Chapter 18 Reverie
REVERIE
There’s something deeply unsettling about walking across campus to get to and from class while people stare and whisper as I pass.
After storming out of the cafeteria three days ago, I called Sable and asked to crash at her place for the weekend. I wanted—no, needed—to get away from Dread, and I didn’t want to go to my new dorm where he could easily find me.
He texted me that night a few times to ask where I went, and I only responded after he threatened to call Barry if I didn’t answer. I told him I was fine and to leave me the fuck alone, and he’s been quiet ever since.
Which made the last three days at Sable’s oddly peaceful.
All we did was go to work, stuff ourselves full of rice with beans, tostones, and arroz con dulce, and watch trash TV while venting about how much we hate men.
She’s been very vague about what happened with Rogue the night Dread kidnapped me, aside from how much she loathes his existence.
I tried to do the same. However, after some stern glaring, I eventually admitted Dread fucked me, to which her face promptly paled like she’d seen a ghost.
It was an odd reaction, but one she distracted me from by asking about what happened.
I keep hoping it was all a disturbing dream, but the soreness between my legs is slow to fade.
This morning, I was tempted to hide at Sable’s for another day, but I can’t avoid him forever. I kind of need to go to class in order to graduate, so I forced myself to return to campus today, and now, I deeply, deeply fucking regret it.
On my way to ancient history, I noticed several people staring and muttering to one another.
My hackles immediately rose, and they haven’t come down yet, even as I sit in class, listening to the prof’s lecture.
Dread didn't even come today—I assume for some reason related to swimming—yet glances are still being tossed my way, and my paranoia is bubbling from my pores.
I don’t even need to ask to know it’s some reason related to either Dread or Lionel, because, apparently, my entire life revolves around them.
At HCU, I don’t even think Reverie Adams exists outside of one of them.
I glance at the girl beside me, noting she’s texting, her thumbs flying over the screen rapidly. From the corner of my eye, I peek at her messages. It takes a second of subtly shifting in my chair to get a better view, but once I do, I'm convinced I'm hallucinating.
My heart skips a beat and then immediately plummets the second I read the first sentence.
I can’t believe he posted that picture of them. Since when did he stop hating her? After everything her father supposedly did?
Oh, no.
No, no, no.
It doesn’t take a fucking rocket scientist to deduce who she’s talking about, considering how everyone is looking at me like I have toilet paper sticking out of my pants. And that was definitely something I already checked for.
So what the fuck did the asshole do?
Pulse racing, I slip my phone out of my pocket, open social media, and search for Dread’s name.
I never post anything, especially not my face, but I made accounts solely to keep up with current events.
Dread’s profile loads, and I immediately want to vomit.
His last post is from two days ago. It’s a picture of him and me lying in his bed.
I’m on my side, eyes closed, hands holding the comforter against my chest. He’s behind me, shirtless and propped on his elbow, his head bent down, black tendrils falling over his forehead and long, thick eyelashes splayed across his cheeks.
All the while, he—the fucking asshole—bites my shoulder.
My bare shoulder.
My mouth drops, tremors slowly building in my extremities while I comprehend what the fuck I’m staring at.
There’s no caption, no context, no explanation that he’s declared me as his girlfriend—not because he actually likes me, but because he simply wants to fuck with me and piss me off.
Even worse, it's very fucking clear I'm naked, which means he took it the night he chained me to the flagpole after I fell asleep, considering that's the only time I've been naked in his bed.
A slimy feeling slithers across my bones, like venomous snakes coiling around branches, and tears burn the backs of my eyes.
He manipulated my sleeping body to look as if I’m willingly cuddling with him and then posted it on social media to show his four million fucking followers.
The post has over eight hundred thousand likes. My brain screams at me not to, yet my thumb clicks on the comments anyway.
Is that Charlotte D’Amour???!
A comment responds to them, saying: Heard she changed it to Reverie Adams.
Noooooo, the man of my dreams is taken? Lucky bitch.
DREAD I LOVE YOU PLS MARRY ME INSTEAD I’LL BE SO GOOD TO U.
Oh my God, someone please don’t gaslight me when I say that’s Charlotte D’Amour.
Another commenter responds to them: Why does everyone think it's her just because she's blonde? That's literally the last person he'd date.
