#Poser

by Cambria Hebert

  At least she wasn’t blond. It was her saving grace.

  “I just wish…” I started, then trailed off.

  “You wish what?” Becks encouraged, just like I knew she would.

  “This will be my first holiday without him.” I looked down at my lap and focused on sounding forlorn. “Ever since Mom…” I paused for effect again. “We always made sure we were together for the holidays.”

  “But this year you’ll be here,” she supplied.

  I nodded.

  “Why don’t you tell me about how you got here?”

  “I just did.” God, didn’t this woman ever stop? I might as well take out my damn brain and hand it to her on a platter so she could dissect it.

  “Not necessarily. You told me about how you grew up, what shaped you into the man you are today. While, yes, what you have told me has shed some light on recent events, you have to tell me about the catalyst.”

  “The catalyst for what?”

  “For the way you treated your victims, Romeo Anderson and Rimmel Hudson.”

  I sighed dramatically. “Don’t you see? Romeo is just like Brett. Thinks he’s God’s gift to women. Preys on the ones who are too innocent to protect themselves. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself and being the best.”

  “And Rimmel reminds you of your mother?”

  “I think my mother was probably a lot like her before she met my father. Innocent, small, kind of fragile. My father saw those things in her. He wanted to protect her. He loved her and was loyal to her. Then Brett came along and took her away.

  “I tried to warn her. I don’t know how many times. Outside her class one day. In the haunted house. She wouldn’t listen. She was so blind to him.” I felt myself growing agitated. Just picturing the way those two walked around campus like they owned the place. It made me want to—

  “So you punished them, because you can’t punish your mother and Brett.” Dr. Becks cut off my thoughts.

  Fishing. She was always fishing for what she wanted.

  “Yes. I punished them. It was wrong. I see that now. I let my past and my anger cloud my knowledge of right and wrong.”

  “Do you think your medication has helped you keep those impulses in check?”

  “Of course.” I lied. I never took that shit. I’d become an expert at hiding it in my mouth and waiting until no one was looking to get rid of it. Like I’d ever let myself become vacant and empty like my mother used to be.

  There wasn’t anything wrong with me. I just wasn’t who everyone wanted me to be.

  “And the fog you talked about your mother experiencing, the way her medication made her not smile.” She glanced at me, assessing. “Do you feel that way?”

  “No.” That was the truth at least. Couldn’t get foggy from something you never swallowed.

  “Well, you are on a different brand and dosage,” the doctor said, almost to herself, as she looked at my chart.

  I glanced at the clock. Was this shit almost done? I might crawl out of my skin if I had to sit here with her any longer.

  “Dr. Becks,” I said impulsively. Stupid! I yelled at myself. Now was not the time to bring this up. But I’d already spoken. I’d just tread lightly.

  She glanced up.

  “The thought of my father being alone for the holidays is very painful for me.”

  “How so?”

  “I feel immense guilt that my selfish actions are going to cause a man that has been there for me my entire life—a man who has lost so much—to have no one to share the season with.”

  “Are you forgetting about Anna? He won’t be alone.”

  God! She was insufferable!

  “But I’m what makes them a family. My father…” I paused because I was losing focus. I just wanted to be finished. I sighed. “Maybe it’s me who doesn’t want to be alone.”

  Her reply?

  “I’m sure he’ll come here for visitor’s day.”

  I looked at the cup of pencils on her desk. One of them was freshly sharpened and pointy. I thought about stabbing her right through the hand with it. I didn’t just dredge up all these personal memories and thoughts to not get what I wanted.

  Let me out of here!

  I forced a smile. “It will be good to see him.”

  “How do you think your victims would feel if they saw you?” She turned the tables.

  “I’m sure they’re glad I’m locked up here.”

  “How would you feel if you saw them?”

  I couldn’t lie about this. She’d see right through it. “I’ll never like Romeo or Rimmel. They will always represent something painful that I’ll never forget.”

  “It’s more than just your mother leaving, though, isn’t it? It’s more than her having an affair. There’s more to the story, isn’t there, Zachary? There’s the way it all ended.”

  I stared at her without blinking for a long time. She didn’t seem to mind the way I studied her. I could read between the lines. I knew exactly what she wanted.

  She wanted it all. The entire story.

  It was the only thing that would give me a chance of getting out of here for a couple weeks.

  She wanted to know the end of my childhood. The part I’d never spoken of out loud. She wanted to know what finally pushed me over the edge.

  The catalyst.

  The catalyst that broke me.

  #

  Betrayed. That’s how I felt.

  Everything I’d believed was wrong.

  Dad wasn’t the enemy. Mom wasn’t a victim.

  Well, yes, she was, just a victim of someone other than my father.

  Mom moved out, packed her stuff and sped off in that bright-yellow car. I asked her only once if I could come with her.

  “I thought you said the reason you stayed here was because of me. Now you’re leaving me behind,” I told her as she threw things in a bag.

  “I’m not leaving you behind,” she said. “You can come visit me whenever you like.”

  If it weren’t for him, the blond-haired, blue-eyed womanizer, this wouldn’t be happening.

