I'd rather watch her upset and angry with me through the cameras a thousand times than what I keep seeing.
But even if I'm able to force the image of her smile to appear, it still ends up morphing, and she becomes lifeless in front of my eyes once again.
And I'm still stuck in here, not knowing whether she's alive or not.
So, I keep sitting here with my head on the table and my eyes closed. Hoping that I'll wake up from this horrible nightmare any minute now, and I'll be lying back in my bed with Remi beside me.
The door clicks open and then shut, and my head shoots up.
I catch my reflection in the mirrored glass along the wall, red eyes with dark circles beneath them and wild hair sticking in every direction. It matches my insides perfectly.
“Is she alive?” I blurt out the second I see the guy who walked in.
He ignores me, taking a seat in the opposite chair. Then he starts talking about some bullshit that I don't even hear because he didn't say the words yes or no.
“Is she fucking alive?!” I yell, interrupting whatever he is saying.
“Watch your mouth,” he snaps back with a curl of his lip that I'm all too familiar with.
“Just tell me, please,” I beg quietly.
“Yes, she is awake. No thanks to you.”
Relief rushes through me like a tidal wave, and I close my eyes.
She's alive.
The world hasn't been robbed of her kindness or her smile that is like the sun on a cloudy day, warm and inviting.
But somewhere through the respite, my subconsciousness catches onto something, telling me not to get too excited just yet. He said, “No thanks to you.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, flicking my eyes open and looking at him. “Did she tell you what happened?”
Through all of this, I had ignored what was happening in my own situation. I wasn't reallysitting here in this small interrogation room of a police station as a suspect, being accused of drugging a woman and attempted rape.
The only thing different from now and a decade ago is the word attempted in the front.
But Remi is alive. She's awake, and she'll set things straight.
“Yeah, she did,” he says, looking down at the file in front of him. And then his eyes are swinging up to meet mine, and the hateful smile he sends my way has me sitting up a little straighter. “And she told us what youdid to her.”
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
I've spent the last week trying to understand what the fuck happened with her.
At first, I thought for sure that it was a mistake, a misunderstanding that would be rectified. No way would she tell them that I did that to her.
But here I am, a week later.
I bring one of my knees up and rest my arm on it. I remember the concrete floor being a lot more uncomfortable the last time. I guess that's what happens when you're numb all over. Dead inside. I don't feel anything right now.
Betrayal of the deepest kind by the woman I love, no . . .loved, killed everything inside of me that cared.
She knew I didn't attack Jennifer. At least, I thought she did.
So what the hell happened?
Was this part of some long scheme that she was in on with the town that I had suspicions about from the beginning? What I saw on the beach wrecked me, and I can't believe that someone would be willing to do that to themselves, that she'd be willing to go to those lengths for them. But maybe I'm wrong.