Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Carley
“Ren?”
I have no idea what’s happening.
“I thought you were dead? Saylor!” I shout, as I sluggishly run up the stairs behind the door.
I don’t hear any movement when I get to the top of the steps.
What the hell is going on?
“Where’s Saylor?” I lock eyes on Ren as he slowly climbs the stairs.
“I don’t know. Off doing whatever idiotic thing she does. It was getting really hard to put up with her after a while. She almost didn’t make it.”
What is he saying? Why is he talking about her like that?
“She’s not here?”
“Uhh, no.”
“I’m so confused. Blaine texted me with a horrifying picture with the two of you in it.”
“My roommate is a design major. I asked him to make it look brutal. He delivered.”
“It was fake? Wait, is Blaine here?”
“Oh, Carley. You’re usually much smarter than this. I think I slipped a little too much Rohypnol into your wine last night.”
The more I try to make sense of things, the less things make sense. I take a deep breath and shake my head to try and break through the fog. Rohypnol?
“You drugged me?”
“I had to. I couldn’t listen to one more goddamn word about you and D fucking for hours.”
The realization of what exactly is going on finally hits me then.
“Oh my god. You’re the stalker …” I whisper more to myself than to Ren.
My entire body is trembling. I want to run, but he’s blocking my way to the stairs.
“Yes, you’re finally getting it,” he confirms, breathing a sigh of relief.
“Where is Saylor?”
“I’ll answer whatever questions you have, but I want you to sit down first.”
He waves his hand toward the doorway to my right. In the room I see a bed and a dresser, and there is also a chair set up in front of a television set. There’s no way in hell I’m going into a bedroom with him.
I shake my head, “I don’t want to sit.”
His eyes narrow slightly, and I can tell he doesn’t like being told no.
“I’ll only ask nicely one more time, Carley.”
He takes an intimidating step toward me. His frame towers over me, and he’s never seemed taller than he does right now.
I look toward the room again, but I also take note of a large gap between Ren and the wall. It gives me an idea. A stupid idea, but I have to try.
I take a step in the direction of the bedroom, and as quickly as I can, I try to lunge at the gap to get past him and back downstairs.
“Oh, no you don’t,” he grunts as he grabs onto the back of my t-shirt.
My feet slip, and I begin to fall down the steps.
Ren’s hold on my shirt keeps me from sliding down them, but the force of gravity pulls on my body.
The neckline of my shirt stretches over my throat, cutting off my supply of oxygen.
I have a hard time breathing as he drags me by the shirt into the bedroom he just ordered me into.
“No!” I’m barely able to get my words out.
I manage to get my feet underneath me, and I rise to a standing position again. Reaching out for Ren, I scratch at his arms and face, doing whatever I can to loosen his grip. That’s when he swings me around and lets go of my shirt, causing me to fly across the room and land on the bed.
My head makes contact with the wooden bedpost, and pain radiates through my skull. The last thing I see before my vision goes black is Ren advancing on me quickly with his arms outstretched and a look of pure rage on his face.
* * *
When I come to, the first thing I see is my lap. My head bobs slightly as I try to get my bearings and figure out where the fuck I am. The last thing I remember is Ren attacking me on the bed. My vision clears as my head snaps up, and I’m staring Ren in the face.
“There you are.” He’s crouched down on the floor in front of me. When he places his hand on my chin, I quickly snatch it from his grasp in disgust. “I thought I may have lost you for a second. You hit your head pretty hard.”
I can’t move my arms or legs. They’re taped to the chair I’m sitting on. The same chair Ren told me to sit on before our struggle began. I also have duct tape stretched tightly over my mouth. I try to say something, but nothing more than a few small noises come out.
“If you remember before you went crazy, I offered you the opportunity to ask questions. All you had to do was come in here and sit down. Unfortunately, you didn’t follow directions, so you lost that privilege.”
He cups my cheek and runs his fingers through my hair in the same way D has done in the past when he wants to be affectionate. It makes me want to hurl.
“Let me fill you in, Carley. It’s kind of a long story, but I’ll do my best to explain everything to you.
