my past, the one who abused me. He’d tell them what I did, all the dirty details. Cole, Audrey, James—everyone would know. Cole’s father would call the police on me. I’d have to talk about it, explain myself, defend myself. My shame would never end.
I’d lived alone my whole life for a reason, and this was it. I didn’t want anybody to find out about what happened to me as a kid. It was a past I didn’t ever want to think about again. Long ago, I’d decided it was best to remember it as a movie, something separate and apart from me, something that couldn’t hurt me ever again.
But Cole’s father was making it real. He was making me hurt again.
I paced the room, not knowing what to do. I wanted to run away. Maybe I could put the saddle on Betsy and ride off into the sunset…
I could do it. I’d done it before. With the money I still had left from my first assignment with Cole, I could hide. I could make a new life for myself somewhere. Someplace safe, where no one could ever hurt me again.
My phone pinged, and I groaned. I grabbed it, expecting another message from Auntie Theresa, but instead, it was Cole’s father.
If you are considering relieving yourself of your responsibilities, I wanted to add a reminder.
