* * *

Welp, my dick’s rubbed raw. I hissed when the soap hit it but forged through the pain like a man. I imagine she was in worst shape. I shoulda soaked her in a hot tub before I left but her bringing him up kinda soured my mood there at the end.

I left all the lights off in the house so Bryan wouldn’t know I was inside when he came knocking for his nightly dinner invite. Not that I was feeling guilty or anything, I just didn’t want to see his fucking face.

I did eavesdrop on their conversation a little bit to see where things were and got the gist that he hadn’t a clue. I wonder how she got the fuck smell out of the room, and the bathroom, and…shit. I must’ve dripped cock juice all over the floor over there. Oh well.

I hit the sack early since my ass was done for and dropped like a lodestone. My dreams were filled with unanswered questions and puzzles that didn’t make a lick of sense. I kept seeing her face with that look of fear in her eyes, calling to me.

I shot up in bed sometime in the early morning hours. “Son of a bitch!” I looked around the room as if expecting to find the answers hiding in the corners. I did not like where my mind had gone. In my semi conscious state, shit that I wouldn’t allow myself to think while in my waking state was screaming at me loud and clear.

I needed to talk to her, now. I had to wait. It would be another two hours before asshole left for work. I took a glance at the computer screen and came up short. “Where the fuck is she?” I hit some keys and scanned the rest of the house and found her wrapped up on the couch.

Going back to the bedroom it was obvious that her side of the bed hadn’t been slept in. “Good girl.” Why the fuck that shit should make me want to do cartwheels is anybody’s guess, but it made me feel good.

I even whistled while I put on a pot of coffee, until I remembered what had ran me from my bed. I’m trying not to kill anyone, but if what I suspect now is true, somebody’s gonna get burnt.

It was obvious now that the deputies hadn’t framed me. When I asked in a roundabout way of course, she didn’t even know them. There were only one other person caught up in this mess, the one person I would never have looked at for this.

To kill time while I waited for Bryan to leave out I did some digging. Dad had been in control of my part of the business while I was inside. The account had been set up and the monies from the bike shop was being deposited bi-weekly.

I never had reason to doubt that shit was on the up and up before, but now…

I knew as soon as I started digging that shit was off. the Money in the beginning looked about right, and my name was on all the right papers as far as the business was concerned, in the beginning.

Two hours later I was ready to kill, but I needed to hear it from her. I needed to be sure before I made my move. I think somehow I must’ve known. That’s probably why I didn’t rush over there first thing when I got out. The money hadn’t been my first priority. The fact that Doug had left out the day before my release should’ve been a dead giveaway. Had the tables been turned I would’ve met him at the gate. Son of a bitch.

I called her as soon as I heard his car leave. “Come next door, we need to talk.” I hung before she could say anything. What was she gonna say? No? She was there ten minutes later looking tired and worn the fuck out.

She kept looking back over her shoulder as if she didn’t want the neighbors to see her standing there before eight o’clock in the morning. I purposely made her wait a little longer. Old habits die hard I guess.

I opened the door and let her in. “Coffee?”

“No thanks, I already had some.” Aren’t we polite?

I turned to look at her once the door was closed and she was standing in the middle of the living room.

“I’m going to ask you some questions. I want the truth. If you lie to me it’ll just piss me off and we’ll be back to square one.” I let that sink in as she dropped down on the couch.

I could see that she was nervous and that fear crept back into her eyes. There was no use drawing the shit out so I just got right to it. “Why did you set me up?” She fidgeted around and refused to look at me until I knelt down in front of her.

“Look at me. If you want to make this right you have to come clean with me. You owe me that much.” Her hand trembled in mine when I took it. She was scared shitless. “I will protect you no matter what, but you have to tell me.”

She took a deep breath and composed herself. I squeezed her hand and held it in mine to give her the comfort she seemed to need and the strength to go on. When it seemed like she was still too afraid to open her mouth, I started things off.

‘That first time you approached me, you seemed different. What was that about?”

“It was a dare.” She peeped out at me from beneath lowered lids with a shy half smile and a shrug.

“Go on.” She blew out a breath and sat up straight with her hand still in mine.

“I told my friends that I liked you. Back then I was a bit… reckless. I wasn’t wild or anything.” She rushed to assure me. My only answer was another squeeze of her hand.

“Anyway, I knew who you were, or knew of you anyway. I’d seen you around town a time or two and thought you were hot.” She blushed when she said that and I saw just a hint of that girl I’d first met.

“I wasn’t brave enough to approach you though, not until they dared me to. Then when you shot me down they made my life hell. They ragged me about that the whole summer, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle.” She stopped there and her hand really started to shake now.

“I pretty much put it out of my mind until…until your cousin caught me smoking pot. You have to understand back then I was terrified of my parents ever knowing I did such a thing.” She was becoming agitated, so I calmed her down.

“Finish it.” I kept my voice calm though inside I was a burning cauldron of rage.

“He said he’d tell them unless I did him a favor. I thought he just wanted me to seduce you or something. I didn’t question his motives, I just didn’t want him to tell my parents. They would’ve killed me.”

“I didn’t want to, but he kinda forced me. I had no choice.” She closed her eyes and a tear slid down her cheek. “After you rejected me the second time he got really mad. I told him I’d done what he asked but he said something like it wasn’t over. I didn’t hear from him for a few weeks after that and then one night he stopped me when I was sitting in the Dairy Queen parking lot. I think he’d been following me or something.”

“I started to tell him that you weren’t interested and it was a waste of time, but he said he wanted me to do something different this time. He just wanted me to tell my friends that we’d had sex. I didn’t think it would get us here. I mean people make up stuff like that all the time and nothing like this ever happened.”

I kept quiet and let it all sink in as the pieces fell into place. “So you told your friends, then what?”

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. The next thing I knew you were being arrested and my dad was livid. Someone had told him about my lie and by then it was too late. I know now that I should’ve spoken up, that I could’ve ended it all. But then I heard about the drugs and figured they’d forget all about the other. I guess I was wrong.”

“You have to believe me, I’ve been a different person since then. I stopped hanging out, stopped going to parties. I just locked myself away until I went away to college and I’ve been living this way ever since. If I could take it all back I would I promise. I’m so sorry.”

She broke down while I hung my head letting it all sink in. Until she said the words I had held out hope that the conclusions I’d drawn in the early morning hours were wrong. That there was no way the man I had grown up with and treated more like a brother than the distant cousin he was, could do such a thing.

Why? Why had he concocted such evil against me? Was it the business? Money? I couldn’t recall a time when we had been at odds except for the usual childhood run-ins over the years that had never amounted to anything more than a stupid falling out over nothing.

Nowhere in my memory was there anything that would lead me to believe this of him, but I knew it to be true. We didn’t speak for the longest time. There was much to think about, not the least being the fact that I had held her responsible for something that was not entirely her fault.

I understood a young girl’s fear of her parents finding out she was experimenting with weed. Knowing the stigma attached to drugs of any kind in this neck of the woods, it was easy to see how that would strike unreasonable fear in her heart. She fucked up yeah, but in this, she was as much a victim as I.