The night we met, I couldn’t take my eyes off of you.
As soon as you walked through the door, I knew you were special.
I had to know you. You surprised me when you approached me first. The combination of your sapphire eyes and delicious perfume was like an aphrodisiac.
I couldn’t get enough. You gave me hope that night, Carley.
That’s something I haven’t felt in a very long time.
But then you left. You told me you needed to use the restroom, when in actuality you snuck out and snatched away all traces of the hope you had just given me. ”
Why do I attract the crazy ones?
“I knew I wasn’t finished with you, however. I thought if I got close to your friend, I would still have the chance of seeing you. Of getting to know you. When I found out Saylor was your roommate, the plan practically fell at my feet. I knew then what I had to do.”
He stands and backs up before turning the chair so I’m still facing him and taking a seat on the bed.
The blankets are all disheveled, and my shorts lay in a crumpled heap at the end of it.
I didn’t even realize I wasn’t wearing them any longer until now.
A tear rolls down my face, not knowing what he did to me while I was unconscious.
“I’ve never been good at flirting, but luckily Saylor is an attention-hungry slut. She ate it right up.”
“Don’t talk about her like that!” I scream, but my words are only decipherable in my mind.
“It doesn’t take much to get her into bed, am I right?
So I followed her around that night, made sure to get her number and text the appropriate number of times a guy should when he’s interested in a girl.
By the following Monday, she invited me over for dinner.
I made sure to bring an overnight bag with me.
I knew I was staying the night even before she did. ”
With each word that comes out of his mouth, I get more and more nauseated.
“I waited forever for you to get home that night. I couldn’t wait to see you again.
I needed to smell you. When you came in, you barely gave me any notice before talking about him.
That’s all you wanted to talk about, ever.
It made me angry. I knew then I would have to do whatever it would take to keep him out of your life.
We went on with dinner, but the best part of my night, Carley, was yet to come.
That was the first time I watched you sleep. You looked like an angel.”
My stomach lurches, and for a second, I think I’m going to be sick. Then his smile disappears as he begins speaking again.
“Every night I stayed over since then, I would sneak into your room and watch you. A couple times, I would lie down next to you as carefully as I could so I didn’t wake you up. That would have been bad. You would have sent me away.”
My body trembles again as his words sink in. He’s been in my bed with me, unknowingly, while I’ve slept. More tears stream down my face the longer I think about it.
“Don’t cry, Carley.”
Ren gets up from the bed and places his thumbs on my cheeks beneath my eyes. I try to shake him off, but his grip tightens. Slowly, he wipes away my tears before returning to the bed.
“Anyway, this went on for almost two weeks. The whole time, the only thing you talked about was him. Dimos this and Dimos that. That was enough to piss me off, but then …” he scoffs, “then there was the night you never came home.”
He’s angry again.
“I waited around with Saylor, pretending to be the perfect guy who cared about her and was supportive of your friendship. She’s exhausting.
I don’t know how you’ve remained friends with her for so long.
But it was a small price to pay to be near you.
She was so worried about you, and the longer you took to get home, the angrier I got. I knew exactly where you were.”
His breathing increases before he continues.
“You were with him. That’s when I knew I needed to step up my game.
I wasn’t sure exactly how I was going to play it until the next night at the club when that Blaine kid came up to you.
You were terrified. After reading the text messages Saylor sent to D, explaining who he was and what he did, everything became clear. ”
I almost feel bad for Blaine at this point. I’ve held so much anger toward him, and rightfully so, but this time he really didn’t do anything. Meanwhile, I’ve been living with my latest stalker. No wonder the letters stopped when I moved back in.
“It was the perfect cover up. Make it seem like it was him and no one would ever suspect me. Soon after, I started sending the letters. I knew I couldn’t go the same route Blaine did.
Besides, my way was smarter. Some letters here, a few carefully scheduled text messages there.
I made sure they would be delivered when I was going to be in the same room as you.
You wouldn’t see me sending anything. And I was able to watch every single move you made, too. ”
Oh god. The security tapes. How long was he watching us for?