As he talked he normally smiled.
“What?”
“I’d seen you with her.”
I didn’t know what he meant.
“Who?”
“Not Avery,” he said. “That- other girl.” He nodded, smirking a bit. I was so used to his smirk being attractive. It was hard now to stomach myself, what I’d allowed him to be with me.
“You know her name,” I said- guessing. There was something in the way he said other girl, it told me everything. He knew her name. He probably knew where she lived. He probably knew how many times I’d seen her, knew what she liked, knew everything we did.
I wasn’t the only one with dark secrets.
How close did he come?
“Natalie,” he said. “And, yes. You’re right. I know her name.”
“What did you see?” I asked. I felt angry but also confused.
“You trained her didn’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied.
“You trained her- how to fuck you.”
“Just tell me what you saw,” I said. “We don’t have time Ben. Just tell me the truth.”
“I saw you go to her,” he said, leaning in. “She was at some building. You took her in your car to this park.”
“Oh,” I said. I knew what he saw now because of the setting. He saw that I knew. Still, he went on.
“It was dark. Abandoned.” He placed these perfect pauses between each piece of information, stretching out his facts all dramatically. “You went to the racquetball court and got in a room. It was empty. She attacked you and I watched.”
“I remember,” I said. Of course, I hadn’t known, at the time, that he’d been there. I wouldn’t have done a thing. Had I known. Well, I’d like to think that now but who knows.
“She hurt you but you liked it,” he explained. That was the thing he’d been getting at. The secret about me he apparently knew and wanted me to know now that he knew, now that he was going away.
“She didn’t hurt me,” I said. Anyone else watching would think that she did but he knew the truth.
“That’s what I mean,” he let his eyebrows raise subtly. It didn’t take much with him to convey a message to me. Talking to him was the opposite of talking to Avery. The gates were open and we both saw out and in. I’m not saying that’s a good thing. “You screamed but you felt good. I watched your face when you came. I knew.” He leaned back, unburdened by guilty still. He was no longer smiling.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I was angry at him.
“Why should I have told you? Would you like knowing it? Do you like this?”
“You’re right I said,” my stomach turning as I realized and checked myself silently. What disturbed me most was he knew. Not about Natalie. About my not wanting to know. About this feeling inside me. He protected me. He kept me in the dark. About him.
“You take pain and I give it,” he said.
“I think I just wasn’t used to being touched,” I near lied, unsure of my own explanations. “Any touch was good. It was a distraction. It relieved stress.” I couldn’t take pain from someone I loved. Pain from Avery would certainly kill me. It was strange. With her I was sensitive; barely able to take a simple touch, let alone a complicated one. One day I knew we’d get there and I’d crave it more, but right now I ached at just her words.
Natalie could tear me in two but if Avery even tried? I’d break upon just a glance at the implication.
“That’s how I felt too. When I cut her. That release,” Ben said.
“But she didn’t like it and you knew,” I swallowed hard. Hating the lot of it.
“Oh, I liked that she didn’t like it,” he said. No remorse. He raised his eyebrows and he had this sort of listless look on his face like he remembered his happy feelings from all his time hurting her in his secret rooms.
“I have to hate you,” I said. “I have to hate you. I just want you to know.” Was I trying to convince myself? No. I felt it. Disgust. This was gross. I didn’t like this new version of my Ben.
“It’s okay,” he said. He seemed almost weirded out by me. To him- my words were absurd; laughable. “I deserve to be hated.” He gave me a side glance. It was that, don’t be a fucking idiot, Olivia, look.
The way he was looking at me. It was so foreign, I didn’t know what to say or even do.
“I want to thank you,” he said, coming back to the way he always was with me before. “I know.”
“Know what?” I asked feeling worry.
“I know it’s not right what I feel. What I want. I know it wasn’t right, what I did to her. But I liked what I did.”
“Don’t say that to me,” my face betrayed me, brows scrunching and tears threatening. He was acting like it was normal now, to just talk like this, like these were things we could talk about. This wasn’t normal. We weren’t normal.
“Maybe somehow I knew,” he said.
“Knew what?”
Why did I keep fucking falling for his bait?!
“I knew you’d report me. I knew that, if Avery wouldn’t, you would.”
“Ben,” I said, bothered.
So the yearbook thing?!
“Cry for help,” he laughed awkwardly and then shrugged. If we’d been in class he would’ve put his ankle up on his knee and held it there. “Not for me but for her. I knew I could go too far with her one day. She was too good at being hurt. I could go far. Maybe kill her. She passed out before. More than once. I thought about that. How much I could hurt her and take.”
I wanted to tell him he was sick but he already knew.
“So you sent me to protect her? And I’m supposed to believe you?”
“Believe it or not. It’s true. And we’re here,” he said easily.
