Two Wrongs

1. Cassie

CASSIE

I always wondered if monsters were born or made.

Over the past year, I’ve done some research on it.

My social life died a quick, painful death, so I had a lot of time on my hands.

I also needed to make sense of what had happened to me, how I was feeling, and how the world around me was responding.

It wasn’t the sort of thing I’d ever considered before, but I guess I always believed people were mostly fair-minded.

That the sinner would be judged and the victim would be supported.

That isn’t how it’s gone.

And I did everything right.

I went through the excruciating visit to the hospital when all I wanted to do was curl up alone in my room and die.

I sat through all the police interviews and dealt with questions from lawyers that somehow made me feel like I was at least partially responsible for what someone had chosen to do to me.

I did everything by the book, everything you’re supposed to do, and I did not get the justice I deserved.

I’ve tried to make peace with it. My mother says I’m too angry. She made me sit down with the pastor at our church, and he advised me to try to forgive—not for his good, but for my own. He said forgiveness would set me free.

But even if he’s right, what about him? Why does he get to be free with me?

I’ve tried everything to cope with the hand life has dealt me.

A counselor recommended journaling, so I started journaling, but it wasn’t long before the notebook devolved into brutal fantasies of revenge.

I stopped journaling and started doing a little creative writing—imagining over and over again how I would kill him if I could.

The people around me didn’t get it. He’d (allegedly) stolen sex, and (if I was telling the truth) that was bad, sure, but it’s not like he murdered someone.

He did, though. That’s what they don’t understand. They blame me for the way I’ve changed, but he is the one who changed me.

He did kill me that night.

He killed the girl I was for the first seventeen years of my life. She’s gone now, destroyed, and for the past year, I’ve been becoming someone else.

Someone angry.

Someone hurt.

Someone who no longer believes in karma, or that anyone else will protect her.

Someone who loves and who will defend herself, even if it’s the last thing she does.

I still have some of my old impulses, though.

When I walk into the kitchen tonight, I don’t turn on a light. Frank just got home a little bit ago, and I don’t hear the shower running, so he’s probably trying to fall asleep. I don’t want the light to disturb him.

I open the pantry. I know Mom bought the snack cakes I like, and since there’s a chance these are my last moments, I decide to indulge.

I’m crestfallen when I tilt the box and see the last plastic-wrapped cake fall into my hand. Ordinarily, I’d never eat the last of anything in case someone else wanted it, but I’m going to make an exception tonight.

Tomorrow, I’ll either be dead or in jail, so I think I’m going to take the last snack cake.

On impulse, I open the junk drawer and grab a pen and a sheet of paper. I hadn’t planned to, but maybe I should leave a note.

I grip the pen, letting it hover over the paper as I try to decide what to say.

“I’m sorry,” I finally write. On the line underneath it, I add, “I tried.”

It feels insufficient, but I don’t try to fix it. I’ve felt like a worthless failure for months now, so what’s one more lousy note?

I’ll be free soon, anyway, so I guess it doesn’t matter.

I slip out of the front door and make my way to my car parked in the driveway. I knew I’d be leaving after Frank got home tonight, so I parked farther over than I usually do.

My gaze catches on my own reflection in the window. The girl looking back at me is pale and drawn, the light extinguished from her brown eyes. I hardly recognize her anymore.

It’s been that way for a long time, though.

I think about my pages and pages of writings during the drive to the lake house.

Despite the clear bloodlust on those pages, I haven’t felt any glee or true viciousness while writing the scenes.

It’s more like catharsis. Like I can finally breathe again in the final moment of the scene, when I’m looking down at his body.

I wonder if that’s how it will really feel.

I’ve only been to the lake house one other time—that night, last summer, when Tim Walters invited me to the party.

They were having a bonfire, and a few people were going to take the boat out.

He said it’d be fun. I wasn’t usually invited to things like that—especially by him—so I decided for once to try not to be such a wallflower, to pretty myself up and go hang out with my classmates.

I knew I’d made a mistake as soon as I got there. The girls treated my presence like a private joke, and the guys were being obnoxious. I wanted to stay, though. To give it a real chance. I needed to loosen up, so I took the bottle of fruity “girl beer” they offered me.

I did loosen up after that drink.

I shake my head, clearing it of the memories. I don’t want those. I never want to think about that night again.

I manage to find the driveway. The house is set back off the road, so the driveway is a bit long.

Tension gathers in my shoulders as I roll down the path, my headlights seeming brighter as they hit the license plate on Tim’s stupid little sports car.

I know they’re death traps, and I wonder briefly why he couldn’t have saved me the trouble and run his sporty little tin can into a tree or something.

I guess the tree wouldn’t have deserved it.

I turn off the car and open my snack cake. I planned to eat it on the way over, but I got lost in thought and forgot. Despite the state of my stomach, I’ll eat it now.

Once my treat is gone, I drop the wrapper on the passenger seat to clean up later—then remember I won’t get to do that.

Oh well. A wrapper is the least of the mess that will have to be cleaned up after tonight.

I grab the gun I brought with me and open the car door.

Darkness swallows the house, but there’s a light on in the living room.

I waited this late because I didn’t think he would be awake. I was prepared to break in if I had to.

The scenario I write about all the time is me showing up in his bedroom, the moonlight the only illumination in the dark space.