  She’d see. She’d leave here and miss us—miss me—and then she’d see him for what he really was.

  Months passed.

  She didn’t see.

  If anything, she seemed to get further and further away.

  My father stopped trying to call her. He stopped trying to reason with her. It was like he’d given up.

  I wasn’t ready to give up, so I kept going to visit her. She and Brett were living across town, in a house on the lake. I wasn’t sure who was paying for it all. Obviously Brett had some money, because he paid for that car and all his clothes. But Mom had money too. Dad never cut her off. He still supported her; she still had access to accounts and credit cards. I knew because when I visited her, she’d take me shopping and use Dad’s black card.

  I couldn’t understand why he would pay for her to live another life, a life without us.

  With him.

  Brett didn’t like me much. I didn’t care because the feeling was mutual. He seemed pissed when I would come around, like having a kid was an annoyance. I pretended he wasn’t there.

  Well, except when no one was looking. I might not act out toward my father anymore, but that part of me was still alive and well. So I directed it all at Brett.

  I poured vinegar in the milk he used for his coffee and watched as he spit a mouthful out all over the table. I drilled a hole in the canoe he used for fishing and watched him get to the center of the lake before he realized the boat was taking on water.

  None of the stupid pranks made him want to leave, though.

  I had to kick it up a notch.

  So I put a lace thong in his glove box and paid a girl at school to call my mom and tell her she was sleeping with Brett.

  Mom of course didn’t believe her, so she told her to go see the proof in car.

  I lay in bed that night and listened for the fireworks. Come Monday morning, Mom would come home.
<
br />   I didn’t know then that Mom was severely bipolar. I didn’t know she had manic ups and downs. I didn’t know my father was talking with specialists in Switzerland to get her an exclusive room at a top-notch facility.

  I didn’t know my actions would ruin everything.

  I was just a teenager, a fucked-up one.

  No yelling ever came that night. No crying. No accusations. She didn’t come into my room to tell me we were going home. She didn’t come in my room at all.

  But Brett did.

  He opened the door and strolled right in. I still remember the sound of the latch on the door as it closed behind him. He stood over my bed and stared down at me. I tried to scramble up, but he shoved me back down.

  “You think I don’t know you’re doing all that shit?” he asked.

  I didn’t answer.

  “You trying to get rid of me?”

  “I don’t like you.”

  His white teeth flashed in the dark. Something twisted in my stomach.

  “Here’s the thing, kid. Your mom and I have a good thing going. I’m not going anywhere. You, on the other hand…”

  “I’m not going anywhere either.”

  “Then I think you owe me an apology.”

  “I don’t owe you shit.”

  He grabbed me up by the front of my shirt and lifted me partially out of the bed. “If you don’t want me poisoning your mother’s mind against you, then I think you do.”

  He couldn’t do that!

  Could he?

  He chuckled and let me go. I fell back on the mattress. “I can and I will.”

  I felt my shoulders slump a little. I believed him. My mother would probably take any excuse to get rid of me.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  “What was that?”

  I said it again, louder.

  “If you think that’s an apology, then you’ve got something to learn.”

  I looked up. “What do you want?”

  “I want to make sure I’m not gonna have any problems with you again.”

  “I already said I’d stop,” I growled.

  “Yeah, but I don’t trust you.”

  He popped the button on his jeans and reached for his fly.

  I felt my eyes round and I crawled backward on the mattress. “What are you doing?”

  “Showing you who the boss is around here.” He pushed the jeans down so he was standing there with them around his knees and only a pair of red boxers covering him.

  I scrambled toward edge of the bed. This guy was a fucking freak! I had no idea what the hell he was doing, but I wasn’t staying around for it.

  He caught my shoulder and shoved me back. I fell but quickly sat up. He rubbed the front of his boxers, right where his junk was, and my stomach churned.

  “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have another guy suck my dick. So I’ll tell you what. You do it right now, and I’ll forget about all the shit you’ve pulled lately and I won’t say anything to your mom.”

  “Fuck no,” I swore and tried to get off the bed again.

  Once again, he stopped me and pushed me back. Before I could say anything, he pulled his cock free of the boxers, pushing the fabric down just far enough to reveal his shaft and balls.

  “Make it up to me,” he demanded, low. “Or I’ll make sure you never see her again.”

  This guy was seriously sick and perverted. I started to yell, to scream for help. He grabbed the back of my neck with one hand and slapped the other over my mouth. “Don’t even think about it, you little fuck. This is a lesson you need to learn.”

  He straightened and pulled me with him, positioning my face right in front of his still swollen member. Bile rose in the back of my throat.

  “I’m gonna let go of your mouth, but if you try and scream again, it’s going to get real ugly. Understand?”

  I was so shocked I could barely think. Was this seriously happening? Did stuff like this actually happen in real life? Did he really think I was just going to suck him off as an apology for what I’d done? That it would somehow teach me a lesson to never cross him again? God, he was so twisted. What in the hell did my mother see in him?

  “Answer me!” he demanded and shoved the tip of his head against his hand that was still plastered against my mouth.

