Chapter 9 #2
“Your scholarship,” he said, cutting me off.
“Yes, Juliette, I remember. You think I don’t remember how hard you were working for all of that?
For everything? I remember it all. You wanted to go to Harvard.
Wanted to study art. Wanted to do it for the rest of your life, and I was so ready to stand right next to you while you did it. I wanted that for you, Juliette.”
That knife he had plunged into my chest five years ago felt like it was back there again, lodged into my skin, forcing me to feel that same sting one more time. Except this time, it was worse. More painful, more daunting, because the future had never felt so bleak.
“And yet…” I said.
Did he think I had forgotten? The cops, the photographs, the proof?
That stupid little bracelet I had braided for him one day in his room.
It was a memento he probably had no recollection of, but it was permanently branded into my brain.
I could still remember one of the cops handing me a photograph, showing me that bracelet clinging to the shards of glass from my broken art room window.
Bridger had at least learned to not get caught in the last few years.
“And yet what?” he asked. “I knew what that was for, Juliette. For the school your parents didn’t want you to go to.
For the scholarship you needed because there was no other way for you to study what you loved.
It’s not like you need a fucking hand out anymore, anyway.
I’m pretty sure your husband can afford to ship you off to school.
At least you got to try me out before you got the guy you really wanted. ”
A laugh left my lips, all hollow and sour.
“You keep saying that. You say that I was just trying you out, but you were the one doing that.” My eyes closed, slow tears falling down my cheeks.
I remembered the letter, all the hurtful words he had scribbled down and sent my way.
“I remember everything you said to me, Bridger. Every bad thing. Every awful thing. You think I don’t remember?
You think I just forgot about all of that? ”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he asked.
I felt a stupid amount of rage take over as I turned around, not even caring if he saw me in tears. I ignored that look on his face: his blue eyes and the way they widened, a flash of pain staring back at me before he replaced it with something else I couldn’t read.
“It’s funny how you want to blame me,” I whispered, arms still circled around myself. “You made so many mistakes, Bridger. And so did I. But the biggest one I made was falling for you. I was too young and dumb to realize that you’d be nothing but bad news. My… My dad was right about you.”
“Your dad’s a fucking liar,” Bridger said, teeth gritted. “You have no idea what he’s really like, Juliette.”
I scoffed. “Oh, I don’t?”
“No. You’ve got no clue.”
“God, you just barge back into my life, break into my home, threaten to kill my husband—”
“Where is that pussy, anyway?”
“Gordon is a good husband,” I lied, desperate to hurt Bridger the way he kept hurting me.
“He’s given me so much. Everything I could have ever wanted.
This house, and this dress I’m wearing, and all that stuff you stole.
I am so, so happy with him. So happy. Are you happy?
Do you like doing this? Hm? Sneaking into houses and stealing things that don’t belong to you? Do you enjoy that?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “A lot.”
“Have you considered getting a real job?”
“I have a real job.”
“Breaking and entering isn’t a career.”
“I own a tattoo parlor downtown.”
I blinked at him. “You own a business?”
Giving me a lazy shrug, he pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, that cigarette still hanging loosely from his lips. “Kinda had to do something. Banks don’t like it when you suddenly show up with cash you can’t explain. Looks suspicious.”
“What’s it called?”
“Hidden Ink.”
I huffed out a little laugh, cheeks still wet. “Deep and edgy.”
The corner of his lips twitched. “I didn’t come up with it. It’s just a side hustle. Something to make the taxman happy. Got an apartment right above it, so it all works out. But what I did the other night? Break in, steal all the good shit, sell all that good shit? That’s my real job.”
“Hurting people isn’t a job.”
“Well, usually, no one gets hurt.”
“Usually?”
“Sometimes people wanna be tough. They wanna get in the way. And what else am I supposed to do when they get in the way?”
My throat cleared as I envisioned that: Bridger in his mask, covered head to toe in black, nothing but his blue eyes showing as he held up a gun. For some reason, I imagined him pointing it at Gordon.
“I saw something on the news,” I whispered, remembering that story about Nate and Sasha. “About another house in the area. Was that you?”
“Yes,” he said casually.
“One of them died.”
“So?”
“Were… Were you the one who did the killing or was it one of the other two?”
“It was me.” And once again, the words sounded so, so casual on his lips.
I let out a shaky breath. “And you don’t feel any guilt?”
“I only do it when it’s necessary. A man does what he needs to do. That guy pounced and I defended myself. It’s simple.”
I nodded slowly. That should have struck fear deep within me.
