Chapter 22 The Incident
The Incident
‘Nobody has to know about this.’ As Milo was saying this, he picked up one cup and the pieces of the other and put them on the hatch shelf that was between our lounge and the kitchen.
‘You’re too young, too –’ he looked at me, a sobbing mess – ‘sweet. Does your head hurt? You want me to get some Tylenol before I go? It’s just a graze. You’re going to be okay.’
I was angry now. I said nothing.
He said, ‘I love Erin. I would never do anything to hurt her, and especially not –’ he gestured towards me with his hand – ‘this. I’m sorry, Ruby.
I had no idea you were thinking like this.
I don’t think I ever said or did anything to make you think …
’ He was backing towards the front door and, without finishing the sentence, he left.
I stayed on the couch for fifteen minutes, hot with rage. Then I went upstairs to Erin’s room. It was freezing as usual. She always had the air conditioning turned up high.
I used to watch Erin even when he wasn’t there. She slept on her back, with both arms above her head resting on the pillow. She looked like a Disney princess when she slept, her mouth slightly open. And every morning, she woke up perfect. I lay down on her bed.
How dare Milo reject me? Why didn’t he want me? I thought about all the ways I could take revenge. I would tell Erin that he had tried to seduce me. But would she believe it?
I buried my face in the pillow. I had seen through the tiny hole in the wall what they’d been doing to each other before Mom and Dad woke up this morning.
I looked around the room and spotted the trash can under the dressing table.
There were several tissues in it. I knew what he used these for.
Erin had jerked him off in the early hours of this morning.
I found a tissue in the trash that was still moist. I knew what I was looking for because I had examined the contents of Kenny Carter’s condom out of curiosity.
The semen was viscous and sticky. I pulled down my panties and wiped the tissue all around my private parts, pushing it up inside myself, before flushing it and the other tissues from the trash down the toilet in the family bathroom.
I washed my face clean of all the make-up.
Then I went downstairs and allowed the tears of anger to come.
I took off all my clothes and dropped them on the floor around me, adding a bra to the discarded pile, swapping out the shorts for a pair of high-waisted jeans.
I wrapped myself in the blanket and waited for Dad to come home, while I made my plan to destroy Milo Kelly.
It was perfect. He had ripped my shirt. He’d said, ‘this never happened’ and ‘nobody has to know’.
I had said ‘no’ three times. And I had the trump card.
There were, at the very least, traces of his semen inside me.
Erin’s perfect smile would be wiped off her face.