The crows didn’t want me to trust him either. And they were right.
I took a deep breath. This was more than I’d told anyone, but I knew Ethan would want the full story. Not because he wanted me to be vulnerable, like Brad had, but because he wanted to share my burden. He squeezed my arm.
“Then came homecoming,” I continued, my voice dropping and becoming more clinical. Apparently, that was my way of coping with shock. “Mom helped me pick out a dress. I wore the necklace Brad got me. And he picked me up in his truck and took me to a fancy dinner and held my hand whenever he could. It felt . . . honestly, it really felt nice. Like I was finally playing my part properly, you know? Except I apparently wasn’t playing it good enough. We had our first dance, he started drinking. Before I knew it he had me against the wall in the bathroom with one hand on my neck and the other up my dress.”
I went silent. Inside, I was numb. I stared at Brad’s grin within my mind and felt absolutely nothing. I knew I should have had a reaction of some sort. I knew I should be more broken. I probably would have been, too, if things hadn’t turned out the way they had.
“Jesus Kaira,” he whispered. “I had no idea.”
I shrugged and looked at his wall, staring at the sketches he and I had done together.
“Not many do. The sickest part was, I didn’t even try to fight. I didn’t scream or push him away. He kept saying I’d made him do it, that I’d held out too long and I owed him this. That’s what I got for trusting someone who seemed to care about me.” I shook my head and tried to get the scent of his cologne and sweat out of my memory. It might not cause a reaction, but I sure as hell didn’t want him to linger on when he should have been dead to me. “When he was done, he kissed me on the forehead and said that I’d finally gotten what was coming to me. I called home and had my mom pick me up. I didn’t tell her anything. I never did.”
“Fuck,” he muttered.
I nodded.
There were holes in the story. Many holes. But I wasn’t about to tell him that Mom had warned me from the dance, had nearly forbid me to leave until my dad asked her to calm down and let me go. I didn’t tell him about the crows that dive-bombed the truck on our way to the school. And I didn’t tell him what happened to Brad. Not yet. Probably not ever.
There were many things Ethan could have said and done after that. He could have told me that Chris wasn’t like Brad, that I couldn’t let this stop me from loving forever. He could have told me that he understood. Any of those things would have pushed me out the door.
Instead, he leaned down and curled up against my shins.
“I am so, so sorry,” he whispered. And that was all.
After, right before sign-in, I left out the back door and stood on the fire escape, staring up at the sky. The snow had stopped and pockets of stars shone through the clouds. My breath came out in tiny wisps, the air so cold my nostrils froze the moment I inhaled.
I wanted to embrace the beauty of the moment. I wanted to feel good about finally releasing Brad’s demon from my subconscious. I knew, deep down, that telling Ethan was progress, that this was good. But I couldn’t ignore the omens: Crows lined the roof of the opposite dorm. All watching. All waiting. They were patient, but they weren’t letting me forget.
Brad had hurt me, true. What he did was unforgivable and I wasn’t the forgiving sort anyway. I knew without a shred of doubt that my hatred toward him—locked away though it was—was completely justified. But what I had done in return . . . I clenched the rusted rail of the fire escape and let the grit and ice dig into my flesh.
I would never escape the repercussions of my actions. I had run to boarding school, but it wasn’t to escape Brad or the traitorous friends who’d done nothing after the attack. It wasn’t to avoid the memories and malice lingering in every inch of that damned school and town. I’d run away to escape myself. Airing my past wouldn’t help. Sharing the burden wouldn’t ease the pain. I couldn’t escape who I was or what I’d done, no matter how fast or far I ran.
The crows were just a reminder of that. They wanted back in.
My past wasn’t done with me. Not yet.
? ? ?
Coffee House was Sunday night. Normally, I would have skipped to put the finishing touches on my thesis, but Ethan forced me to put away my paints and collage materials and, as he said, be back among the living. Coffee House was Islington’s version of an open mic, only the people here actually had talent so it wasn’t painful like the ones I’d gone to before. So at ten to seven I met Ethan in the lobby of his dorm and we headed to one of the larger cabins dotting the edge of campus.