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“I didn’t mean that,” he says, through gritted teeth.
Neither of us says anything for several minutes, until finally, I can’t bear it. “I lied because I was a fool,” I say quietly. “They tricked me. Tyler’s parents told me you’d accepted a plea bargain. That you wouldn’t do any jail time, that the conviction would be expunged after two years, so long as nobody testified about the… “
“The part where he drugged andrapedyou?” Rome supplies.
“Yes,” I mumble.
“And you believed them?” Rome asks incredulously.
I shake my head. “It wasn’t just them. It was the whole family. My father. My uncle. My grandparents. Everyone was more concerned about the bad press around a Capulet raping his own teenage cousin than they were about you being punished. At least, that’s what they led me to think.” I take in a desperate breath. “My uncle Enzo convinced me that the lawyers would tear you apart in court if I didn’t go along with the plan.”
“Well, he got the first part right,” Rome says. “They sure did tear me apart.”
“I was a stupid, sixteen-year-old girl,” I say ruefully. “I believed them. I did! I was a fucking idiot, and I’m so sorry.”
“That might explain how I ended up in prison,” Rome says, “But it doesn’t explain how I stayed in there. You could have done something once you found out, Avery.”
He’s right. I could have. And for the rest of my life - if it lasts for days, or months, or years - I don’t think I’ll ever be able to make him understand why I left him there to rot.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says, his words sharp, his voice hard. “We don’t have time for that.”
“What do you mean?” I ask dumbly.
“Avery,” Rome says urgently, “we have to find a way to get out of this fucking hellhole.”
CHAPTER SIX
AVERY
Spoiler alert:We do not get out.
We adapt to a new life, down here in the dark. A picture of domesticated bliss, if that bliss involves daily bandage changes and electric shocks, of bloodletting and lapsing in and out of consciousness. The occasional beating. There’s never enough food or water to be satisfied, only enough to stave off actual death, and I start to appreciate what sailors adrift in the ocean must feel like as they break down and start drinking the salt water that surrounds them, even if they know it will kill them even quicker.
That’s how I feel, down here, in this hellhole. Like I want to find the equivalent of salt water and drink it until I can’t fit another drop in my belly. Maybe it’s my mind trying to preserve itself, to not hope for too much, because as the days drag on, dark and unending, I gradually stop hoping to be saved. I start to think about how we can take things into our own hands and escape.
It’s an impossible task. Rome tells me about the house upstairs, about the multiple locks on multiple doors, about the woman who drugged him. We don’t talk about his prison sentence anymore. We don’t talk about the past much at all. We both fall into a rhythm that consists entirely of keeping ourselves - and each other - alive for one more day.
We’ve been down here for thirty-two days when I wake up on our bare mattress and realize I have given up. I don’t turn to Rome and squeeze his hand, or touch his face, or give him a sad smile. I don’t take a sip of water. I don’t lust for food. I don’t require warmth.
I don’t do anything.
Rome must sense the change in me. He’s already awake - he barely sleeps, in comparison to me - and he leaves his spot next to the door, coming to sit by me.
“Hey,” he says. “You thirsty? I have a whole mouthful of water here for you.” He shakes the plastic bottle in his hand, dangerously close to empty.
I don’t take it. I don’t want it.And I don’t know why.
I stare at the ceiling. Well, it’s too dark to see the ceiling down here, but I stare in its general direction. I feel Rome shift beside me, carefully recapping the water, so he doesn’t waste a drop. He pushes hair off my face, but I still can’t meet his eyes.
“Avery?” he asks. I can’t speak. Can’t move. It’s as if I’m dead, but not.
It’s the moment something flips in my brain. A switch goes off, just like that, a neural pathway that swaps tracks from eventuality A - that we might be rescued - to eventuality B - that we will not.
“Nobody’s coming to save us,” I say softly. It’s as if I’m outside my body, a third party watching this scene unfold. As I watch myself, it strikes me how casual I sound. How matter-of-fact.
How I have given up.
There’s no vengeance left in me, no childish hope that this situation is temporary.
