Follow You Down

by Lazeema Haq

  He didn’t need her, he told himself. He’d been fine without her before, and he would be again. He had a great life, great friends, women who were willing to do anything to keep his attention, and there was nothing he wanted or needed from Vesper. She meant nothing to him. Nothing. That excruciating pain in his heart didn’t subside, however, no matter how many women he fucked or how much alcohol and drugs he drowned himself in, and then it worsened exponentially when he came home to find a box of his things waiting at the concierge desk. She’d returned all the stuff he kept at her apartment and it was at that moment he realized she was never coming back.

  When he saw Vesper at the bar earlier tonight, the truth hit him like a ton of bricks. He could pretend not to care, and he could lie to himself all he wanted, but his feelings were still there. They didn’t disappear into thin air, no matter how much he willed them to. He missed her, ached for her, and he could even forgive her the betrayal. As long as they were together, he could get past anything. What they shared was an incredible connection and it was stupid to walk away from something like that.

  Her mask of indifference had been just that, an act designed to protect her heart, until he made a cutting remark and then she’d reacted. It had always been that way between them, a game they played and perfected during the course of their relationship. When one pushed forward, the other pulled back, but eventually they met in the middle and things worked out. She was proud, like him, and didn’t want to be the first one to make a move, but he didn’t care about all that. He would beg, plead, grovel at her feet if he had to. So he’d popped some E, washed it down with a few shots, needing all the courage he could get to show up here and convince her to take him back.

  He started walking towards her. “I love you, and you love me. I know you do.”

  “Tristan, stop!”

  Her words of protest filtered in but he disregarded them, caught up in his own emotions, determined to remind her of what they shared. His heart was racing a mile a minute, ready to explode out of his chest.

  “I tried to move on, Vesper. I did. I tried, but it doesn’t matter how many girls I fuck or what I do, you’re always there, always in my head, my heart. You’re a part of me. I can’t get you out, no matter how hard I try. And I know it’s the same for you.”

  “You said I screwed your dad, remember? You don’t want to have anything to do with me.”

  “I don’t care. I don’t care what you’ve done, who you’ve done, I just wanna be with you.”

  “Oh how noble of you! Too bad I’m not fucking interested. I don’t want you! I hate you!”

  “You don’t mean that! I know you love me.”

  He reached out to hold her but she started clawing at him. Frantic, he kissed her. He just had to remind her of what they shared, how much they loved each other. If he could just be with her, everything would be alright. She’d forgive him. They’d start all over again. He would do better. His hands pulled at her clothes when she bit his lip, kneed him in the groin. Instinctively he shoved her away, applying such force that she landed against the wall with a loud thud.

  Her body crumpled to the ground, limp and lifeless.

  “Vesper?” he whimpered, rushing towards her.

  She didn’t respond.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Vesper woke up to a throbbing head. For the first few seconds the room was spinning and all too bright, making it difficult to focus, but eventually the dizziness subsided and she found herself staring up at the ceiling. A groan escaped her lips as she attempted to sit up but the pain was nothing compared to the crippling fear she felt when Tristan started hovering close to her.

  He held her hands tightly, too tightly, stippling her fingers with kisses. “Vesper? Are you okay? Say something, please!”

  It all came rushing back. He’d physically assaulted her, and now he was trying to do it again. Her survival instinct took over and she started fighting back.

  “Calm down, Vesper! I just want to talk!”

  She grabbed the closest thing to her, a table-top lamp, and struck him with it.

  *****

  Blood covered his fingers when he reached out to touch the gash on his head. Vesper’s sobs reached his ears and he sat up and spotted her huddling in the corner. Tears streaked down her face, broken glass shards scattered along the couch and floor, and it finally dawned on him that she struck him with the lamp to escape. Oh God. She was petrified, of him.

  He felt sick to his stomach.

  “How could you do this? How?” she screamed at him, crying.

  Her words struck him like a powerful punch to his gut, knocking the breath out of him. What the hell was he doing? What was wrong with him? “I….” There was nothing to say. Reeling with guilt, he wanted to retch.

  “I thought you couldn’t hurt me any more than you already had….” She hugged herself tightly, rocking back and forth. “How could I have been so wrong about you? I thought you were different, that you were a good guy.” She shook her head vigorously. “But you’re not. You’re a monster.”

  She was right.

  “Why did you come here tonight? To punish me?”

  His insides trembled with shame, realizing her words were true.

  “You broke my heart, Tristan, you destroyed me,” she sobbed. “I loved you so much, and I just wanted to make you happy. Why wasn’t that enough for you? What did I do to make you hate me like this?”

  “No, no,” he protested. “I don’t hate you, Vesper. I don’t. I love you.”

  She stared at him in disbelief. “Love? You call this love? What is wrong with you?”

  His mind spun out of control as he struggled to breath. She’d offered her heart to him, her love, and he’d taken it all, demanded it in fact, and destroyed her over it because he was a monster. He’d spent his whole life trying not to be his father but he’d become something far worse than Arthur could ever be. “I’m sorry, Vesper. I’m sorry for everything.”

