The Heiress

by Cassia Leo

  She stopped in front of a sculpture of a man with his head down, his hand gripping the back of his neck. “Does this person actually exist?” she asked.

  It didn’t seem like she was trying to stall, so I answered her question. “Yes. He came in to model in my Figurative Sculpture class.”

  She smiled and turned back to face me. “I’ve never been as smart or lucky as you, but I think that’s going to change tonight.” She took a few steps forward so she was just a couple of feet away from me, her eyes locked on mine. “Nick confirmed that he’s going to be at the party tonight.”

  My heart sank. I knew who she was referring to when she said “he.”

  I shook my head. “No. I’m not going.”

  “Kris, don’t make me do this on my own,” she pleaded. “I just want to find out his last name. That’s all I want. I already googled it. There’s no statute of limitations on rape in New York. I just need his full name.”

  “Petra, that’s not how it works. You need evidence. Unless you kept your bedsheets or underwear or something else with his DNA on it, then you don’t have anything. It’s your word against his.”

  She looked betrayed. “Are you saying I should just let him get away with it?”

  “That’s not at all what I’m saying,” I insisted. “I’m saying that you going there is a bad idea. If all you need is his last name, then send Nick to the party. Tell him to finally step up and be a brother and get that name for you. Then you can report it.” I stepped forward and lightly grabbed her face to turn it back toward me. “Don’t do this. This is not smart or lucky. This is a bad idea.”

  Pulling my hands away from her face, she lifted her chin and hardened her expression. “I’m doing this with or without you.”

  Almost three hours had gone by with Petra downing one whiskey shot after another and still no sign of the loser we were there for. I began to wonder if Petra was even sober enough to recognize him. Four different times, someone had passed around a pill box for anyone to partake. Three times, I’d passed it on to the person seated next to me.

  “What’s going to happen?” I asked the girl next to me, whose name I thought I must have misheard as Jolie. “Will it relax me?”

  My nerves were shot. Every time Petra’s gaze lingered on a new guy, I braced myself. Sure, she claimed she was just going to talk to him, to find out his last name so she could press charges, but I didn’t know what to believe.

  Petra and I had hung out a grand total of seven times in the past eight months. It was September, and tonight was the first time I’d seen her since I came home from NYU in June. I didn’t want to believe that Petra had gotten herself mixed up with a bad crowd, or that she was going down the same road as her brother and parents. But I was beginning to think there was no other explanation that made sense for her behavior tonight.

  Jolie told me to hold the orange pill under my tongue until it was fully dissolved. In thirty minutes, I’d be fully relaxed, she claimed as she slid an orange pill under her tongue and smiled. I hadn’t had anything to drink other than water. I figured I could probably get away with one pill, just to relax me, since everyone else seemed to be downing one pill after another with multiple alcoholic beverages. Besides, I wasn’t driving.

  I leaned back on the sofa and closed my eyes as I waited for the bitter pill to dissolve. The taste was too bad. I needed something to wash it down.

  “What’s that?” I asked Jolie.

  She smiled. “Vodka soda. Want one?”

  “I just need a sip,” I said, and she quickly handed over her teal plastic cup.

  I took a large sip and almost spit it out. “This isn’t sweet!”

  Jolie cackled. “No shit. It’s vodka and club soda.”

  I shoved the drink back into her hand and wiped the excess alcohol off my lips. After a few minutes of waiting for the bitter chemical taste to go away, I finally decided to go to the bathroom and rinse my mouth out. But the moment I stood up, something hit me.

  I didn’t know if it was the pill or the vodka. Probably the pill, considering I’d only taken a sip of the drink.

  My brain felt fuzzy. My mouth and skin became warm and woolen. For some reason, I thought blinking a few times would make the feeling go away, but it didn’t. Afraid I would get lost on the way to the bathroom in an apartment I’d only been in for a few hours, I sat my ass back down, thinking I could wait it out.

  This feeling can’t last forever, right?

