by Claire Adams
The door opened, and I saw a guy I barely recognized — maybe he had been at the party, or maybe he had been hanging out with Johnny one of the times I’d been with him on campus. I took another quick breath to keep myself from crying. “Hey, I was hoping I could catch up with Johnny here,” I said, smiling as politely as I could. “Could I come in and talk to him?” I swallowed. The guy looked at me hesitantly, glancing around the outside of the frat house.
“He’s not around. If he comes by, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him.” I was crushed. If Johnny wasn’t even with the brothers at his frat, I couldn’t imagine where he was. If he wouldn’t take my calls, I couldn’t think of how I could support him, how I could talk to him.
“Thanks,” I said. I hesitated. “Could you — could you tell him that I still feel the same way that I did last night?” I couldn’t think of anything else to say, especially to this stranger.
“I’ll make sure to tell him,” the boy said, smiling slightly. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to believe that Johnny wasn’t there, but I had to accept what he had said at face value. I thanked him again and turned to leave, wishing that I’d somehow managed to find Johnny, to tell him I loved him and that I was sorry.
Chapter Ten
It was starting to get dark, and I was still wandering around campus; I couldn’t even realistically tell myself that I was looking for Johnny anymore. I was just continuing to walk around, trying to ignore the people talking about me as I passed them, trying to think of what I could possibly do to help the man I loved. I called a few more times, but since the calls went straight to voicemail, I didn’t even bother to leave messages. Johnny had his phone off, wherever he had gone to. He wasn’t going to be answering any of my calls any time soon, if he didn’t even know I was calling him. He would, I hoped, see that I had called him, see my text messages, and hear my earlier voicemail on his phone, and maybe get in touch.
I decided that I might as well go back into the dorms. I couldn’t stand the idea of going into the dining hall even to pick something up to eat on my own. The idea of running into the stupid redhead again, or of having to watch people staring at me, pointing at me, whispering about me, was just too much to deal with. I got into the building and didn’t even take the elevator — I went straight for the stairs without looking up from my feet. I felt like I was a failure. I had no idea where Johnny was, and the fact that he hadn’t called me back yet implied that either he didn’t want to talk to anyone — even me — or he was in deeper trouble than I knew. But all I could do was wait.
I trudged up the stairs, grateful that at least there was no one there to see me. There was no one there to laugh at me for dating someone being accused of rape. I lingered at the door to my floor, listening closely to make sure that no one was in the hall, and I hated the fact that I had to do that. I took a deep breath and pushed through the door and moved quickly to the room I shared with Georgia.
She was in the common area, the TV on, reading one of her books from class. The moment I came in, she jumped up. “Did you find him? Is he okay? What’s the news?” I shook my head and sank down onto the couch, exhausted beyond what I could believe any person could feel and still be awake.
“I couldn’t find him anywhere. He’s not in thy gym, he’s not in the dining hall, and I know he’s not in class. He’s not in the library, and he’s not in the frat house. As far as anyone knows about him, he just fucking vanished.” I rubbed at my face with my hands. “Everyone’s talking about it, Gigi. Everyone. I can’t walk past anyone on campus without them whispering or pointing.”
“Yeah,” Georgia agreed grimly. “It’s a shitty situation. Nothing is a secret around here.” We talked for a little while, and I started to feel a little bit better, but I couldn’t convince myself to even go downstairs with Georgia to get some food.
“Let’s just order a damn pizza and have it delivered to the dorms. I’ll put it on my card,” I suggested. “You go and sign for it and we’ll binge on it here and not have to deal with anyone.” Georgia pulled up the closest delivery site on her computer and we killed a few minutes trying to figure out what we wanted. I wasn’t really hungry; I felt as if I might throw up. But I knew that I had to at least try to eat. It wasn’t going to do me any favors to starve myself while I waited.
I tried to call Johnny again, even knowing it was useless. I sent him another text, telling him I was starting to get worried about him and begging him to call me, text me — anything. To just let me know that he was okay. I couldn’t stand not knowing. I hated the fact that there was absolutely nothing I could do to make the situation better.
