Shame (Ruin #3)

by Rachel Van Dyken

  “Anger.” He’d said it with an edge in his voice, but when I looked up, his face was its normal goofy self. “That okay with you? It just seems the most complex. I mean, think about what anger entails? Revenge? Bloodshed? Wars?” He grinned. “Sorry. I’m a guy. I can’t help it.”

  I waved him off. “It’s fine. Anger, it is.”

  “Now that you have your partners and most likely your idea of the project,” Dr. Blake continued. “I’ll be passing out the instructions. Please listen as I start explaining.” He cleared his throat while his TA started passing out the worksheets. “You’ll use a personal experience to describe this emotion. Please write it in first person, no less than three pages. I’d like you to research instances when this emotion has helped people in history, and when it’s hindered. You need to find pictures and attach them to your story and include nonverbal cues as well as verbal cues to identify this emotion. Think of this project as taking one emotion and getting to know it so well…” His voice trailed off as his eyes found mine. “…that it defines you.”

  Shivers ran down my spine. The last thing I wanted to explore was anger; it reminded me of his personality. It was way too close. Taylor had been a bomb just waiting to set off. Only he was the only one with the timer.

  “Hey.” Jack touched my arm again. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” I was going to hate this project. “Fine.”

  I couldn’t help but think about the angry notes I was still receiving and the fact that someone was clearly angry with me, so angry and hateful that they destroyed university property on my behalf. I swallowed the fear and focused on the project at hand. By the time class ended, both Jack and I had adjusted our schedules so that we could work together for the rest of the week.

  “Lisa,” Dr. Blake barked just as I stood from my desk. “A minute.”

  Jack swore under his breath. “Damn, it’s like he can’t help but pick on you. If it helps… I know what that’s like.” His face was shadowed. “If you want me to do something—”

  “No,” I shook my head and laughed to put him at ease. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

  Jack nodded slowly. “Just be careful. Crazy comes in all forms, even ones who look completely harmless.”

  “Noted.” I swallowed and turned toward the front of the room.

  Tristan was stacking papers on his desk. When the last student exited the room, he walked to the door, locked it, and pulled the blinds down.

  Nervous, I shifted on my feet. “You going to scold me again?”

  Tristan’s entire body tensed as his face searched mine. “I was actually planning on apologizing, but if you’d rather have a punishment.”

  Curse him for making my entire body tremble! And it wasn’t with fear. The way he looked at me, the way he said things, it just… it did things to me, things I wanted to punch him for, because he was just like Gabe said, hot, then cold, then hot again.

  “Dinner,” he said, interrupting my thoughts. “I want to apologize and take you to dinner.”

  “Are you planning on rejecting me afterward?”

  He went very still, his eyes meeting mine, looking straight into my soul, into every insecure part of me. “No, Lisa. I’m not going to reject you afterward.”

  It was hard to explain the way he spoke to me; at times he was flirtatious and well… happy. Other times? It seemed like he was fighting another side of himself, one that was more reserved, uptight, controlled. And if you were to ask me which side scared me the most? I’d say both. Because both sides were dangerous to me — both pushed a person like me past the point of no return. His seriousness made me curious; his flirtation made me want more.

  “Just dinner?” I asked. “Isn’t that against the rules?”

  “Yeah, well…” He glanced down briefly before flashing a sensual smile, his eyes dilating. “…it seems to be an impulse I can’t really control around you.”

  “Control’s overrated, you label-making fool.”

  At that he laughed, a rich chuckle that had my entire body relaxing and heating at the same time. I took a step toward him and smiled. “So, rule-breaker, where are we going?”

  He grabbed his messenger bag and keys. “You’ll see.”

  “Cryptic.” My eyebrows arched as I crossed my arms over my chest. “This isn’t going to turn into one of those six o‘clock news things where the crazy professor takes the girl out then buries her in the woods, is it?” I tried to sound like I was joking, but the minute the words left my mouth, it was no longer funny. Suddenly, I realized how stupid it would be to go with him. I knew nothing about him, nothing at all!

  He smiled, tilting his head toward me. “Why am I getting the sudden urge to pull out a list of character references?”

  “Because I just scared myself,” I admitted out loud.

  “You want my social security number?” He winked. “Credit score? First grade class photo? Oh, and by the way, in first grade I was nominated most likely to own a pet store… so, if you aren’t okay with that, we probably shouldn’t continue this.”

  “This?”

  “Dinner.”

  “Because you liked pets?”

  “I wanted to own a lizard farm.”

  I covered my mouth with my hands and nodded solemnly. “All little boys have dreams.”

  “A bully crushed mine when he told me lizard farms don’t exist.” He shook his head. “In second grade I was voted least likely to succeed, on account that I didn’t speak for the entire year.”

  “Why’s that?” I took another step toward him.

  He took another step in my direction and shrugged. “It took me a while to get over the lizards.”

  “So you stopped speaking?”

  “It was more of me trying to make the public aware of my outrage.”

  “Ah, like lizard strike.”

  “I made shirts.”

  “Tell me, professor, is that when the label-making started?”

