Chapter Twenty-Two
Shawn
Early the next morning, I heard someone banging on my door. It was Saturday morning, but seriously, can’t a guy get some sleep around here?
At first, I had hoped that my mother would answer the door, but then I remembered that my mother had spent almost a week straight at her new boyfriend’s house, leaving me alone to fend for myself.
I hated it, but what other choice did I have? I certainly couldn’t go home to my dad’s house, especially not after what had happened the night before.
While I finished waking up, I smiled at the thought of Valerie and what we had done.
It was a long time coming and it was magnificent. I couldn’t believe the excitement that I had found in that moment. Everything was perfect. All I wanted now was to be with her.
Hey…Maybe it is her! “Hang on a minute!” As I staggered around the house, I couldn’t help but think that the only saving grace of this situation was the fact that Dalilah had not caught on that my mother was literally never home, or she would have moved in by now.
Before I could even make it to the door, I heard another knock and I was fairly certain, unless something was wrong, that this was not Valerie. She was far more considerate than that, especially this early.
Oh God… I thought with a sudden sense of panic; What if something is wrong? I quickened my pace and made it to the door. When I opened it, to my displeasure, I saw Dalilah standing there.
“Good morning!” she answered pleasantly and walked past me into the house. “It took you long enough.”
“Are you okay?” I asked, rubbing my eyes and staring around, trying to get my bounds. I was certainly not a morning person and this, I wouldn’t even call morning. “It’s like…five in the morning. Is something wrong?”
She shook her head. “No, I just missed you.”
I nodded. “Okay…Well, do you want to come back to bed with me?”
She thought for a moment and shrugged. “Sure, I guess. If you want to waste a perfectly good morning.”
I knew that I should feel something. Perhaps I should be guilty for what I did last night, but I didn’t feel anything like that. In fact, I was happy. For the first time in a really long time, all I felt when I thought about what had transpired between Valerie and I the night before was excitement, the promise of future happiness and the strong, unyielding desire to do it again as soon as possible.
“Yes,” I answered. “I really do. Come on.”
I don’t even remember making it back to the bedroom before I had fallen asleep again.
Yet, I definitely remember being woken up a few hours later.
“What the hell is this?” I heard Dalilah scream.
“What the hell is what?” I asked, still incredibly groggy. I shook my head and looked at her, as my eyes started to focus. When my eyes could finally see right, I was struck with horror as I saw that Dalilah was holding Valerie’s underwear. Oh God, I thought as my heart immediately began to pound in my chest. “What? I don’t know…Women’s underwear?” I stammered, trying my best in my sleep-induced stupor to sound as innocent as possible.
She barked a laugh. “These are not just any woman’s underwear. They belong to a specific person…and that person is not me!” she screamed.
“Are they my mom’s? She isn’t the most…conservative type.”
“Not unless she is undressing in your room,” Dalilah exclaimed as I watched her face grow red with anger.
“What?” I demanded, “Maybe they fell out of the laundry? I don’t know…”
“That’s an awful lot of excuses for someone without a guilty conscious,” she answered, before I saw her eyes glow with a horrifying red as her face grew an even angrier shade. She pounced on me and pushed the underwear in my face.
I could have easily pushed her off, but I didn’t want to take a chance of hurting her, so I just backed up carefully. “Dalilah, what the hell?”
“Whose are they?” she yelled.
“I don’t know!” I screamed back, tearing the underwear away from my face. “Get off me!”
“No! Tell me who it is, or I will find out myself and when I do, I will break her face so badly that you won’t even want to fuck her anymore.”
Now, I was angry. I certainly cared more for Valerie than I did for Dalilah and the thought of her having to deal with Dalilah’s wrath, especially because of me was more than I could bear. I felt a surge of rage plow through me as I knocked Dalilah aside and stood up. “Don’t you dare, you bitch.”
She stopped short and stared at me for a long time. Her full lips cracked into a demented smile as she answered, “Oh. I see,” in a scary, calm and complacent tone. “You’re with her.” She inhaled deeply before she breathed back out a low and menacing growl. “These are hers…It all makes sense now.”
I felt my nostrils flair with anger as I hissed, “It doesn’t need to make sense to you, just get out!”
Once again, she barked a conniving, humorous laugh. “So, let me get this straight. You not only cheated on me, but you cheated on me with your stepsister?”
“Leave it alone, Dalilah,” I answered, breathing heavily as I felt a sensation of worry cascade through my body. I shuddered as I added a careful and honest, “Please…just leave. You can say whatever you want about me and why we broke up. Just don’t bring her into this.”
“I’ll tell people you beat me,” she threatened.
“Fine,” I answered solidly, even though I knew that she was just as capable of going through with her word as she was capable of trying to hurt Valerie.
“I’ll tell people you raped me,” Dalilah hissed, glowering at me.
“What do you want, Dalilah?” I demanded, tired of playing her games. It was right then and there that I realized just how evil she was and how much I needed to get away from her.
I had only started dating her so that I could have someone, since Valerie had Zachary. I felt it would be good for me to have someone, completely unlike my best friend. I had tried to get over Valerie by pouring all of the emotion that I had into my relationship with Dalilah, but now, I realized that I was completely wrong in doing so. I would have to deal with the consequences.
“Stay with me,” she answered simply. “Dump that whore and promise never to leave me.” Dalilah’s wicked grin grew now as she explained, “Between what I have on you, that really did happen and what I am willing to say, I have enough to not only humiliate you both, but I could probably even get you jailed. Please…Just…Run away with me and this could easily become a bad dream, from which you will awake as soon as you say yes.”
She began to move toward me on her hands and knees, with a seducing look in her eye. She ran her tongue over her plump, pouting lips and when she stopped, mere inches from me, she raised herself up and began to pull the strap of her tank top off of her shoulder.
For a few moments, I honestly thought about it. I wasn’t the least bit turned on. In fact, I was horrified, but seeing as how I would be protecting Valerie and getting away from people who didn’t care about me at all to begin with, this didn’t exactly seem like such a bad plan.
However, I thought of Valerie and how badly I actually wanted to be with her. Perhaps that was selfish, but I just couldn’t go through with it. I had to be with her, at least one more time, if not for the rest of my life.
“No,” I answered unwaveringly and bent down so that I was glaring hatefully into Dalilah’s eyes. “I have no interest in being with you anymore. If you don’t want me to call the police and tell them everything that you said you were going to do to me and to Valerie, in addition to breaking into my house, you need to leave. Oh and don’t you even think about laying a hand on Valerie. Don’t even look at her,” I hissed. “Or you will see a side to me that I guarantee you aren’t going to like.”
With that, I saw her eyes narrow hatefully. She doubled up her fist and slammed it against my jaw. It knocked me back and might have even knocked a tooth loose.
“Get out!” I screamed when I recovered from staggering backwards; however, when I looked up again, I realized that Dalilah was already gone.