Our pizza came and I ate a couple of slices even though every bite felt like it took the effort of forcing down blood pudding. Georgia and I tried to study, but neither of us could focus. We talked about the situation with Claire — what I had learned, what I knew about it. I told her about my fights with my parents, and we sat around watching TV. I hated waiting; I had never been a patient person in my entire life, and the thought that Johnny might be in trouble, that he was definitely hurting from the whole crazy mess, only made it worse.
“I guess we could see if there’s any more news on it online,” Georgia suggested. I didn’t think there would be — after all, it wasn’t like they really had anything — but I agreed. I just wanted to feel like I was doing something, even if it was compulsively checking the internet for news about him. There wasn’t any note of an arrest being made, so at least Johnny wasn’t in jail, his phone turned off and confiscated. Somehow that made me feel better and worse at the same time. He had to have his phone, but he wasn’t taking any calls at all. He might not even be checking it. He might not know that I was looking for him, that I wanted to talk to him.
As we looked through the newer articles, I could see that everyone was in an outrage over Johnny. People were coming out of the woodwork to talk about the case, and as we read, I started to regret eating anything at all. Everyone talked about what had happened to Claire in detail, about how she had killed herself, about the information that had come out in the trial. I wanted to throw up, reading it. Everyone was convinced — absolutely convinced — that Johnny was involved, that the only reason that he hadn’t been brought in with the rest of the boys was that he was a hockey star with big future prospects. I wanted to grab each and every one of the people talking about him that way and shake them or punch them. I wanted to scream in their faces that they didn’t have a single clue what they were talking about.
Someone somewhere wrote that they lived in the area where Claire White had been from and that it was just as well that Johnny never came home, because if he showed his face in that part of the state, he was likely to be lynched. I started crying as I read people describing what they would to do him if they ever ran into him — people who had no idea of even who he was, who had already judged him based on hearsay. People who didn’t know that Johnny tortured himself over what had happened to a girl he had loved over and over again.
“Close it out,” I told Georgia quietly. There was nothing new for us to learn from the articles being posted. I couldn’t stand to read more people talking about cutting off Johnny’s cock and feeding it to him, or beating him bloody, or killing him. I forced myself to eat another piece of pizza in the hopes that it would somehow, though I had no idea how, keep me from throwing up, put something heavier in my stomach. I felt like I was freezing cold, I felt like I was drowning. The only thing I wanted was to be able to talk to Johnny and tell him that I loved him and believed him and would stand by him. I wanted him to tell me he was okay. That he wasn’t about to do something stupid.
I was starting to give up hope, to tell myself that whatever Johnny was doing, he obviously wasn’t planning on even speaking to me. He might even hate me. Just when Georgia and I were starting to talk about going to bed, my phone buzzed. I nearly jumped off of the couch in my hurry to grab it; even though I told myself that it was probably one of my parents, or one of my frie
nds, or anyone else but the person I wanted most to hear from, I had to look. A flood of relief washed through me when I saw a message notification from Johnny.
I unlocked my phone and pulled up the message and my heart sank. Becky, I’m sorry I’ve made you worry so much, but I can’t talk. I can’t put you through this. It’s my burden to bear, it’s my problem to solve. You…I love you, more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my life. I can’t hurt you with all this. You have to just move on and forget you even met me. As much as I love you, you need to just cut me out of your life forever. I’m so sorry.
I stared at my phone in shock, not sure of how to feel other than miserable. Johnny loved me; he didn’t blame me for what was happening to him. That was good, but I couldn’t help but want to cry at the fact that he had told me that I should forget I had even met him. He wouldn’t let me in. I understood what he meant, I was grateful that he was thinking of me at all, that he wanted to spare me the pain of how incredibly fucked up the whole situation was. But I couldn’t bear the thought of giving up on him. I couldn’t just pretend I had never met him — he was the best lover, the sweetest guy I had ever met in my entire life.
“What did he say?” Georgia asked me. I took a deep breath.
“He says to stop calling and texting him. To forget I ever even met him. He told me to cut him out of my life forever,” I replied. It sounded so final, saying it out loud. I didn’t know how I could even try to argue with what Johnny wanted.
Continued in Breathless #5, the breathless series on June 25th. Click here to continue.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 Claire Adams