  Petra would probably know the answer to that question. But when I turned to Petra for reassurance, she was gone.

  Fuck.

  I sat up straight, teetering on the edge of the sofa cushion, trying to work up the energy to stand. Using the coffee table to steady myself, I stood up and, with my arms stretched out in front of me like a less-dead version of Frankenstein, I made my way toward the front door, ignoring the curse words spewed at me from people whose toes I’d likely stepped on.

  Every step I took felt like it would surely be the last one I’d take before I lost my balance. Somehow, I managed to stay on my feet until I reached the door. Blinking furiously and trying to take deep breaths, I turned the knob and rushed out into the courtyard of the apartment complex.

  Smaller groups of people were gathered at various locations in the dimly lit courtyard. Shit. I was in no state to walk the entire courtyard looking for Petra, but leaving her on her own was not an option.

  I stumbled when the concrete transitioned to grass. Picking myself up, I ignored the sounds of muffled laughter and continued toward an opening at the back of the courtyard, which I assumed led to a street or alleyway. I didn’t know why my instincts told me to go that way instead of toward the gated entrance. Maybe it was the way the crowd in that direction appeared more restless, as if someone had just disturbed their space.

  “You should stop her. She’s fucked up,” a female voice said as I passed a couple smoking cigarettes in the yellow glow of a lamp post.

  The guy stamped out his cigarette and followed after me, grabbing my hand to keep me from going any farther. “Hey, girl. You’re in no condition to leave,” he said, as I silently attempted to wrestle my hand from his grip. “Just go lie down in one of the bedrooms until you sober up.”

  “Let go,” I warned him as he began leading me back to the apartment.

  “Just chill. It’s no big deal. This is my apartment. You can stay in my brother’s room. Just make sure you lock the room so no one tries to take advantage of you.”

  “Fuck you! Leave me alone!” I shouted, pummeling his arm until he finally let me go.

  “What the fuck!” he shrieked. “I was just trying to help! Fuck off, then!”

  I stumbled toward the rear entrance to the courtyard, ignoring the girl shouting obscenities and the groups of people staring at me. The opening turned out to be an exit, which dumped me out onto a street I didn’t recognize.

  I didn’t see anyone, no Petra or guy she might have followed. Fuck. I went the wrong way. I had to go back through the courtyard.

  Turning around, I realized I must have been walking down the street because I couldn’t see the entrance to the courtyard. I continued back in the direction I thought I’d come from, when someone yelled my name. Holy fuck. I swallowed hard as I realized the pill I took was making me hallucinate.

  “Kris!”

  The sound was louder this time, and I turned to my left, where I thought it had come from. My muscles went slack with relief as I saw Petra in the driver’s seat of a blue sedan I didn’t recognize.

  “Get in!” she shouted at me.

  My limbs felt heavy now as the adrenaline drained from my body. I dragged myself toward the car and stared at the chrome door handle for a moment, trying to figure out how it worked.

  “Hurry up!” she yelled, just as a car behind her honked.

  Using both hands, I lifted the door handle, but nothing happened. Then, I realized there was a button on the handle. I pressed the button with one hand as the other heaved
the door open.

  “Hurry, hurry!” Petra urged as I climbed inside and used both hands to pull the door shut.

  She slammed her foot on the gas and took off way too fast. “I know where he is, but we have to hurry. Shit! He got away from me.”

  “Whose car is this?” I mumbled, reaching for the seat belt, but my fingers kept sliding over it. “Where’d you get the car?”

  “It’s Nick’s friend’s car. He let me borrow it,” she said, taking a wide right turn, narrowly avoiding a car coming toward us in the opposite direction.

  “Be careful,” I said weakly.

  “Geez, you’re really fucked up,” she commented before slamming on the brakes to avoid a pedestrian. “Fuck!”

  “I said be careful!” I cried with a bit more vigor.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck. I’m gonna lose him,” Petra whispered under her breath. Then, she took one hand off the wheel to point at something in front of us. “There! You see him? Silver Hyundai. Got him!”