  “No.” He nodded toward the door and started walking. I followed, genuinely interested in what he was going to say and hating that it was possible he was stringing me along only to go all cold-crazy-psycho on me again. “That was an entirely different situation.” He pulled the door open.

  “What? No more stories?” I asked.

  “Dinner.” He shrugged, his eyes a stormy gray. “I’ll tell you at dinner.”

  “Bribery.”

  “My trump card. Label-maker stories. You know, I do actually know how to romance a woman.”

  “Well...” I cleared my throat and broke eye contact. “…since I’m your student, I’ll just take your word for it.”

  “Right,” he said quickly then repeated, “Right, shall we?”

  “Lead the way.” I forced a smile and tried to remember that this was dinner, nothing romantic, just my very sexy professor once again apologizing for being a jackass during class.

  The halls of the building were pretty empty. As it was, I should probably have been walking a bit faster, considering I still had a class to get to.

  When we reached the end of the hall where we’d most likely part ways, I felt someone watching. I turned around. Nothing. But the feeling remained. Fully creeped out, I fell into step beside Tristan and turned around again. Only he’d stopped, meaning I tripped against him and almost had a really embarrassing incident where my lips met his — by default.

  “Whoa!” He didn’t push me back, just braced my shoulders and gazed at me with those gray swirling eyes. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” I shook my head. “I was just… sorry, I thought I saw something.”

  Slowly, he released his grip and stepped back. “So tonight? Six?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “Sounds good. Should I meet you there?”

  “I’ll pick you up.”

  “But won’t that look… bad?”

  “A student eating with her professor? I’m sure there are worse things for the faculty to be gossiping about than a professor taking a student out to dinner to apo
logize for being an ass. You know, school shootings, drugs, rapes, things like that.”

  My edgy feeling continued, but I found myself nodding in agreement. “You’re right.”

  “Wow.” He smirked. “I imagine those aren’t words that pass those lips often.”

  “Talking about my lips is definitely off limits.”

  He stared directly at my mouth then outlined his lips with his tongue and whispered, “Now, that really is a pity.” He’d so done that on purpose.

  “So, six.” I stepped back and coughed, trying to distract him from the heat I felt on my cheeks. “Great, awesome. I’ll just, be waiting outside… my… dorm, where I live, because that’s where…” I held up my hand to wave — yes wave — upon my departure and ran smack-dab into Jack as he came out of the guys' restroom.

  “Whoa there. Guys’ restroom. No girls allowed.” Jack winked then nodded to the professor. “Everything okay?”

  “Great!” My voice was too high-pitched to be convincing. “Gotta run. Bye!” I ran down the hall and out of the building. It was already too late to go to class, so I cut my losses and went to the student center to check my mail. I’d been having a hard time remembering my PO on account of having to change everything so often. By the time I scrolled through my notes on my phone, I’d been standing in front of the stupid boxes for ten minutes. Finally, I went to the correct one.

  I reached in and pulled out a bit of junk mail, an announcement about a party on campus, and finally a black-and-white picture.

  Of me and Taylor.

  Taken two years ago.

  I dropped it to the ground, terrified to look at the picture, so damn scared that Taylor was going to jump through the picture and hurt me again. Seeing him was like seeing the boogeyman in real life or chanting Bloody Mary in the mirror.

  Swearing, I picked up the picture, planning to rip it up and toss it in the trash, but as I grasped it and began tearing the damn thing, I noticed handwriting on the back. It was the same black block lettering I’d seen before.

  It’s almost time. Did you think I’d stay dead forever? I own you.

  A cry rippled from my throat, and I dropped the photograph into the trash. Without a backward look, I ran straight to my dorm, my body numb the entire way.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The thing about leaving a legacy? It’s not truly a legacy unless you affect the maximum amount of individuals. Why in the hell would I go to all this work just to hurt one person? Do I look like an idiot? I work tirelessly because it has to be perfect, everything has to be perfect. The best part? The players don’t even know they’re in the game. —The Journal of Taylor B.

  Lisa

  I LOCKED MY door and slid down, hands shaking. I tried to get my breathing under control. I’d run the entire way back to my room and then hesitated even going in. What if a crazy person was waiting for me?

  Clearly the hair hadn’t thrown off the stalker.

  Which meant someone from my past, someone — someone I’d hurt — knew I was here, knew I was going to school, and knew my connection to Taylor. The worst part? Just thinking about all the people who were negatively affected by him. I shuddered, the list was long. So long.

  “You can do this,” I whispered to myself. “You aren’t Mel anymore. You’re Lisa.”

  The familiar taste of metal entered my mouth, quickly followed by knife-sharp pain as I bit down hard on my tongue. Fear wrapped itself around me like a blanket, and I let it, because I was so tired of fighting. It’s sad — no, it’s actually pathetic when what you fear most becomes an object of comfort. When fear actually turns into a friend. When you open your eyes and all you see is the dark because it’s been so long since you’ve seen the light. I’d been under that type of cloak for a while. Meeting Kiersten, having had her as a roommate last year had helped, and then, of course, meeting Wes; the guy was like a walking inspirational quote. And then there was Gabe; for a while we had carried the burden together. But now? It wasn’t fair to ask that of him.