“Time’s up,” I heard a man say rather loudly.
“Take care of her,” he said. “She deserves a person like you.”
What the fucking hell did that mean?!
I couldn’t ask. My mom was behind me now, pulling me away.
I got up, giving in to the world and allowing her to control me. I was dumb. I didn’t deserve all the power I had.
She walked me straight to the courtroom and sat me down on the first available bench.
“Did you get what you wanted?” She asked darkly, already regretting her decision to help instead of hinder in this one specific case. She knew before I went in that I wouldn’t get what I wanted, that it was folly and idiocy all at once.
My eyes flickered and tears came. Had she listened in? Had she heard?
“No,” I huffed. All he did was confuse me more.
When the arraignment started- and they brought Ben in- he made eye contact with me but he didn’t smile. He’d been telling me the truth.
I watched on, my chest burning. I tried to think through all he said and make sense of it but it wasn’t the same.
When it came time for him to plead he chose NOT GUILTY and it really pissed me off after everything else.
Going home felt super wrong.
I rage cried and wondered how I could pretend that hadn’t happened when it broke me apart and fucked with my head.
I should’ve recorded it so I could play it back and keep it straight.
In my head now, it was all diluted and scrambled. I was already confusing my thoughts from his words and messing things up.
He said he planned it. He said I’d done what he wanted me to do.
Was it true?
Was any of it true? Was all of it?!
I wanted to scream but I couldn’t.
Maybe he just wanted me to not feel guilt.
I felt shaky and unwell. I really thought about going to Natalie just to talk.
It seemed wrong though; two bads in one day.
Avery wouldn’t understand.
I made myself go home and wait for her. I swam a lot to drain myself and give reason for red eyes.
When Avery got back I felt broken and afraid.
Try
ing to keep this from her would kill me. Not having anyone to talk to might kill me more.
Chapter Fifteen
Avery
She was sitting in the guest house living room with wet hair and a robe on. I couldn’t tell if she’d just taken a shower or if she’d been in the pool. I got closer and then the smell of chlorine hit me. I didn’t even say hello. I rushed her, kissing her lips, pulling open the robe to find nothing underneath.
“Were you sitting here ready for me, baby?”
“I was,” she said breathless but she seemed strange like maybe she was sad or somewhere else.
I kept kissing her and moved to her neck, but she didn’t really respond. This had never happened before. She always wanted me. I pulled my head back, looking down at her, worried.
“What’s wrong?”
Olivia was broody sometimes. It didn't feel like that though. She was checked out and it could have been my fault.
“Too much,” she said, not seeing me.
“Did I do something?” I tilted her chin up but she still didn't meet my eyes and my heart beat painfully hard.
“No,” she said sort of hoarse. “You’re always perfect. This isn’t you.”
“Okay,” I said, not believing her. I pressed my forehead to hers and closed my eyes. “Just tell me.”
I looked down to check. She was still wearing her ring. I blinked in relief. At least there was that, though it didn’t mean much if she was planning on giving it back.
“I can’t tell you this,” she said. I could see pain on her face. She felt pain. Lots of pain.
“Whatever it is, it’s okay. Just tell-” I shouldn’t push her. I always pushed her and it never worked out. “Do you still want to be with me?” I held my breath.
“Of course,” she sighed grumpily. “That won’t ever change. I already said it’s not you.”
“I know, but even if it wasn’t me I didn’t know if something else had changed. I just- I’ve never seen you like this and it scares me. You don't want me right now and I’m afraid it means something.”
“I always want you,” she said. “Just emotionally right now, I’m in a bad place and if you touch me I’ll break.”
“Okay, what can I do?” I pulled her robe closed and sat down beside her. “Should I just hold you?”
“I don’t deserve that,” she said.
“I don’t care what you think you deserve. I don’t know what’s going on but you’re my fiancé and you’re not doing well. Let me help.”
“You can’t fix me,” she said sadly. She looked like she was seconds from breaking just like she had said. “I should leave,” she said getting up. “I shouldn’t be here tonight.”
“What? No.” I got up with her, pulling her back to me, getting in her face and making her see me. “What the fuck has gotten into you?” I had her trapped. Her eyes met mine. Her chin quivered.
“I talked to him,” she said, staring at me.
I paled, blinking, taking in the pain in her face. “And?”
“And I was right about me, Avery. I’m sick.” She didn’t want to talk about it, I could tell. Her eyes kept going other places but I could tell her vision was inside herself not out.
“What are you talking about. You’re not sick. What did he say to you?” I dug my nails into my palms. He was playing her and I hated him even more now. He was hurting both of us all over again.
“He said a lot of things and they were all true and they all made sense.”