He’s asleep when I come in, in a state where he should be safe, but his senses register a presence.

His eyes open. Confusion, quickly followed by horror.

He sees the barrel of my gun pointed at him, and he opens his mouth to speak, but it’s too late.

I pull the trigger. He never gets to say a single word.

Since he’s awake, I consider ringing the doorbell. I could change my plan and shoot him when he opens the door, but if anyone else is asleep upstairs, I don’t want to wake them.

A sliver of doubt cuts through me. Maybe I shouldn’t do this—at least, not tonight.

Maybe the timing is wrong. What if he’s not the one awake?

What if it’s his brother? The chances that he would let me in seem minimal, and the chances that he’d not only let me in, but let me go upstairs alone to his brother’s room…

I’m starting to worry about this working when the choice gets taken away from me.

The door moves, and my heart sinks.

Fear shoots through me at the horrifying possibility of hurting the wrong person. Fuck his parents for standing by him, of course, but I wouldn’t feel okay about killing them.

My movements feel sluggish, time seeming to slow down as the door opens inch by inch. I pull the gun up, gripping it with unsteady hands, then adjust my hold so I can pull the trigger if it’s him.

I feel a pinch of relief when it is, but dread quickly follows. I don’t pull the trigger—not yet. I’ve always been able to tell Timothy and Torrance apart, but they are identical twins, and before I can do something this harrowing, I have to be absolutely certain my gun is aimed at the right one.

The guy in the open doorway is tall with broad shoulders, slim hips, and dark hair.

He played sports in high school, and his athletic build hasn’t softened any since graduation.

He’s wearing a red T-shirt and black sweats that sit low on his hips.

His eyes are an icy shade of blue, and he needs a haircut.

Maybe the funeral director can give him one.

Because it is Timothy Walters.

In sixth grade, Timothy Walters got glasses. He was a blossoming jock, so he got contacts the following year, but right now, it’s late, and he’s ready for bed, so he’s wearing his glasses.

Torrance Walters doesn’t wear glasses.

Then he speaks and removes the last trace of doubt.

“What are you doing, Pritchard?”

He sounds tired of me.

He doesn’t sound afraid, despite my gun being pointed at his chest, and that kinda pisses me off.

Even now, he doesn’t take me seriously.

I take a deep breath, my chest feeling tight and panicky.

“Put the gun down,” he says, still sounding bored and vaguely inconvenienced, but he’s keeping his eyes on me.

“No,” I say, hating that my voice comes out shaky.

His dark eyebrows rise slightly, but the faintest trace of amusement touches his blue eyes. “You’re not going to shoot me.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re crazy, but not that crazy.” He smirks, and my heart flutters with nerves. He shouldn’t be so calm. What an asshole that he can’t even react appropriately now.

It doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t have to go according to plan. I just have to pull the trigger.

“I’m not crazy,” I say, which I realize would sound more convincing if I didn’t have a gun pointed at him.

He’s still not afraid of me, though.

He sighs. “Look, it’s been a long fucking year, and I’m tired of this. Tell me what you want from me.”

“You know what I want. Justice.”

He smiles, shaking his head. “I don’t think that’s what you want.”

“It is,” I grind out. “I wouldn’t have put myself through all this shit if I didn’t.”

His smile persists, and he has the audacity to lean against the doorway, utterly unconcerned that my gun is aimed directly at his heart. “I can think of other reasons you’d put yourself through all that shit. None of them sane, but, well…”

My grip on the gun tightens, and my jaw clenches. “Stop calling me crazy.”

I’ve heard that so many fucking times over the past year. Never to my face—most people aren’t so bold—but behind my back, the gossips and keyboard warriors came running to his defense.

They know Timothy Walters. He would never do what I accused him of.

And, more quietly, he would never have to.

Because no girl has ever told him no.

“I didn’t rape you, Pritchard.”

His words are like a wrecking ball to my gut. “Yes, you did.”

A flash of memory comes back to me. That night on the boat.

I’d been drinking, and so had he. A friend of his passed him a beer from the cooler.

He mischievously pressed the cold can against my inner thigh, causing me to shriek.

He laughed, opened his beer, and took a drink from the can that had just been touching my skin.

He went back to his friends, and I stayed where I was, gazing out at the water with a little smile on my face, but I glanced back at him.

Nina was sitting there in her bikini top and denim shorts, flirting with him like always, but it was like he felt my gaze. He glanced back at me, too.

I shake off the memory, not wanting to remember the horrors that followed.

This isn’t going how I wanted, and worse, I feel close to losing control of this moment, too. He wants to keep me talking. He knows if he does, he can avoid what I came here to do.

I can’t let him overpower me again.

My finger rests against the trigger. I have the power here.

“You asked what I want,” I say.

“I did.”

“I want you to admit what you did to me,” I say, refusing to lose my focus. “And I want you to be sorry.”

He has the audacity to laugh, and I feel my heart—which has turned to stone over the past year—crack and crumble as he shakes his stupid head.

Then he says the words that seal both our fates.

“Enough with the theatrics, Pritchard. The show’s over. There’s no one left in the audience. It was just sex—it is not that deep. Me groveling may be what you want, but what you need is to get the fuck over it.”

His callous words clarify that I’ll never get the apology I need from him, not even a private one just between us.

So I pull the trigger.