I get it now. My own flashbacks have haunted me since the lake; I know how these trauma triggers work. Seeing Denman set you off, and although you had reclaimed so much of yourself since Christmas, just that glimpse of your abuser regressed you into a living nightmare. Your self-control, your amazing jackknife ability to shift your mood, pulled you back to me, but I wonder how long that would have lasted, if you’d lived.
“I thought he might have recovered,” Denman says. “Forgiven me, I don’t know. But that look he gave me? So frightened and hateful.”
“But it didn’t stop there, did it?” I say. “You knew from that look that Ellis would never forget or forgive. And so when we left the dance you followed us in your own car. Maybe you thought you could talk to him, get him to see things your way? But then fate gave you the sweetest chance. You saw us go off the road. You saw the car go into the lake. Your first instinct was to save us. You ran down to the shore, waded in, dragged me out. There was still time to save El, and you were halfway back to the car when you realized what an opportunity this was. El drowns, your problem disappears. You can go on teaching at the school, the hero who rescued at least one dying kid. Except you’d then have to explain why you were following us in the first place. Might lead to awkward questions. And so you just stood there and watched the car sink, taking your secret with it.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I didn’t follow you. I didn’t let him die. I’m not a monster. And I have witnesses. Everyone will tell you I stayed at the dance.”
“It was you,” I say. “It had to be. You had the most to lose if El lived.”
“I swear to you, it wasn’t.”
“You’re full of shit.”
But now he’s making excuses. He starts to blather, telling me he’d been suffering from depression for months leading up to that day; his partner of five years had left him the week before; he’d been put on these mind-altering meds by his doctor and wasn’t thinking straight. In fact, when he looks back to that night and imagines the person who did those awful things, it doesn’t seem like him at all.
He takes a step towards me, hand outstretched, almost pleading.
“You know what Ellis was like, Dylan. He was always so provocative, wasn’t he?”
I step back.
“Always teasing, always flirting.”
I don’t want this man anywhere near me.
“And you know something else?”
Denman’s lip curls. The coffee cup falls from his hand.
“Deep down, hewantedit.”
Suddenly he’s lunging at me, an awkward, loping thrust. That same unreadable face from your drawing has fallen like a mask over his features. He darts past me, kicks at the coffee cup on the parapet, sends it flying. I turn too late and watch the dark liquid arc into the air. Seconds later, there’s the crack of cheap china on the concrete below.
In the next moment, Denman’s good hand, surprisingly powerful, is shunting me backwards. My heels hit the parapet. I grasp at his face, try to tear the skin, but his attack has unbalanced me and I’m finding it difficult to breathe. Meanwhile he grabs my phone with his bad hand and sends it skipping across the rooftop.
He shoves again and the soles of my trainers teeter on the precipice. Grabbing my shirt with that strong right hand – a sculptor’s hand, used to moulding tough clay – he wraps his fist around the material and pivots me over the drop. My arms windmill. I hear trees rustle and the breeze snatches at my hair. I know if I fight him now, if I startle or hurt him in any way, he’ll let me fall.
His face swims before me, blank and hideous. I don’t want this to be the last thing I see. And so I close my eyes and let memories play in the dark. Not the horror show of the lake, but all the small and beautiful moments that were ours: a bonfire, a bookshop, a library, a bedroom:
Fingers trace the bridge of freckles across my nose.
“Who’s going to be first to sign my petition?”
Like electricity moving across my face.
“Friends until our dying day.”
The sweetness of your fingers.
“Be seeing you, adorable Frecks.”
Starburst-sweetness.
“Are you my boyfriend, Ellis?”
I stare out across the spaces between us.
“He wanted it,” Denman insists, invading my thoughts. “They pretend they don’t, but they always want it, in the end. I don’t even have to drug their drinks. Knew I didn’t have to with him anyway. As soon as I started, he wouldn’t struggle. And he didn’t, because hewanted it.”