  “I don’t care. Just stay away from me!”

  “I will. I promise.” When he stood up, she flinched visibly, once again reiterating how terrified she was of him. Disgusted with himself, he turned around and stumbled out of her apartment.

  Chapter Thirty

  “Vesper! Vesper! I know you’re in there. Let me in!”

  The knock on the door was insistent, the voice loud enough to break through her stupor. Despite Vesper’s best efforts, Jess proved impossible to ignore. Reluctantly Vesper crawled out of bed and walked to the door, struggling to keep her balance. Jess was waiting for her on the other side but Vesper didn’t want to see her. She didn’t want to see anybody. All she wanted was to slip into the comforting fog of no pain, no guilt, and no voice in her head demanding the intense relief from a cold blade ripping into her skin.

  “Holy shit. Are you okay?” Jessica asked.

  “I’m fine,” Vesper mumbled.

  “Why haven’t you shown up to work the last few days? You didn’t even call! We’ve been worried sick about you.”

  Jessica was talking but her words were a big jumble in Vesper’s mind.

  “You stink, Vesper. How much have you had to drink?”

  Vesper turned around and stumbled back to the bedroom, desperate to go back to the only place she felt safe. She threw herself down on the bed before reaching for the half-empty bottle of vodka that was sitting on the table.

  “I don’t think so,” Jessica said, intercepting the bottle from her hand.

  “I need that.”

  “No, you need a shower.”

  While Jessica pulled her up forcibly, Vesper’s mind flashed back to the horrific images of Tristan clawing at her, his mouth brutally ravaging her. She remembered everything from that night, the stench of liquor on his mouth as he attacked her to the way he ripped her clothes off. Suddenly,
she felt sick to her stomach. Before she could stop herself, she threw up.

  “Great!” Jessica muttered.

  Still woozy and nauseated, Vesper limped behind Jessica as the redhead dragged her to the bathroom. After puking in the toilet for several minutes, Vesper was too tired to fight when Jessica helped her into the shower. The cold water was a shock, jolting her back to reality. Freezing, she sat down and huddled into a tight ball.

  “I’m gonna make you something to eat,” Jessica said, leaving the bathroom.

  Vesper closed her eyes, longing for a sense of control but the only thing she could feel was anger and turmoil. The devastation returned with a vengeance, growing in intensity now that the alcohol was loosening its grip on her mind, and her body started shaking with tears.

  *****

  An hour later Vesper sat on the couch, sipping coffee, while Jessica played with her cell phone down on the floor. They hadn’t spoken other than the occasional word here and there for which Vesper was grateful; the last thing she wanted to do was talk and relive those horrible memories again. “You don’t have to stay the night, Jess.”

  Jessica glanced up at her. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s going on.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Yeah. That’s why you were puking your guts out an hour ago, right?”

  Embarrassed, Vesper swallowed the rest of her coffee.

  “Talking might make you feel better,” Jess urged.

  “I doubt that.”

  There was a brief pause before Jessica spoke again. “Is this about Tristan?”

  Tears stung the back of Vesper’s eyes but she refused to give into them. Instead she clenched her jaw, trying her best to stay calm. “Don’t say his name. I never want to think about him again.”

  “What happened, Vesper? What did he do?”

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I always knew one day I’d pay for what I did but I never thought….”

  Jessica sat down next to her, squeezing her hand.

  “I’m so sick of feeling like this!” Vesper blurted out, finding it impossible to keep her emotions in check. Every cell in her body was filled with rage and desperate to lash out.” I don’t want to feel guilty anymore. I fucked up, I know what I did to Latoya was horrible but that didn’t mean I deserved what he did to me. I didn’t! I didn’t deserve that!”

  “I don’t understand. What happened? What did Tristan do? Who’s Latoya?”

  Beneath the anger were layers of despair and sorrow and shame and it all came rushing out as Vesper’s walls crumbled. How could she fall in love with someone like Tristan? How did she not see him for the monster that he was? Sobbing she broke down in Jess’s arms, the last of her composure now dissolved.

  *****

  “I think you should go to the cops.”

  Vesper turned to look at Jess who was lying down next to her. “Why? You think they can stop Tristan from coming back?”

  “Well, yeah. That’s their job.”

  Vesper winced. “I know how the system works, Jess. I saw firsthand how screwed up it was when Latoya was arrested. They’re not going to take my word over a rich white guy. Especially when they find out I was involved with him.”

  “So that’s it? You’re just going to sit here and wait for him to come back to finish the job?”

  Vesper clenched her jaw. “No. I’ll get the locks changed.” She stared up at the ceiling, contemplating her next move. “I feel like I’m sinking into quicksand and there’s no way out.”

  “You need to see a shrink.”

  “I can’t afford that.”

  “If I had the money I’d help you out.”

  “I know that, Jess. You’ve already done a lot for me. I’m lucky to have you as a friend. Thank you.”

