The Scammer(86)

“He said you said something very specific. Something no one would know about him.”

I glance at the front door. It’s just us in here. For the first time ever. I’m not trapped. I can escape. But I still feel pinned by an invisible force.

“Well, we spent a lot of time together writing.” I look at her. “Does that . . . bother you?”

“Psst! Nah!” she laughs. “He’s my brother! A bit of a ’ho at times but who isn’t. I . . . guess I just really believed he needed me, you know. The world’s been so unfair to him that I feel I always have to protect him.”

“He’s my brother.” She said that so many times. I gag, covering my mouth to stop the threatening vomit.

“Hey, you okay?” she asks, lightly touching my arm.

“Yeah,” I say, trying to think of a way to create some space between us. “Can I have more sugar?”

She grins. “Yeah. Hang on.”

Vanessa stands too quickly. She wobbles, falling back onto the sofa.

I place my mug on the coffee table. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she slurs with a frown. “I . . .” She touches her numb lips as the shock spreads across her face. She grips the sofa cushion, realization sparking in her eyes. “I . . . I . . . NO!”

Then suddenly she’s on me, hands gripping around my neck with a tight squeeze, my head hitting the sofa arm. She lunged so fast I didn’t have time to let out a scream. I beat my fist against her arms, desperate for air. We roll off the sofa, tea mugs crashing onto the floor with us, water scalding our shoulders. I grab the mug and swing but she dodges it, returning with two punches to my right eye, sending shooting stars around my vision. She pushes against my bruised ribs and I howl in agony.

Her hands return to my neck. My legs run in place, sneakers squeaking against the tiles, but I can’t move. She screams, pressing down harder, a rage in her eye I’ve never seen. She’s stronger than she looks.

And she’s about to kill me.

Slowly, as life leaves my body, her arms become tough noodles. I arch my leg up and knee her in the stomach. She cries out, her hands loosening, and with the last of my energy, I shove her off and she thumps onto the floor, all dead weight.

I cough out a gasp and roll over to my back, my ribs throbbing.

The drug finally slipped into her system, weighing down her veins, leaving her motionless.

Holding my side, I manage to make it onto my feet, wincing through the motions, and drop on the sofa, straightening what little hair I have left. Vanessa stares at me from the floor, trying to catch her breath, reminding me of a dying trout on shore.

“You know,” I begin, the words scratchy, and nod at the computer. “This isn’t mine. It belonged to my brother. Kevin. You remember him, right?”

Her eyes grow huge as she wheezes, trying again to move, to stand, to do anything. I watch her squirm and open the laptop to the photo album, turning it in her direction.

“This you?”

I tap the selfie he took while lying in bed with her, smiling, cheesing, laughing into one another. He looked so damn happy that it breaks my heart, thinking of his heart shattering as he slowly learned the truth about the one person in the world he was willing to give up his family—his sister—for.

“You didn’t even bother to learn who his parents were or what they looked like. Hearing my last name didn’t ring any bells? Or maybe you just fucked over SO many Kevins that you forgot? Just another drop in the bucket.”

Vanessa’s eyes toggle from me to the computer, shaking her head with a whimper.

“I know. We don’t look alike. He was much cuter than me. Everyone said so.”

“Please,” she slurs, gurgling a throat full of saliva. Maybe she’ll choke on it, maybe she’ll die.

“‘Lions are not concerned with the opinions of sheep.’ That’s the line your stupid brother swore he made up when he just stole it from a TV show. Game of Thrones. Ever heard of it? It was a show my brother knew by heart. That’s how he figured out you two were full of bullshit. Oh, I’m sorry. Not your brother. Your BOYFRIEND!”

Her mouth gapes wider, lips trembling as she struggles to stay awake.

I lean closer to her, shaking in rage. “You took EVERYTHING from me. He was the one person in the world who understood me, the one person I had to lean on, and you took him.”

The terror in her face isn’t as satisfying as I thought it would be. She manages to moan a small “help” before slumping to the floor, passing out cold. I study her for a few moments. The woman my brother was so in love with, the woman who crushed him. I put two fingers to her neck. There’s still a pulse.

Good.

I close Kevin’s computer and walk into Vanessa’s bedroom, noticing how it smells just like Devonte.





Thirty-Six




There are five stages of grief with a few of my own additions: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, boomerang, and then finally . . . revenge. Most people would think I was just stuck in the anger stage. Anger is just the weeds that grow out of that lump of dirt that used to be a heart when it’s grieving. But revenge . . . revenge is the sweet frosting on a yellow cake.

I arrived at the revenge stage four months after they found Kevin’s body in his dorm room closet. I came home from another stint at therapy, utterly numb and decided to open up Kevin’s computer, still tucked away in the corner of our garage with the rest of his belongings. There was no way I could accept that he killed himself without reason. Despite what everyone told me . . . that maybe he hid his depression, that people change when they go to college . . . I knew him better than I knew myself. Something had to have happened. Something drove him toward his death. And if I didn’t search for a reason, I would be in a perpetual loop of grief. I didn’t want to boomerang. I wanted someone to pay for what they’d done.