“Olivia! He does that! He makes complete sense to you but it’s his game. It’s how he gets inside your head. How the fuck do you think he made me believe that I wanted and deserved what he did to me? Do you think I just walked in and let him take a knife to my skin, to hurt me enough that I almost had to go to the hospital because of it? He played me. He made me think I should be there, deserving it and letting him but it wasn’t true. He took advantage and he’s doing it to you now. He’s using these thoughts you have about yourself and turning them around inside of you.”
I grabbed her hand and pulled her to the couch. “Did he look all remorseful and pretend he was sorry and say that he was sick and he shouldn’t want the things that he did but that he loved it anyway? That’s what he says. He told me a lot of things about his life and about my life. Things that made a lot of sense. Why my dad was never around. The other people I’d slept with. He even had me convinced that Adam died because of me, that my parents loved Adam more and that I was trash, just a whore that he could cut up and fuck. I still think those things because he got inside my head.”
I gasped for air, praying that she would stay with me, begging in my mind. Tears were streaming down my face. I had never let all of it out. I couldn’t before but she was going to leave me and she might not come back. “Baby, he doesn’t want us to be happy because then he doesn’t win. He’s doesn’t have that nice side you think he does. That’s just the face he uses to get what he wants. He’s a fucking sociopath. He lies. I bet he played remorseful and then walked into court and pled not guilty. Didn’t he? He thinks he can get away with it and if you leave he will. He will have succeeded in making sure that neither of us thrive. He wanted both of us for his own fucked up amusement and we found each other instead.”
I pulled her arm, pleading with my eyes. “Stay with me, baby. I’m afraid you won’t come back. I’m afraid he’s too far inside your head. I told you. He’s poison. You’re not sick like him. You’re like me. A little fucked up but alright, a good person. I love you so much. Just stay with me.”
I was bawling on her, clinging to her body and beyond terrified that she was going to leave me like everyone else did. I was afraid of what I’d do if she did go but I couldn’t say that. It wasn’t right. At least, I’d try not to.
“Avery, stop,” she croaked. She’d been holding me and crying too. “I’m not leaving you. Why would I do that? That’s not happening. But he wasn’t lying and he made this. He made us. He led us to this, led himself to prison. He saw me with Nat. He knows we’re the same. He wasn’t lying. It wasn’t about that. And he wasn’t wrong.”
“You’re not the same. He hurts because he loves it. He has no remorse. He might have planned us meeting but he doesn’t get to make you think that you’re like him. You could never hurt me like that. I know you. It would kill you.”
“He didn’t make me think that. I knew that. I knew that before. It’s not about me hurting you. He likes causing pain like I liked taking pain. It was yin and yang. Similarity among difference. But it's more than that. He can read my mind. And not in the same way with you. Again he's had no reason with me, even now. It's like he wants me to be happy. I can't explain it. Maybe it is like a monster having a friend.”
“So, it’s different. You wouldn’t let me hurt you like he hurt me. You didn’t have Natalie do that. DO YOU NOT SEE?! He is literally a psycho and- YOU- are not. You like pain. So fucking what? So do I. I just don’t kill people or rape them to get off. Pain between consenting adults is not the same as raping or torturing someone. Get that through your head, right fucking now. I swear, Olivia… If he gets to win- I’ll kill him, or myself. I don't even care.”
I didn’t mean it. I didn’t and I knew it would hurt her but it just slipped out. I sat there not knowing how to take it back. I couldn’t kill myself. It would kill her.
“Stop yelling at me,” she cried hard and fell to sit on the ground and then lay. “Stop it,” she cried. “Please stop.”
I breathed, throwing myself back against the couch, bumping my head against the top until the energy was diminished. “I’m sorry but you wouldn’t hear me. You don’t ever hear me when we talk about these things.”
I slid to the floor beside her, turning into her. “Forgive me.”
“I always hear you,” she said. “That’s why it hurts.”
“You listen but you don’t hear it. You’re sitting there- right there- thinking that you’re right and that you don’t deserve me because of what you think you are
.”
“I’m not just thinking that though. I’m thinking- what if he’s right? What if he knows more than we do? What if one day you will want to hurt me and I will like it too much and we’ll become some sick thing? What if he set us up for later? What if he has some plan to come after us in 8 years when they let him out since rape charges are never long enough? I’m thinking so much more than you think I am. I’m always thinking so much more but you fixate on one thing,” she choked out, unable to breathe. “I never said I’d want to hurt you like him. I never meant that when I said we were the same. And you always think I mean that and I never once meant that, not once. Yet you berate me for that and you assume I’m thinking that. It's preposterous, that thought. I can't even kiss you without knowing you want it. That's never been the same thing I’ve been talking about. Not ever. Yet you assume. Yet you fixate.”
Paper Dolls [Book Three] Page 26