  “I don’t want your gratitude. What I want is for you to stick around and be a good friend back to me.”

  A part of her wondered if the reason she’d succumbed to Tristan so easily was because of her past. In her mind he was just as screwed up as her and if she could help him then at least she had saved someone even if it wasn’t Latoya. Was that why he found it so easy to victimize her, treat her like shit? She never wanted to be that vulnerable again. More than anything though, she just wanted to move past the guilt. She had done a terrible, horrible thing by betraying Latoya but it was too late to fix it, and although her sister would never forgive her Vesper at least wanted to try and forgive herself. Otherwise she was doomed to always be a victim. “I need help,” she said, realising it had been a while since she’d admitted those words out loud. “I want to get better. I want to be happy.”

  “You deserve to be.”

  “Maybe, maybe not, but I know I don’t deserve what he did to me.”

  “I still can’t believe he attacked you like that.”

  Vesper’s stomach twisted into a tight knot. “I can’t believe I ever loved him.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “I’ve been getting smashed the past few days because it was the only way to stop cutting myself. But I need to stop all that. I don’t want to be a mess anymore.”

  “You need to get better.”

  “I know.”

  “How?”

  Vesper exhaled a heavy sigh. That was the million-dollar question. “I don’t know. I’ll have to figure it out.” And she was determined to, for her own peace of mind.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “Tristan, stop!”

  He didn’t. Couldn’t. The darkness in him had every intention of hurting Vesper, destroying her to the point where she was nothing but a lifeless sack of bones and tissue. Her pain-filled screams shredded his soul, and as hard as he tried to fight the evil that possessed him, the rage was too strong. Trapped inside his own body, he was unable to stop the savage in him from raping Vesper over and over again, violating her. While his assaults worsened, her eyes became empty and dull, life slowly ebbing out of her. But even then it wasn’t enough. He proceeded to slit her open, tear into her skin, and stab her insides repeatedly. Amidst the blood and chaos he could hear the faint sound of someone’s voice from behind, urging him to calm down, to come back, but Tristan couldn’t stop devouring the mutilated corpse that lay in front of him.

  “Tristan!”

  Yanked awake, Tristan arose with a start. His heart was pounding in his chest while the rest of his body had broken out in a cold, clammy sweat.

  “Are you alright?”

  It took a few seconds for his surroundings to come into focus, and he was surprised to find a concerned Arthur standing next to his bed. No, wrong, not his bed – it was too uncomfortable to be that. He was about to question Arthur when a sharp pain struck his head, causing him to groan loudly.

  “You should lie down, son.”

  The light streaming in was way too bright. Tristan closed his eyes. “Where am I?”

  “Hospital. Cops found you passed out and bleeding on the side of the road.”

  The last thing Tristan remembered was rushing out of Vesper’s apartment. Vesper, who had been terrified and devastated to the point where she had to hit him to get him to stop hurting her. A sudden wave of nausea came over him and Tristan turned to his side.

  “Here, drink this,” Arthur said, handing him a glass of water.

  Tristan swallowed the contents with one big gulp. “Thanks,” he muttered, finding it difficult to speak.

  “You’re lucky you didn’t hurt yourself or anyone else. Your blood-alcohol level was double the legal limit. They also found Ecstasy in your system.”

  “How did you know I was here?”

  “I’m still your emergency contact. A pleasant surprise, I have to say.”

  “Only because I forgot to change it.”

  “I figured.”
/>
  Tristan closed his eyes, intending to rest for only a minute. When he awoke next the nurse was leaving the room and his father was sitting nearby. He must have fallen asleep. “How long was I out?”

  “This last time? Not too long, maybe an hour.”

  It was a strange feeling having his father watch over him. Then again if Tristan was forced to be honest, it’s not like he would have ever given Arthur that opportunity before. “You don’t have to stick around. I can get home on my own.”

  “You need to be discharged first.”

  “Shouldn’t be a big deal. I feel fine.”

  “The doctor said you have a concussion.”

  “That doesn’t sound too serious.”

  “Didn’t realise you had a medical degree.”

  “Can you shut up?” Tristan muttered half-heartedly. “You’re making my headache worse.” Arthur pursed his lips and Tristan felt a twinge of guilt again for snapping at him.

  “I’ve contacted Preston about representing you. I suspect they’ll be bringing up charges against you.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Do you have someone who can stay with you?” Arthur asked. “They won’t let you go home otherwise.

  “I’ll call one of my buddies.”

  “Someone reliable. How about Vesper?”

  “No!” Tristan practically shrieked. “Don’t call her. Please.”

  “I think she’d like to know you’re alright.”

  “We broke up. There’s no reason to drag her into this.”

  “Son, I realise you don’t want my advice–”

  “You’re right, I don’t.”

  “Whatever problems you and Vesper may have at the moment, I do know she cares about you deeply. She’d want to know you’re alright.”

  “She wants to be left alone, Dad.” As much as it hurt to say those words, it was worse knowing his own actions had caused her to feel that way. “It’s the least I can do after everything I’ve put her through.”