  “P, you’re scaring me,” I slurred, closing my eyes as the blur of the city lights began to make me dizzy. “Let’s go home. Please.”

  “I just need his address, then we can go. I need it.”

  I don’t know how long we were driving around, but the sound of Petra turning the keys in the ignition and the engine going quiet got my attention.

  “Stay right here,” she said, reaching for the door handle.

  I reached out desperately, latching on to her forearm. “Wait! I’ll go with you.”

  “Oh, good point,” she said, prying my hand off her arm. “Get in the driver’s seat, Kris. In case we have to make a quick getaway.”

  “What? What are you gonna do? Please don’t do this.”

  “Just get in the driver’s seat. I’m not gonna do anything. I’m just gonna talk to him.”

  And then she was gone.

  Fuck.

  I climbed over the console and into the driver’s seat. Running my hands over my face, I tried to force myself to sober up, but it wasn’t working.

  My mouth was dry.

  I should keep the car running.

  Turning the key in the ignition, I proceeded to search the floors and the backseat for a stray bottle of water or soda or something to quench my thirst. Then, I realized I should be watching Petra instead. I looked around the car, my eyes scanning the sidewalks, but she was nowhere.

  I had to look for her. I couldn’t leave my best friend alone and helpless. But as I reached for the door handle, Petra burst through the passenger door, slamming it behind her as she plunked down into the seat.

  “Go! Go! Go! He has a gun!”

  Oh, fuck.

  My entire body shook as it flooded with adrenaline. I quickly put the car in drive and slammed my foot on the gas, swerving to the left to avoid the car parked in front of us. My heart stopped when I saw a guy in the middle of the street, pointing a gun at our windshield. Before I could second-guess myself, I closed my eyes and ducked my head as I plowed ahead.

  The sound of a gunshot was followed by the resounding crack of the windshield shattering into a million pieces. Then, a loud thunk-thunk-thunk as we ran into him and he bounced over the hood and the roof of the car.

  “Don’t stop!” Petra urged me on as the car began to slow.

  I couldn’t see. I had to duck down to see through the small corner at the bottom left of the windshield that wasn’t shattered. My heart raced in time with the RPMs as I tried to listen to Petra’s directions, which I assumed were meant to get us as far away as possible.

  “We killed him!” I shouted as we finally made our way onto the highway. “We’re going to jail.”

  “It was self-defense,” Petra replied. “Just keep going straight.”

  “We’re going to jail for the rest of our lives.”

  She shook her head. “No way. I know a way out of this.” She was silent for a moment before she continued. “You have to crash the car. Not a bad crash, just enough to cover up the damage from…”

  The highway lights burned streaks across my field of vision as my head spun with images of what had just happened. If I didn’t pull over soon, I was going to throw up on this steering wheel. The car began to drift to the right.

  “Slow down,” Petra pleaded. “You’re going too fast.”

  But when I tried to slow down, I realized I still had my foot on the gas pedal. I wasn’t slowing down. I was speeding up.

  “Slow down!”

  The car drifted over the white line onto the shoulder, heading straight for a guardrail. Before I could swerve back to the left, the front right wheel was over the embankment. The rolling was over in seconds. A hurricane of glass breaking, metal twisting, Petra screaming, and then silence.

  Worthy

  Present day

  I had never felt so relieved and so frightened in all my life. Judging by the shocked silence that followed my confession, I didn’t know if Daniel was going to call the police and turn me in or spit out some sort of platitude about how it wasn’t my fault. But I didn’t know if I cared anymore. I was ready to face the consequences of what I’d done.

  When I finished telling him everything about that night, I told him about the few months I spent trying to binge-drink my guilt away after the accident. How no amount of alcohol could wash away my shame. How I only sobered up because I didn’t want to hurt my mom the way I’d hurt Petra.

