A fiery rage rose up inside of me. Why should men like this always be the ones who won? The ones who disregarded the rules and did whatever they wanted? I glanced out the window again, Mrs. Trout now standing across the street, waiting for poor Dashiell as he sniffed around the base of a tree.
Then I let out a blood-curdling scream.
Nate leapt away from me, his eyes wide. “What the fuck?” he hissed.
I took a deep breath and let out another one. Then I flung the door open and charged out of the house. “Help me!”
Mrs. Trout’s gaze shot up, her expression stunned to see me running toward her, my feet bare, glancing over my shoulder. Nate stood in the doorway of the house, color drained from his face.
“He attacked me,” I cried, cowering behind Mrs. Trout.
Nate pushed himself through the doorway and approached us. “She’s lying.”
“Stay away from me,” I said, forcing my voice to wobble. To Mrs. Trout, I said, “He shoved me against the wall, tried to kiss me, then reached up my shirt…” I trailed off, as if I couldn’t continue.
Mrs. Trout took me by the arm and said, “We can call the police from my house.”
Nate looked incredulous. “You’re fucking crazy, Meg.”
“What I am is traumatized,” I shot back.
Nate glanced between me and Mrs. Trout, then back at the house, the front door still standing open. He held up his hands. “Fine,” he said, heading to his car.
When he was gone, Mrs. Trout came inside and sat with me as I called Cory. Demanded he come straight home.
***
At first, Cory didn’t want to believe me. “Nate’s been my best friend since college. He would never do anything like that.”
But Mrs. Trout corroborated my story. “She came tearing out of the house like a cat on fire,” she told him, her eyes wide behind her thick glasses. “Nearly gave me a heart attack.”
An hour later, as Cory stood on the sidewalk and watched to make sure Mrs. Trout and Dashiell got back to their house okay, I did some quick math. Twenty-five hundred dollars a day for twelve days would get me $30,000.
Cory returned and sat next to me, taking my hand. “I can’t believe this,” he said. “Nate’s made some questionable decisions in the past, but I never thought he’d do something like this to me.”
I forced myself to count to three before pulling away. “He told me if I didn’t sleep with him, he was going to convince you I’d targeted you somehow. He even told me he would tell you that I’d lied about my background. That no one in Grass Valley knew who I was. He’s insanely jealous of you.” I could practically feel the satisfied vibration passing through Cory. “Nate wants what you have,” I went on. “He wants the house, the success, the relationship. He’s always wanted to be you.”
Later that night, I listened in on Cory’s side of the conversation. Whatever Nate was telling him, it wasn’t working. “She told me you’d say that. That you’d try to convince me she was a fraud.” I held my breath, hoping that I’d fed Cory just enough of Nate’s story to convince him that I was the one telling the truth. Finally, Cory said, “We’ve been friends a long time. You’ve always been there for me. But this crosses a line. I need you to stay away from Meg. Stay away from the house.” Another pause, as Nate most likely tried to plead his case. “I mean it, Nate. Next time, we’re filing a police report.”
That night, when Cory reached for me in bed, I pulled away. “I can’t,” I said. “I can still feel his hands on me, grabbing me.” I turned my back and pulled myself into a tight ball.
Finally, he said, “You’re safe, Meg. He won’t come back.”