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Asa stares at me, the burnt pizza smoking between us. “Expecting anyone?”
“No. Maybe Joey and Terrell forgot their keys?”
Reaching for my shirt, he throws it at me and then grabs his own. “Maybe it’s the pizza delivery guy to rescue us.”
“Not likely.” I chuckle, slipping my shirt over my head, watching him walk toward the door.
He opens the door and leans against the wall casually. “Hey.” And then he opens the door wider and in walks Cadence. She’s been crying.
We don’t talk like we used to back in high school, and I think we’ve grown into entirely different people. Regardless, she was there when I needed her during the trial.
I step toward her. She glances at me, then Asa. “I’m sorry. I should have called first.”
“It’s okay. We were just not eating pizza,” I tell her, only to have Asa roll his eyes. I wave her inside and gesture toward the couch. “Come in.”
Asa clears his throat and then coughs from the smoke in the house. He opens a window, but it doesn’t help. “I’m gonna go get pizza.”
“Pepperoni and pineapple,” I tell him, smiling as I sit next to Cadence on the couch.
“Pineapple doesn’t belong on a pizza,” he tells me just before kissing my temple.
I argue that it does, but he waves his hand in my face and tells me I’m crazy. When he leaves, I reach out and touch Cadence’s knee.
“You guys are adorable together,” she says, and then bursts into tears.
I hand her a box of tissues. “Are you okay?”
She nods but continues to cry. “I just… I can’t believe I didn’t see it. The warning signs were there with Roman all along and I never saw it.”
I hesitate to ask, “What do you mean?”
“I ignored the fact that he never gave a shit about what anyone else said. Even with me. I’d tell him I didn’t want to do something and he’d make me do it anyway. I had a fucking threesome with some girl I never met before because he forced me to. He’s just… awful and for so long I let it go because I loved him.” Taking the sleeve of her sweatshirt, she wipes her tears away. “After you were raped, he said some things that, looking back on it, should have been warning signs that he had something to do with it.”
My throat tightens, my heart skipping a beat. That same panicked feeling I always get when the word rape is mentioned consumes me. I fidget and ask, even though I don’t want to know, “What do you mean?”
For a minute, I don’t think she wants to tell me. “I asked him where he was that night because for an hour, his story didn’t add up. He wasn’t with Monika like he said he was and when I caught him in the lie, he blew it off. Then when I asked if he knew anything or saw you, he said he saw you with Tony and Greg by the water, but that was it. Before that, he said he never saw you the rest of the night.”
I sigh and hold her hand tighter. “Cadence, you have nothing to feel guilty about.”
“But I do,” she cries. “I left you when I knew I shouldn’t have. I knew better than to leave you with them in your condition. And then I thought to myself after everything happened if I’d trust Roman, drunk, alone with you, or any of my friends and the answer was always no. That’s when I should have known and spoke up sooner. But… like everyone else he manipulated, I was scared of what he’d do if I came forward and said something.”
I think about that night a lot more than I want to, even three years later. I wonder if Asa hadn’t found Roman’s hat if he would have ever slipped and caught himself in a lie he couldn’t talk his way out of. Or would the guilt have gotten to him and he confessed? What about Tony and Greg, would they have ever admitted if Roman hadn’t ratted them out? They were minors and their lives were over before they even began. I had no doubt in my mind Roman played a way bigger role in that night than he claims to.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this now, after everything you went through and bringing it up again, but I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry. I should have been a better friend. I’m sorry the judge was a prick.”
I reach for her and wrap my arms around her. “I shouldn’t have shut you out like I did. I guess I just clung to Asa and I’m not even sure why.”
Cadence smiles, her bloodshot eyes focusing on mine. “I’m glad you did. He’s a great guy and you deserve each other.”
I hadn’t realized how long we’d been talking when Asa comes through the front door, Terrell and Joey following him.
“Oh my God, I’m starving,” Joey notes, taking a deep breath with her face next to the pizza boxes.
Asa laughs and holds the pizza box up higher. “Didn’t you go out to dinner?”
Joey snorts. “Yes, but I went to dinner with Terrell. He made us share a meal because it was cheaper than two meals and he ate most of it.”
Terrell tosses his keys on the counter. “It’s ridiculous that a steak dinner would cost forty-five dollars. I can make that at home for cheaper.”