Chapter 6
“There are sins written in ink. There are sins written in whispers. Both can destroy a life.”—The Count of Monte Cristo
JUDE
She lets out a scream and reaches for the door. Horns blast all around us, music to my ears—the horns her screams, let her feel fear the way I felt it, the way I still feel it when I try to close my eyes at night. They don’t go away; they never go away. They’re permanent just like what happened.
There is no band-aid.
No fixes.
Nothing will help. Adrenaline courses through my veins. My mom’s death. Dad’s threats. Lilah’s betrayal. She’s lying again, she has to be, how did she not know my mom died? I’d been so angry that day, angry that Lilah wasn’t fucking there, not even a text, a call, nothing.
No, no. That steals my revenge from me. It rips it to shreds and that’s all I’ve fucking had these last few years! Revenge for her, for what she did. It’s all I had! I slam my hands onto the steering wheel over and over again.
She jumps next to me. “Jude, please, just slow down.”
Headlights streak toward us at terrifying speed that blinds me briefly before I veer the car around a truck. Lilah’s screams.
“What the hell are you doing?” She grabs the dashboard as a car swerves around us, missing us by inches.
I don’t flinch. That was close though. I keep one hand on the wheel, calm steady, giving her the vision that this means nothing when it’s a strategic move, a reminder of what safety is and what it means.
It’s relative, after all. A crazed smile forms across my lips before I can stop it.
I suck in a deep breath, then another. I’m losing it.
I’m fucking losing it aren’t I? It wasn’t prison that did it, not my dad’s lies, not her betrayal, it’s this moment, this truth, it’s the planning for retribution and knowing that the feeling would finally give me closure and it’s done the opposite, everything I thought I buried, everything I thought was shoved away is coming back full force, attacking me at all ends as I swerve through traffic.
I try to calm; I try to focus on the lights.
“There,” I say in a soft voice I barely recognize, it’s of a man breaking apart little by little, or maybe a man already broken. “That feeling.” My head tilts.
Another horn screams as a white truck barrels toward us.
My pulse pounds so loud I’m sure she can hear it.
Her eyes widen as she grips the doorhandle, jumping would mean death just like sitting could mean the exact same thing.
She’s in a trap of my making. She has no choice but to stay still while the world blurs around her. Let her feel the panic I feel.
“This how it felt?” I finally ask gripping the steering wheel so hard I can’t feel my fingertips. “When you went to the police and lied?”
She freezes in place. “Jude, I?—"
My jaw ticks, teeth grinding as I fight to keep my composure.
“--I’ve always wondered.” I say slowly. “Did you know what would happen after? Or did you just throw yourself into traffic and hope everyone else got hit instead? A gamble, if you will, based on what my dad said. You know, I’ve thought about it over and over again, who were you trying to protect and I get it, you proved you were only ever out for yourself. ”
“Jude—”
“You made it through fine.” I snap, hating the pity in her voice, for what?
Me? For my mom? Bullshit. All of it. “Couple scratches maybe. Little sympathy. Meanwhile every part of our friendship, our love just burned to the ground.” I didn’t mean to say it.
The love part. Did it matter anymore anyways?
Now that I had no heart left? No humanity. I was a shell.
The semi suddenly appears ahead of us.
Too fast.
Stupid close.
“It would be easy to do nothing in the face of danger, fear, it would be easy to let the hit come, sometimes I think the easiest thing for you to do was to go to the police rather than talk to me, rather than ask the questions, rather than face it head on. You passed it off to people you thought you could trust, and you got it so horribly wrong that it was worse than a crash.” I turn the car slightly and miss the semi.
“Jude!” She screams, tears streak down her pretty face. “Just stop the car and listen to me! Clearly, we both have different memories of what happened. I really thought you died,” Tears stream down her cheeks. “Just stop the car!”
“But that’s the thing about driving against traffic.” I ignore her. My eyes flick to hers. “Eventually there’s something you don’t see coming.”
At the very last second before I hit a car, I jerk the wheel hard right as a car roars by us laying into their horn like it’s going to shake some sanity into me. The entire car shakes from the force of the semi that follows. And suddenly, I pull back into the correct lane.
Safe.
She’s breathing hard both of her hands are clinging to her jeans, her thumbs trembling. Good. I exhale out a laugh. “What a rush, am I right?” I smile. “See? Nothing like feeling of near death to make you feel alive.” I take the next street toward campus. “Aren’t you glad you got in the car?”
She says nothing.
She’s pissed.
And terrified.
Good. Then my work here is done. She took my revenge from me with one simple sentence, I can at least make her feel a fraction of the fear I did in prison as a thank you.
Now she knows that she isn’t safe, now she knows that I’ve not only been watching, I’ve been waiting.
Calculating. I’m not the hero she used to call me, I’m the villain waiting to attack and I’ve just made my first move and I can guarantee that the only thing she’ll be thinking about tonight…
Is me… and what she did.
I thought I just wanted the truth of why she did it. Now, I know it’s deeper. Now I want it all. No matter who it destroys.
Who needs love when war is such an attractive option? I shove the small amount of guilt I feel when I park and unlock the doors. And when she runs to her apartment building and is barely able to scan her card across the door. I honk my horn and wave.
She glances over her shoulder and looks at me like I’m a monster.
“No princess, that’s all you.”