  I nodded once.

  He left one hand on the back of my head but slowly peeled the other off my mouth. The second his hand was free, he pressed his flesh up against my lips.

  I gagged. He took advantage of my open mouth and slipped the tip between my lips.

  Adrenaline surged through my body along with the fight or flight response. I didn’t even think it through. I just reacted.

  I bit down hard on the spongy flesh intruding upon my lips.

  The metallic taste of blood shot across my tongue, and Brett howled. He jerked away and hunched over, and I gave a loud shout and leapt off the bed.

  “You bit me, you little fucker!” Brett yelled, but it sounded more like a groan.

  I heard a commotion outside the bedroom door and then it swung open. I was gathering up my backpack against the wall and picking up my shoes.

  “Zachary?” Mom said. Light from the hallway spilled into the room and landed like a spotlight on Brett and his hunched-over form.

  “Brett? What happened?”

  “That monster attacked me!” he howled.

  Mom gasped and looked at me.

  Wide-eyed, I shook my head. “He shoved his cock in my face, so I bit it.”

  Her face paled, stark white in seconds. “What?”

  “He’s a perv, Mom.”

  Brett roared and stood up. I followed Mom’s stare down to his crotch where his softened pecker was smeared with blood.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered.

  “You left me and Dad for that!” I yelled.

  “Come here, you little son of a bitch!” Brett stumbled toward me, and I took off.

  Out in the hall, I heard a loud thud, and even though I was scared out of my mind and disgusted beyond belief, I stopped.

  I turned back.

  As badly as I wanted out of here, I didn’t want Mom to take the brunt for what I’d done.

  She wasn’t. Brett had gotten tangled in his pulled-down pants and fell over. He was lying in a heap on the floor. When he saw me looking around the doorway, he started cussing and vowing all kinds of bodily harm. When he managed to get to his knees, Mom grabbed my arm.

  “Run, Zachary. Run and don’t look back.”

  “Come with me,” I said.

  Her eyes were sad when she patted my cheek. “My perfect boy.”

  Brett was back on his feet and lunged into the hallway.

  “Run! I’ll be right behind you!”

  I ran as fast as I could. I rushed out into the night and down the street. It was only when I looked over my shoulder to make sure she was following that I noticed my footsteps were the only ones. I turned back toward the house, debating.

  Going back there was the last thing I ever wanted to do.

  The distinct sound of a gunshot filled the night.

  It was followed seconds later by another one.

  My lower lip wobbled in the still of the night. I stood there in the center of the dark street, utterly alone.

  Not another sound came.

  I knew.

  I knew then my mother was dead.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Zach

  She shot Brett and then she shot herself.

  It was considered a homicide-suicide, which is what it was. But to me, it couldn’t be summed up in two words.

  That incident seemed to flip a switch inside me. It turned on a part of me I hadn’t known was there. I kept it hidden mostly. I never let it get out of control.

  My father knew what really happened that night. He told me the bite marks on Brett’s cock weren’t consistent with my mother’s jaw.

  He asked me one time.

  He asked me if it had been me, if
Brett tried something and I’d defended myself.

  I only nodded.

  We never spoke of it again.

  I assumed he told the police, the ones who questioned the bite marks. I was never interrogated. It was never in the news.

  My father made it all go away.

  Except for the damage he couldn’t see inside of me.

  To his credit, he sent me to therapy. I would merely sit in the chair until my hour was up and then leave. I never spoke about that night. I wouldn’t. Some things couldn’t be explained in words, especially not to a stranger sitting behind a desk.

  The effects of my mother’s suicide and the incident with Brett were shoved down deep… way into the darkest corner of my mind.

  And then I met Romeo.

  Alpha U star. Mr. Perfect himself. He wanted to rush my frat. I shut that shit down. He was everything I hated about the man who was the downfall of my mother. He thought he was untouchable. He thought he was a god among men. Him and that sports car of his could go to hell.

  I kept him out of the frat. I kept my hatred for him under wraps.

  And then Rimmel came along.

  Dark hair. Glasses. Fragile. She reminded me of my mother. It wasn’t a memory I was prepared to see every single day.

  I saw her looking at Romeo one day. I knew that look. I knew she was weak and would fall for him too.

  That part of me I kept buried?

  I unearthed it.

  Seeing them walking around was far too tempting. Seeing the way they looked at each other. Out of respect for my mother, I warned her. I thought maybe Rimmel would listen, that maybe in a sick way, my mother could have another chance.

  But she was stupid too.

  So I tried to ruin Romeo’s reputation. That would show her she needed to get away from him.

  The little bitch was far too loyal and too far under his spell.

  So I tried to get her expelled. I’d have her sent away and my problems would be solved. She’d be gone and Romeo would be far away from my frat. I could bury these feelings once again and move on.

  But it didn’t work out like that.

  They loved each other. They had too many friends. It seemed everything in the universe worked to keep them together…

  And it made me fall apart.

  But no matter.

  I made a breakthrough here today. At the mental ward, with Dr. Becks.