Cold, unnerving fear. Bridger had always been bad, but now there was something else behind his eyes.
It was darker, sinister. He kept his gaze locked to me, still scanning my body in a way that had me blushing harder than he deserved to see.
“Okay, are we done here? Is this enough for you?” I blurted out, wiping a hand against my wet cheeks. “Will you stop showing up now? Haven’t you done enough?”
“I’ve never been able to stay away from you, Juliette,” he murmured. “But you were always the same. You couldn’t stay away from me either.”
“Things are different now.”
He tilted his head at me, eyeing me up and down.
“Yeah, they are,” he said before spinning on his heels, one of his boots stepping right on to that letter from the fertility clinic as he walked out of the room oh so calmly.
Like he hadn’t just broken in yet again.
Like he hadn’t just admitted he killed someone.
I watched him leave, his footsteps heavy and loud as I sat down on the couch.
My hands were shaky as I gripped the edge of the seat below me, eyes closed tightly.
There was the distinct sound of the door slamming, and I realized that it was the back one.
That was how he was slipping in, but even that had an alarm set up, so I wasn’t sure how he was even capable of coming inside whenever the hell he felt like it.
It all hit me at once. Anger, frustration, irritation, and a stupid amount of curiosity and attraction. I wasn’t supposed to feel those last two things, and there was a good reason why.
The memory hit me out of nowhere hard and fast as I pushed myself off the couch and stormed back upstairs, moving into the bedroom’s walk in closet, into the section not too far from where my precious pink bag once sat.
Shaky hands shoved things around until I found a shoebox. The shoebox. I gave it a rough yank, pulling it all the way out from the back and tipping it upside down so that the lid and the contents hit the floor.
Bridger didn’t know that I had kept everything.
Photos, little notes, movie tickets. Every moment we had spent together.
It was the only thing of my past that had ever made me feel good, and sometimes I liked to pretend that there wasn’t a certain item in there that I had never been able to get rid of.
My parents had thrown all the items into the trash when they found out about Bridger.
They stepped on the snow globe he bought for me at a thrift store, snapped the sailboat figurine he made for me in shop class in half, crushed the little plastic ring he bought for me from some gumball machine.
There were only a few things I had managed to save.
I had grabbed them, sneaking those notes and photos into my room, into a box, where all those moments of history would stay close to me.
I kneeled to the carpet. There it sat. An envelope. Metropolitan Correctional Center was stamped in black across the front, my name and address right under it in Bridger’s messy handwriting, creased and ruined from me fondling it so many times.
I pulled out the letter. The one Bridger had given to me after I had written to him, begging him to tell me that it was all a lie and that he’d never do something so cruel.
I pleaded with him to call me, to write to me, to let me set up a visit so I could hear it from him, because he couldn’t have been that person.
That wasn’t the boy I had fallen in love with.
But as my eyes scanned the letter I had read so many times I almost knew all the words by heart, my stomach turned just like it always did when I held that piece of paper, because Bridger was that boy.
Juliette
You got to stop writing to me. I thought it was clear where we stood. I thought it was obvious, but I guess not, so here it is, in black and white.
I need you to get it out of your head that anything serious was gonna happen. You’re making it harder for the both of us to move on.
It wasn’t love. It wasn’t the dumb little fairytale you imagined in your head. It was fun. I won’t lie and say it wasn’t fun. We had a good time, right? But that was all it was. You were the one that got carried away. That’s not my fault.
You know I was seeing other girls before all this shit went down, right? I should have told you sooner. I’ll admit to that. But now you know, and I need you to move on, because you’re making this messier than it has to be.
Don’t visit. No crying and begging. It’s cleaner this way, and now I don’t have to pretend.
I was tired of pretending, anyway. I don’t want to see you.
I don’t want to talk about your art, or your feelings and how I hurt them, or whatever shit you’re expecting me to say.
You want me to say this was all some misunderstanding.
It wasn’t. You knew what kind of guy I was when this all started. Don’t pretend like I was anybody else.
Don’t drag this out. You’re making it harder for yourself. Just move on. I already have. You were something different for me to try. Shiny, new, rich girl pussy. It’s time to move on. This was never gonna work, anyway. You were never my forever.
There his words sat. Messy, unruly, wild, like they had been written down hastily. Like it was just some annoying little thing he had to get out of the way before he shoved the piece of paper into an envelope and shipped it off to me. It was proof that Bridger never loved me the way I loved him.
I used to think I’d never hear from Bridger again, but at least I had his letter. In a weird way, it was like I at least had something to hold on to.
What a stupid thing to do.