Chapter 35
February 2008
Zach
“C-charlotte?” I stutter out. Why would he be asking me about her?
“I’m going to guess yes by that stunned look on your face.” He grumbles.
My eyes search his beady ones, begging all kinds of things with words unspoken. I don’t know what I want to hear come out next. Is this her new boyfriend? My hackles instantly raise, and suddenly, the baseball bat seems like a good idea again.
“Look, man, Rebecca. Bex. Whatever she goes by isn’t who you think she is.”
My heart thuds against my chest in uneven beats as my mind tries to play catch up with his words.
“What do you mean?” Are the only words I can manage between the panic attack that threatens to take hold of me and the sheer terror I feel for the possibility that something has happened to Little Bit.
“I met Rebecca when she started tutoring me. She seemed meek and shy at first. She dressed pretty plainly and had long, mousy brown hair. She was someone no one ever looked twice at,” Brown? Bex’s hair has always been blonde since I’ve known her. I never asked or looked close enough to check if it was natural or not.
“I had a girlfriend at the time, and after a few sessions, Rebecca started flirting pretty heavily. Eventually, we started fucking in the stacks during our tutoring time. She loved the fact that we had to sneak around. Then, this new girl moved into her dorm building. Beautiful girl. Long blonde hair, short yet blessed with a body that drives men crazy. These light, adorable freckles all over her face. And an attitude that makes you want to fuck it out of her.” He wistfully describes.
My fists ball on my lap under the table. As my jaw clenches tightly, I pray to all that’s holy for him to be describing someone else. I wait for him to continue.
“So this girl has a boyfriend who helps move her into her new dorm room. Rebecca got a glance at that boyfriend during that visit and started hatching a plan on how to get him.”
A sudden heaviness grips my chest, sending the thumping organ plummeting to the acidic deathtrap of my stomach.
“The sabotage started immediately. Rebecca was a TA for one of the new girl’s classes. She told the professor all kinds of untrue things and turned him against her. She befriended the girl and stole the boyfriend’s information from her phone while Charlotte was in the bathroom. From there, Rebecca stalked the boyfriend for a couple of weeks, seeing he had a female best friend. She decided to stage a run-in with that best friend at a local coffee shop.”
“She knew that was her way in. She also knew the boyfriend was hopelessly in love with the new girl, so Rebecca became her. She wore similar clothes, bought the same perfume, used the same shampoo, and, my favorite, wore a blonde wig until she finally committed to the role enough to have her natural hair bleached.”
“What the fuck…” I whisper, disbelief flooding my mind.
“Oh, it gets better, man. So, after all this, she starts intentionally putting thoughts in the new girl’s head. Telling her long distance doesn’t work, that her boyfriend is probably cheating… And so on. Rebecca went to the boyfriend’s town one weekend and was finally introduced through the female best friend, though he had no idea who she was. The boyfriend got completely shit-faced at the club they were at. Rebecca doubled down and gave him a cookie laced with AstraClara and made up some excuse to be dropped off at his dorm.”
Memories flash as he describes a familiar scene.
Cookie to soak up the alcohol.
Vanilla and sugar.
Blonde, silky hair.
Little Bit.
“The boyfriend was completely hammered and now high as fuck on a drug that makes a hit of ecstasy seem like a drop of a wine cooler and gives you a guaranteed hard-on at a slight breeze. She hopped right on that hard dick and rode it to completion, all while she secretly filmed the whole thing.”
Bile churns in my stomach, and the rising burn of vomit makes its way up my throat. I swallow down the feeling, needing to know what happened next.
“She then purposefully took the boyfriend’s phone and waited for the call she knew would be coming. You see, it was the boyfriend’s birthday, and she knew the girlfriend would call at some point. So when that call came through, she answered the phone, feigning innocence when the boyfriend flipped out.”
My whole body begins to shake as a cold feeling starts at my toes and works its icy claws up to my chest.
“When she returned to AU, she anonymously taped an envelope with a thumb drive to the new girl’s door. Can you guess what was on the thumb drive?”
My eyes snap over to the box that sits under the end table against the couch. The box of the belongings that Charlotte packed up when she ended us for good. The box that had all the things I recognized… Except for one thing.
I stumble out of the chair, not caring when it smashes to the floor on its back behind me. My knees hit the plush carpet, and I slowly pull the box out of its hiding place. A small, silver thumb drive is still sitting there, an unknown taunt to my forgotten actions.
“We aren’t quite done with this tale of single-white-female-ing, bro. A few weeks later, Rebecca pops positive on a pregnancy test. She’s elated to tell the boyfriend the good news, knowing she’s just locked him down for life. There’s just one problem…”
My head whips back to look at him, and he waves an envelope in the air. I get up on shaky legs and return to the table. I fall into the chair and take the envelope from him with trembling fingers.
Without taking my eyes off Hunter, I begin to pull the single paper from the envelope. When he doesn’t continue this fucked up story, my eyes fall to the paper. All the words jumble together in one big mess. My eyes jump from place to place, trying to decipher what I’m looking at. It all seems so foreign. Six words and two numbers jump out to me.
Combined Paternity Index: 0
Probability of Paternity: 0%
“But.. what… I don’t underst…” I can’t seem to form words. “So, I’m not–?”
Hunter shakes his head, “No, man. You’re not the baby daddy,” and he holds out another envelope for me.
Combined Paternity Index: 533,475
Probability of Paternity: 99.9998%
“I am.” He points to his name on the top of the paper.
“H-How? How do you know all of this? How can I trust this? No offense, man, but I don’t fuckin’ know you.”
He holds up the notebook and slams it between my arms on the table. He opens it up to the first page.
“This. This is how I know. She detailed everything, dude. I’m not proud of this, but when she wouldn’t talk to me after telling me I wasn’t the father but wouldn’t show me the proof, I broke into her dorm room. I found this in a locked drawer in her desk with the two results sitting on top of it. I knew she still had the dorm room despite moving out. I guess to be here with you?” he leaves the statement with a question.
The cloudiness in my mind gives way to one thing…Rage.
With hard eyes and measured breaths, I reach down and pull my phone out. The line trills, “What’s up, Pretty Boy? How’s married life?”
“Get here. Now.” I order before hanging up the line .
“What are you going to do, bro? Your girlfriend is a fucking psycho, but she’s carrying my baby…” he trails off. I can tell he is similar to me in that neither of us give a damn about Bex, it’s about the baby. I can’t think about the baby she just took away from me, along with everything else.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I bite out, clearly that news hasn’t gotten out among her classmates yet. “She’s my fucking wife.”
Hunter’s eyes widen, “Dude…”
I nod as I stare at the blank wall beside the front door. Murderous intent fills my body. Bex better fucking hope Morgan makes it here before she does. Cause right now, I’d fucking kill her. No joke intended. I will wrap my hands around her throat and cut off her airway until I watch the light from her deceiving eyes extinguish.
I press my phone to my cheek again, and his deep southern drawl comes on the line, “Zachariah. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Papaw, I’m gonna need a lawyer. A damn good one.”
“What’s going on, son?”
I filled him in on everything. Hunter just laid on me, sat back, and waited.