“Please, please stop,” Celeste begged over and over again as he struck her.
The camera shifted Celeste out of the frame and landed on me. I sat tied to the salon chair, unconscious, bleeding from my forehead where Charles had struck me.
“You can beg all you want, but I won’t stop until you’ve learned your lesson. I can’t wait for Evelyn to join us.”
“Leave her alone, Charles. You’re mad at me; she has nothing to do with this. Just let her go. I promise I’ll do anything you want. Just let her go.”
He cut the video and settled into the chair in front of me.
“She begged me to have mercy on you, ya know? No matter how many times I cut into her, she still had the strength to cry out for you.”
I felt like the walls were closing in on me. It was one thing for the nightmares to plague me every night and another to see my sister like that in 4K. I felt sick. I retched, but my empty stomach released nothing.
“Do you know why you’re here, Evvie?”
I didn’t want to have this conversation. I couldn’t stop hearing the sound of my sister’s pleas. Whatever reason he had told himself wouldn’t matter.
“You know, at some point, my mother might have even noticed the obsession I had with Celeste, but it was too late.”
He tapped his foot in a rhythm. “You fed my obsession. You always left the door open for me to come back. Celeste told you I was out of control, scaring her even. But you convinced her I was safe. Poor, naive Evelyn, you wanted to keep your family together so badly that you invited the devil to dinner.”
“I never told you to pursue her or that she wanted anything romantic with you.” I whimpered through gritted teeth.
“Ah, that is correct. But you never told me she didn’t, did you? You just told me that she cared for me more than anything, and she needed me in her life.” He stood, circling me once more.
I felt blindsided by his logic. Had I encouraged him inadvertently?
“It’s your fault she’s gone. You made me hurt her. I was going to leave!” His hands slammed down on the back of the chair, causing me to jump. “You made me stay here. I had to watch her choose the wrong person over and over again. Then you had the nerve to survive, to serve as a reminder that she was gone.”
My brain struggled to distinguish between what was fiction and what was fact. It was too muddled with memories of the past, examining every interaction, searching for any truth to his words.
He was wrong. I didn’t encourage him. I would always live with the guilt for the part I played in trusting him, but I couldn’twrap my head around that. When I asked him to stay, I could never have imagined the outcome.
Charles’ fist swung out at me, hitting my face. Pain bloomed in my nose and jaw—blood began pouring from my nose and busted lip.
Bursts of stars trickled into my vision.
Years later and he was still as angry as the day he took her from me. It was disorienting. We were somewhere completely different, yet I felt like we were back in that salon.
“You made me do it!” He bellowed as he shook me. “You shouldn’t be here.”
He yelled as he used me as his personal punching bag.
Then he stopped.
His breaths ragged and strained from his efforts.
Good.
It was a silly thought, but his pause gave me relief. I ached all over, but I was still alive. I was familiar with pain, and this was just a drop in the bucket. A tiny part of me clung to a strange feeling: hope.
He was behaving erratically, pacing the floor. Every time he drew closer to me, I tensed, waiting for the inevitable pain that would follow.
He sent a message on his phone before he turned towards me with a maniacal smile.
“I didn’t know sending out a text message could give me such a boost of serotonin.”
The more he spoke, the more I realized how sick he had become.