To which the original commenter responds: I literally said not to gaslight me.
I would break my neck giving you the best head of your life, just let me prove it king
I vibrate as I close out of the app and tuck my phone into my back pocket. A new kind of awareness surrounds me, and with every sly glance and whisper, it’s a needle prick against every one of my nerves.
For reasons I can’t quite pinpoint, it feels like more of a violation than when he fucked me.
It’s one thing to manipulate my body against me when it’s just the two of us, but it’s another to do so and then show the entire fucking world.
I should’ve known he’d do something like this. I should’ve known he’d see my rejection as a challenge and try to teach me a lesson.
I don’t know why the fuck I never considered for a single second he’d take it this far, though. I figured he’d pull something to make it known across campus, but social media?
He’s not just claiming me in front of the world, but my father.
It wouldn’t surprise me if there’re already articles posted about it.
The man would attract attention about his first public girlfriend anyway, but to call the daughter of his mother’s murderer his girlfriend? That’s a whole new level of fucked up, and the media is going to eat it up.
Pride glues my ass to the seat for the rest of class, though my cheeks are on fire, an anxious sweat coats my back, and I repeatedly swallow down the vomit bubbling at the base of my throat for the remaining thirty minutes.
The second the professor wraps up, I’m bolting out of my seat and toward the door. I keep my head tucked down, letting the thin curtain of bangs hide my eyes as I quickly make my way out of the building.
My head is loud and in disarray the entire way to my car and on the drive back to my new dorm. There are a million things I think about, but shock and denial keep them from being coherent.
So when I walk into my dorm, I don’t even process what I’m seeing. It reflects the chaos in my brain, and for several moments, it feels exactly how it should be: messy, broken, and everything ripped to shreds.
But eventually, clarity sets in, and then, slowly, realization.
The room is destroyed, all my belongings strewn across the floor. My clothes, shoes, bedding, school papers, textbooks. Just… everything.
My mouth drops, incapable of doing anything but stare through tear-filled vision at the wreckage.
All those jumbled thoughts come to a screeching halt, and then I go numb. Just completely, utterly, implicitly, fucking.
Numb.
My vision tunnels as I pull out my phone from my back pocket and call Sable.
No answer.
She’s already at work and likely tied up. So, I call Barry next.
He doesn’t answer but sends a text instead.
Barry: Another body discovered and in the middle of that. You okay?
No. But I don’t want to pull him away, especially if it’s someone who’s been missing for a long time and definitively tied to Lionel, not the copycat. Someone’s family could be getting the worst kind of closure soon.
Me: Yeah, no rush. Whenever you have a minute to talk.
Barry: Okay, honey. Will call soon.
Sighing, I walk over to my bed and sit on the edge, continuing to stare blankly at the mess. I don’t have the emotional capacity to feel anything other than exhaustion.
I don’t even have the energy to contemplate which one of them did it—Dread or Lionel. I should feel scared over the latter option, but for once, I just… don’t.
I feel nothing.
Lifting my phone, I snap a picture and then text it to Dread, asking if it was him.
The screen blurs as I sightlessly stare at it, getting lost in a fantasy of packing a bag and just running away.
I could let go of my dream of helping children who were victims of crime, leave this all behind, and drive off into the moonlight.
Maybe I could find a cute cottage somewhere in the wilderness, where the closest neighbor is a mile away.
Go off-grid, get rid of my phone, and just live.
I’d get a dog, maybe two, and take them on hikes with me.
We’d explore nature and live in a tiny little bubble where I need or want for nothing.
My phone pings, and I snap out of the fantasy.
The Antichrist: No. I’m on my way.
I close my eyes with a heavy exhale, defeated. I don’t want him anywhere near me, but fighting him is useless. He won’t listen, and I’ll end up expending more energy than I have for nothing.
I heavily slump to the side and curl up on my mattress, half the sheet ripped off, my comforter crumpled beneath me, my pillow on the other side of the room. Then, I close my eyes and let my mind drift back to the corner of my brain that houses two dogs and a cottage somewhere far away.
I’m unsure of how much time passes before I hear the door opening and then softly closing.
Dread’s presence is suffocating, and I realize that maybe all this time, I’ve been training myself to hold my breath so I could survive him.
He’s the water trapped inside my lungs.
So, I inhale and start counting.