He looks slightly less miffed as I excuse myself, hurrying along the hallway, ducking into the bathroom, and leaning against the closed door.
The world tilts on an axis and I slide to the ground, huffing and puffing like I’ve just run twenty circuits. My body shakes and won’t stop. If I fight now, they’ll have me arrested, have me locked away. If I fight now, it’ll leave Esme in their hands with no shot of rescue.
That’s the sensible thought. The one that makes me nauseous because it’s entwined with self-preservation. It insists I will do something, but something reasonable.
Tell someone, maybe. Someone in authority.
Someone like the District Commander.
Cold droplets of sweat roll down the back of my neck.
Behind the fury is the pain. All the hurt is suddenly back with a vengeance. How it felt to walk to my room after waiting alone at the breakfast table, worried that Esme had taken a turn for the worst.
There’d been a man at her door, dressed in overalls, packing her things into boxes. Rowena stood on the other side, watching him, crying her eyes out.
When I asked her what happened, she backed away, crying harder. There’d been a moment of agonising panic when I thought the worst. When I thought Esme had hurt herself too deeply to take back.
Then Rowena got herself under a semblance of control. She told me everything in such a garbled rush it took three attempts before I got any of it straight.
Esme had spoken to her parents and signed herself out. She’d already left. She never wanted to see me again. If I tried, she’d accuse me of rape.
All my texts, my phone calls to her went unanswered. Rowena blamed me when hers did, too.
I watched in real time one night as Esme signed out of every social media account she had. The ones that could be taken offline disappeared. The others froze in time, nothing added since, everything that could be, deleted.
Ignoring Rowena’s second-hand instructions, I’d even driven to my hometown, parking outside her house, waiting near the gate, insisting that I’d stay until I spoke to her, until I could assure myself she was all right.
And she’d talked to me through the intercom, sounding calm, sounding normal.
She’d talked and told me to leave, that if I didn’t, she’d call the police. When I still hung around, she explained in detail the difference between the charges of theft as an employee that she’d levelled at my mother and charges of sexual violation.
When I said good luck getting that to prosecution, she reminded me of a text message apology I’d sent, then hung up.
Each time I thought of trying again, I also thought what it would be like to spend the next few years in prison instead of trying to make it into the Under 20s.
And that same fear now flares in my mind. I recall her blank face as she accused my mother, can easily imagine the same expression on her face if she accuses me.
It’s fear. You know it’s just fear.
But it was ‘just fear’ that has already had very real consequences for my family.
I need to get back into the room. Go to Esme’s side. Talk to her. Ask her if she wants to leave.
Kill everyone on the way out.
But what if I’ve made a mistake? Maxwell Antigua speaks in code so often I’ve had trouble following what he’s saying before. If I’ve inferred the wrong thing… what then?
Esme continues to enjoy herself at a party for rich folk and I lose my supporter, my pay packet, my ticket to a better future.
I’ll lose my place at Kingswood. Maxwell is the type of man who won’t take being spurned lightly. He’ll go for maximum damage. Maybe even make up some charges that would leave me ineligible for future try-outs. Ineligible for any path into the game.
My legs gradually stop shaking, my stomach stops churning. I stand and run water over my wrists, splash some on my face.
Fucking coward.
Yeah.
I don’t have a comeback for that one.
