Page 115 of Leave a Mark
Lee:Thank God. Thank you. Can I come get you?
His plea broke her heart and made her smile at the same time.
“What?” Cherise hissed, trying to see the screen.
Wren pulled her phone closer.
Wren:I need some space.
Lee:Texting sucks. If I could hear your voice, I’d know if you meant you needed some time when you said you needed some space, or if that really meant don’t come near me again.
Wren sighed. She was hurting him, and she hated it.
Wren:I need some space.
She’d told him to give her space, and yet she waited to see if he’d text something more. Wren felt Cherise’s eyes on her, but she wouldn’t take her own from the screen.
Lee:You own me. You might as well know it.
Breath tore from her throat. “Oh, Lee,” she whispered, tears welling in her eyes.
Cherise picked up the tequila bottle and poised it over her shot glass.
Wren nodded.
“If you leave that man, I may never stop drinking.”
“Just pour,” Wren said.
“I LET HIMdo that to me for four months.”
Wren stared at Cherise’s bedroom ceiling as they both curled under a sapphire duvet. The only light came from the TV, making shadows dance over the walls. It was almost midnight. The tequila had worn off hours ago, but Wren didn’t want to sleep.
Cherise raised the remote to pause the fourth episode ofBuffy. They were hitting all the great ones, and “Hush” had just started. The two sinister, smiling demons opened their magic box and stole the voices of everyone in Sunnydale. No one could speak. No one could scream for help. Everyone in Buffy’s dorm had just awoken voiceless when Wren spoke.
“You were six, Wren. You don’t get to blame yourself for that.”
Wren shook her head. “I could have said something, but I didn’t. Because I knew it was already too late.”
“Too late for what?” Cherise asked, mystified.
“Too late for me to be good.”
Cherise turned to her in the darkness. “That’s crazy, you know.”
She sighed. “But it’s not, really. It’s true. Do you know the first thing everyone asked me after Darryl was arrested?” She didn’t wait for her best friend to answer. “Why hadn’t I told them what was happening? That one question — that Laurie asked, that Mamaw asked, that the police asked — made it clear I’d had power to stop it, so if I hadn’t stopped it, then I was, in part, responsible for it happening. I victimized myself. There’s a part of me that is just as bad as Darryl. And I knew that when I was six.”
“Wren…” She could hear the tears in Cherise’s voice. Her best friend’s hand slid across the mattress and grabbed hers. “…you can’t believe that.”
“Idobelieve that. Why didn’t I start screaming the moment he touched me, Cherise?” Her lungs burned with shame, and her throat swelled with regret.
“Because you were a child! And he was a monster.” Cherise closed in and pulled her into a hug.
At the loving touch, Wren let go and sobbed.
“I still knew it wasn’t supposed to happen, and I just lay there and let it.” She cried into Cherise’s hair. “That’s why I will never be free of this. I will never be clean. How can I be with Lee if I am never clean?”
CHAPTER THIRTY
