CHAPTER 25
From that day on, Jasper felt as if he’d landed in hell.
He lived but didn’t feel alive. He breathed, but the air only tightened in his chest. Something kept tearing him apart from the inside. He wanted to apologize. He wanted to tell her that…
What?
That he hadn’t understood what he was doing? That he’d been drunk? That he’d lost control?
Ridiculous. Words like that would’ve sounded like spit in her face. There was no excuse he could offer. At best, he wanted to ask for forgiveness—but the girl refused to even see him. And she was right.
His father smothered the whole situation instantly. No questions, no public mess. If not for his intervention, Jasper would’ve ended up with an actual conviction. Sometimes Jasper wondered if that wouldn’t have been fairer. Wouldn’t that have been the only real way to atone?
After that, he became disgustingly proper. Obedient. He pulled himself together: stopped fighting, quit drinking, buried himself in schoolwork. Tried to become the kind of son his father might respect.
But did he respect himself?
Every time he looked in the mirror, he saw a stranger. He lived by a rigid set of rules he’d built himself. And he never again looked at women the way he used to. Because who was he now? A slippery bastard who’d crossed a line. A predator. A disgrace.
The girl’s name was Nina—he found that out later. She’d been a year below him. Quiet, calm, top of her class. Not a party girl, not someone chasing trouble. And after that night, she vanished from campus without a trace.
He’d asked her classmates about her a few times.
“Nina?” they’d shrugged. “She transferred. We’re not sure. Didn’t even say goodbye. Doesn’t pick up her phone. Maybe she got full of herself? I heard her dad opened a pharmaceutical company. Their new drug’s supposed to be a breakthrough.”
But Jasper knew it wasn’t the drug. It was him.
He couldn’t imagine her walking away from everything: school, friends, her old life. He expected her to make noise, demand justice, drag every detail into the light. He expected whispers in the halls, judgmental stares.
But nothing happened.
She simply disappeared.
As if someone had erased her.
Then a rumor swept through campus. A couple months after that night, someone in the smoking area mentioned that Nina—the same girl Jasper had been asking about—had gotten married.
At first, he didn’t believe it. He’d prepared himself for the worst, and instead she’d left college because she was heading down the aisle?
That thought drilled into him all day until he finally opened his laptop and started digging through Friendster.
He found her picture.
Nina wore a simple white dress, her hair styled neatly, holding a small bridal bouquet. But her face…
God.
It was calm, distant. No bright smile, no hint of joy.
Next to her stood some handsome guy in a light suit, grinning like the world belonged to him. She didn’t lean toward him. Didn’t glow the way brides usually did. She just stood there, almost lifeless.
Something inside Jasper ripped open.
He stared at that photo all night, noting every detail: the curve of her shoulders, her thin fingers, the way the dress sat on her… and her eyes. Empty. Even with the smoothing and filters meant to perfect the shot, he could see something inside her had shattered.
The photos were posted on the page of Frank Osborne, her fiancé.
Or her husband by then—didn’t matter. At first, Jasper didn’t even recognize the guy.
He scrolled through the profile, piecing together who he was.
Frank had gone to their college too, though Jasper didn’t remember him.
His page was filled with luxury cars, beach trips, parties.
But Nina had just a blank profile: a throwaway avatar, no wedding photos, nothing. And girls usually loved posting that kind of thing.
Jasper let out a breath.
If she’d gotten married so quickly, then she must’ve been okay.
He wondered if that guy knew what had happened. If he did—then he really loved her, and Jasper had no right to think about her anymore. They weren’t meant to cross paths. It would’ve been wrong.
He just needed to forget her.
And he did.
Or at least he tried.
But at night he still saw a blurred face of a girl begging him for mercy. Sex stopped giving him any pleasure. At first, he couldn’t touch women at all. He was terrified he’d lose control and hurt someone again. Then he buried himself in school, then work.
Years passed like that.
And then…
Then came that day.
The day that changed his life beyond recognition and proved just how wrong he’d been about everything.