“How about you tell us what really happened. And we’ll get that scholarship back for you. Your life will go back to normal. All of this will disappear.”
All of this? All of this had already disappeared from me once before. I didn’t want my old, normal life back. That emptiness. I’d never go back to that. All I wanted was for these two idiots to leave me alone. “I think this discussion is over.” I stood up again.
“Don’t you want your old life back? We can give you back what you lost. Stop defending him. Can’t you see what he’s taken from you?”
“I’m not defending him, I’m telling you the truth.”
“He’s not who you think he is.”
“Yes he is.” I could feel myself losing my temper.
“He’s a predator, Penny. And you’re the prey. Don’t you see that? Those two other girls were his prey too. Who knows how many others didn’t come forward? You’re probably one of a dozen. You can’t hide from the truth. He seduces students. He’s not a good man.”
I had thought that before. That he was the predator and I was the prey. But I was wrong. And these men were wrong. James wouldn’t have done those things. But didn’t he do it to me? “Get out of my apartment.” I didn’t need to stand here and listen to this. They were just as bad as the person who wrote the article about James and my relationship.
“Your apartment? Is that the deal then? The gifts, the apartment? Is that to keep you quiet?”
“You’re terrible detectives,” I snapped.
“We’re trying to protect you.”
“Protect me? I don’t need your protection. I wanted this relationship just as much as he did. I love him.”
“He doesn’t love you.”
“Yes he does.” Who were they to tell me how James felt? Arrogant assholes.
“Do you even know anything about him? Do you know that he has a criminal record? Do you know that he’s spent time in jail? This is the kind of thing he does. This is the kind of thing that a bored man with too much money and no sense of morals does.”
“If you both don’t leave right now, some of your detective buddies will actually have a crime to solve.”
“Did you just threaten us?” Detective Reed stood up. “You do know that it’s a illegal to threaten a police officer?”
“Oh, I didn’t realize you were police officers. I really couldn’t tell. All you’re doing is throwing out accusations without any evidence.”
“Consider this a warning, Miss Taylor. We will be in contact again. This is far from over.”
I didn’t say anything. I watched them walk over to the elevator, step in, and disappear. The apartment was eerily quiet. I suddenly felt very, very cold.
Thursday
They were lying. They were just trying to get me to confess to something that wasn’t true. And if they didn’t need my statement, then they wouldn’t have bothered coming. There was no way that they had any evidence.
James had said he had never been arrested while he was in Harvard. So I had already surmised that he’d been arrested at some point after that. None of that mattered. He had a troubled past. He was different now. Isn’t he?
But how much about him did I really know? The detectives had noticed my reaction when they said he was hiding something from me. Because he had done that before. But not this. He wouldn’t hide something like this. He wouldn’t lie to me.
I mindlessly opened up the freezer. Whenever I was upset, I always needed ice cream. I froze when I saw two pints of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream sitting in James’ freezer. He had seen me eating that flavor one of the many times I had been upset. He remembered. He was a good guy. That’s what good, thoughtful guys did.
I reached for one of the containers. It was also what creepy guys did. Creepy, stalker guys. I put the pint of ice cream back on the shelf. That wasn’t James. If anything I was the one that stalked him. James’ words suddenly came back to me, sending a chill down my spine. I had you right where I wanted you. He had lured me into his office. How had the detectives known that? Could it really be because he did it with other students too?
There was an untouched bottle of vodka in the back of the freezer. I grabbed it and slammed the freezer door. If he had broken the law so many times, he shouldn’t be worried about serving alcohol to someone underage. I unscrewed the cap and poured some into a shot glass that I found in one of the cabinets.
The burn down my throat was a much needed distraction. I poured myself another and downed it. Two girls had come forward. Two. One could be justified as lying. But two separate girls, with two identical stories? And it was a story that was the same as mine.
“I see you’ve found the liquor.”
I looked up at James as he walked into the kitchen. I was waiting for him to reprimand me. Instead, he grabbed a shot glass for himself and slid it toward me. I poured some vodka into the glass.
“You know, I could get in trouble for this,” he said and held up the glass.
“Is that the only thing you’re worried about getting in trouble for?”
He lowered his eyebrows slightly. “What, did they tell you what supposedly came up during their investigation?”
I shrugged. “They knew you lured me into your office so you could seduce me.”
“That’s not exactly how I’d put that.” He downed his shot.
“Then how would you put it?”
“That I was mad at you. And I wanted to see you.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I didn’t want to have to share you with Tyler. I wanted more. I wanted you to want more too.” He hesitated for a second. “And at the same time I didn’t. I wanted to get over you. I wasn’t really thinking clearly. I couldn’t get you out of my head.”
“But how did they know that? How did they know about the fake grade? And me going into your office?”