  Which just left me.

  I took another deep breath and slowly rose from my position on the floor and walked over to my computer. I clicked the mouse to wake it up and with shaking fingers typed in the one website I swore I’d never revisit, the one place that still gave me nightmares.

  Videos of shame popped up right away. Millions of hits, millions of followers. I had no idea who had taken over since Taylor’s death, and I didn’t want to know. I’d had my parents email the site to take down all the videos I’d been involved in, but once something was on the Internet? Yeah, it’s pretty much there forever, and in the end, because I’d willingly participated and apparently been one of the founders of the website, there wasn’t really anything they could do.

  Thus, changing my name and taking on a new identity.

  Only the victims knew it was us.

  And the really horrible part? They were always convinced, you know, after the shameful video was posted, that we wouldn’t stop shaming them until they signed an NDA, meaning they couldn’t expose the masterminds behind the website.

  Protecting us, or so I thought.

  The home screen had ten different featured videos of the day, a little kid picking his nose and getting caught by his twin brother, then telling the girl on camera and showing the picture to her. Silly stuff. At least it wasn’t as bad as what it used to be.

  I scrolled through more of the videos. They were embarrassing but mostly funny, not something that would cause a kid to commit suicide or want to start a school shooting.

  The last video was titled, “Revenge, a Dish Best Served… Late.”

  I clicked on it.

  And almost threw up.

  They were pictures of me.

  Pictures of me in class, pictures of me at a bar, pictures of me two years ago with Taylor, and pictures of me and Taylor kissing and then…

  My entire body went rigid as I watched the video go live…

  “Just take it,” Taylor whispered. “It will make you feel good.”

  “You promise?” I swayed a bit, already drunk. “It will help my stomach cramps?”

  “Totally.” He winked. “Would I ever steer you wrong, babe?”

  I rolled my eyes and took the pill; he handed me a beer and the video continued with us talking. I had no memory of staying that night, no memory of even drinking.

  And that’s when the video took a dark turn. I stumbled into Taylor’s arms, slurring my words. “I f-f-feel funny.”

  “Probably tired from the pill.” He waved to some of our friends. “Let’s go lie down.”

  “’Kay.” I snuggled into him and sighed happily.

  The camera shook a bit as it followed us closely behind. At one point Taylor turned around and winked straight at the camera.

  “Come on, Mel, let’s get you comfortable.”

  He proceeded to strip me of all my clothes.

  I should have hit stop on the video. Black censor marks covered my nudity and his, but you could tell what was happening by the fact that I was murmuring stop, by the fact that my body was completely limp, and by the fact that Taylor said directly into the camera, “Revenge, my friends, is a dish best served… late — are you watching? I know you are… I knew you would be.” He dropped my limp body to the ground and strutted toward the camera then whispered, “I. Own. You.”

  I slammed the computer shut and stumbled backward. I didn’t know who to call, who to tell, what to even do! It was so long ago, could you even report a case like that? Plus he was dead? Right? He was dead? I watched him die, watched him throw himself from the ledge.

  I ran into the bathroom and puked then slumped to the floor again. I didn’t want Gabe to know, not now, now when he was so happy and done with drama. Besides, what could he possibly do? Tell the police? Arrest a dead person? Take down a video that I’m sure would just be put back up the next day? Because that’s the thing about the website; Taylor had specifically filtered it through a different country, so even if we
did have some crazy person filing against the site…

  We’d block their IP.

  Keep it up.

  And keep running.

  The video was there to stay — forever, I was one click away from turning into an E Hollywood story.

  It was like Taylor was haunting me from the grave. How would he even know? He’d always said he owned me, and he’d been right.

  And now.

  Even in death he owned me.

  “Well, congrats, you sick bastard,” I mumbled. “I feel… owned.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Making someone feel, making someone care, making someone experience emotion when your whole life you’ve been numb to it? It’s like fireworks going on all around you. It’s so loud, so damn loud it deafens. And then there’s the light, so brilliant it blinds; it scorches your retinas. And you take it as long as you can until you have to close your eyes, plug your ears — until all you want to do is scream. Mel was my fireworks, my everything, and because of that, she needed to be punished the way she was punishing me. You see, she made me human, and the last thing I’d wanted was to be something I wasn’t. She spoke calmly to the beast; she did my bidding. She was going to have to pay for that. I’m not sorry. I’ll never be sorry. The story is halfway done. —The Journal of Taylor B.

  Tristan

  I WAS ABOUT fifteen minutes early to Lisa’s dorm… I decided that leaning against the wall looked odd, and sitting in my car made me look like an absolute predator, so I went into the lobby and sat on the couch. UW was so big I knew people wouldn’t necessarily recognize me, especially considering I was only wearing jeans and a T-shirt, meaning I looked a lot younger than I typically did in the front of the classroom.

  By the time 6:15 rolled around, I’d started getting nervous. I had to laugh. Was the girl ever early? Maybe that was just her thing, being late? With a growl of frustration, I went over to the elevators and pressed her floor. I hurried down the hall, hoping we hadn’t just missed each other, and knocked on the door.

  No answer.