Breathless 4 (Breathless #4) (8 page)

I knocked again. “Coming!” someone called from the
inside. I tried not to fidget as I waited for whoever it was to answer the
door. I wished that I had the kind of guts to just walk in and ask about
Johnny, but I barely knew the other members of the frat. I didn’t know if
they’d even be okay with me walking in.

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 friends, 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.
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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