  Daniel sat on the edge of the leather sofa cushion with his elbows on his knees, staring at his hands. “Did he die?”

  I smeared my hands over my cheeks to wipe away tears. “No. I don’t know if he even reported it because I never got a visit from the cops. Maybe he didn’t remember how it happened. I don’t know.” I swiped the back of my hand across my nose, beyond caring about what a mess I must look like to Daniel. “I tried calling Petra at least fifty times when she was in the hospital. I harassed the fuck out of the staff at the rehab center where she went after that. I didn’t want to give up, but she made me. She sent me one text. I still have it.”

  I slid my phone out of my purse and navigated to my messages app. Just seeing her name on the message made my chest ache. I hadn’t looked at this message in months.

  * * *

  Petra:

  Stop calling me or I’m gonna call the cops and confess. I’ll tell them the truth, that it was all my fault. I’ll deny you were ever there.

  * * *

  “She knew me better than anyone. She knew how to get me to leave her alone.”

  Daniel let out a long sigh. “What did she tell the cops? Who did she say was driving?”

  “She probably told the cops she couldn’t remember who was driving. I don’t think they could prove anything because the owner of the car probably had a solid alibi. All he knew was that he let Petra borrow his car. No one saw me in the car except for Petra and her rapist.”

  “But the 9-1-1 call. They had your voice.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. The call was made from her cell phone. My best guess is they played the 9-1-1 call for her and she either said it was her that made the call or that she couldn’t recognize the voice. I was really fucked up and scared when I made the call, and I was crying, so it probably wasn’t super coherent. Either way, it would have been an easy lie for her to tell.”

  He shook his head. “Fuck,” he whispered. “This isn’t good.”

  “What…what do you mean?”

  He shook his head again. “Sorry. That’s not what I meant. I meant to say that…” He reached out and grabbed my hand. “That’s one hell of a friend.”

  I was slightly confused by the difference in his two statements, but I cut him some slack due to the heaviness of what I’d just confessed. “Well, she’s not my friend anymore. She made it very clear that she wants nothing to do with me. Besides, what kind of friend leaves their friend unconscious and bleeding in a dark ravine?”

  He squeezed my hand. “The kind who doesn’t want her friend to go to prison. You both would have gone to p
rison if you hadn’t fled the scene.” The muscle in his jaw twitched as he continued with fierce determination in his eyes. “You’re the one who went with her to the party when you didn’t want to. You’re the one who looked for your best friend even though you could hardly walk. You’re the one who dodged a bullet to get your friend to safety. You dialed 9-1-1. You saved her life…twice.”

  “Yeah, and I’m the one who drove too fast and put my best friend in a wheelchair for the rest of her life.”

  He sighed as he pulled me into his arms, tucking my head under his chin. “You have to call her again.”

  “I can’t,” I whispered into his chest.

  “You don’t deserve to carry this guilt alone.” He leaned back and grabbed my face so he could look me in the eye. “If she won’t help you carry it, then I will. But you have to promise me you’ll try to call her again. Promise me, Kris.”

  I bit my lip as I considered his words. Did he just reach into my dark hole and offer to pull me out? I’d known this beautiful man for less than two weeks, and he suddenly knew more about me than my own mother.

  I nodded. “I’ll call her.”

  Real

  Daniel kindly forced me to eat a bowl of cereal before we headed upstairs to the guest room. I had just enough energy to wash up in the bathroom before changing into my SpongeBob SquarePants nightshirt, which made Daniel smile when I came out of the bathroom.

  He was sitting up on a pillow propped against the headboard, beckoning me to his side. “Very sexy pajamas.”

  I crawled across the foot of the bed and snuggled up next to him, resting my head on his shoulder. “Believe it or not, I left the matching cape at home.”

  He pulled the covers up to my waist and kissed the top of my head. “I didn’t know SpongeBob was a superhero.”

  “You obviously have never watched SpongeBob when you’re feeling sad. Instantly cheers you up.”