Page 41 of Dirty Roulette

I push myself up and crawl through the window and tumble to his bed. He stares at the glass in his hand, twirling around the amber-hued liquor.

Ryder leans over his chair nursing the glass in his hands. “I tried knocking on the dorm this morning. You weren’t there,” he says with disappointment laced in his tone.

“I took an Uber home...” I say as my fingers coil together.

“Why?”

My mouth goes dry, and my palms sweat. The ache in my heart pulls out the phone and I cup it into my hands, staring at the screen asking for the passcode. My thumbs type it in and I open up the messages from Brody with half a dozen links sent.

I click the one I watched last night and hold out my hand.

Ryder’s a stoic statue. He grabs the phone and presses the play button.

I burrow my palms into my eye sockets to stop myself from having another crying spell.

At this rate, he is going to see me as an emotional disaster waiting to happen.

Crying is unattractive, and I have a knack for being a cry baby near him.

Adrenaline and all its painful fury pumps through my veins as I bite down on my thumb hard enough the skin might break.

Ryder’s front teeth curl over his bottom lip, and the video is on blast. Brittni’s moans, and sighs.

The headboard rattles against the wall. All of it is twisting my heart like a wet rag.

He visibly gulps, and a pain etches in his eyes.

“I don’t remember filming this...” A hand runs through his hair.

With a thumb, he scrolls on my phone, his eyes darting across the screen.

“I dunno what to believe anymore,” I suck in a deep breath.

“I didn’t sleep with her last week. I was with you at the party. This had to have been filmed when we were still together. I had no idea she was recording us.”

“I left, I dunno what happened afterward.”

“Are you serious right now? You have to believe me, I don’t want her.”

“Yeah, okay...” With a palm, I wipe away the tears pooling down my cheeks. They are hot and angry. I’m riddled with lies I’m telling Charlie, and myself. There is a serpent coiling around my neck constricting tighter with each passing second that I don't tell the truth.

“Payton... We talked about this last night. It’s over between me and her. Being with her was honestly the most draining thing I ever went through. Look where it got me.” He waves the glass at me.

“I don’t think you even know...”

“I asked you to be my girlfriend. I know what it is, but you won’t admit to it.” He takes a swig, and I’m not sure if he’s even sober. “I have to hide it when we could just tell everyone.”

“But you’re drinking? Why are you drinking?

” It’s coming up like a bad stomach bug – emotions I don’t want to have, insecurities I didn’t know even existed.

More than anything I want him and all of him, but my chest aches.

He finishes what’s in the glass and sets it down on his desk. “Why are you drowning yourself?”

“So I stop feeling. Anything and everything. I don’t want to feel a damn thing.

I haven’t even told Charlie, but Mom is on medical leave for her mental state.

She doesn’t have a lot of leave accumulated and Dad drained the bank accounts.

I’m paying for everything.” He tosses my phone back and I barely catch it.

He throws himself off the chair, pacing around the room with his hands running along the crease of his neck.

“Mom is in the psych unit for forty-eight hours. These videos with me and Brittni are the last thing on my mind. Delete them and stop responding to that number.”

“I’m sorry... I’m stupid and selfish, I shouldn’t even be thinking about any of this when you have a million other problems and mine is just Roulette...” I tremble with the phone screen a blur as I gape at the delete button, getting rid of the videos that shred up my heart.

Ryder stares into the nothingness. Then he crumbles to the bed with both of his hands knitted into the fibers of his hair. “Being forced to lose your virginity is a big deal,” Ryder turns his head to face me.

“I don’t want to be another problem for you.”

“You’re not a problem. I feel like a failure, and I wish I didn’t make you feel insecure.

If you are going to finish Roulette, I didn’t want it to be something you end up regretting forever.

You asked me to go slow, so I am trying to honor that.

I want more with you, I want your heart.

Just tell me, what do you need from me to fix this? ”

I wipe the edge of my eyes and stutter out, “I dunno anymore.”

A phone vibrates on the nightstand, and Ryder’s face shrivels with annoyance as he sits up and snatches it. “Seriously! What does he want?” He swipes the green arrow and presses the phone to his ear.

“What?” Ryder snaps, his hand clenched into a fist.

“Where’s my video?” Brody nails me in a coffin with his voice on the other end.

“You need to back off...”

“Or what?”

“Stop sending her videos. I’m done playing your games.”

Brody laughs, as he unscrews the nuts and bolts that once held me together, and pieces of me are falling apart. “Oh...she must have enjoyed your homemade movies then?”

“I’m done with you harassing her. You are taking Roulette too far.”

“All you gotta do is sleep with her and make a video. How hard is that?”

“Fuck you man!”

“Did Trash tell you she met a friend of mine last night who’s really interested in getting with her?”

Ryder darts his eyes and glances at me. He puts the call on mute, leaving it on speaker. “What the hell is he talking about?”

I swallow ten pounds of razor blades. The guy’s hands were all over me, touching me in places I never invited him to. “I... umm.” What is wrong with me? Why can’t I spit out the truth about anything or talk? I’m stuttering with it just at the tip of my tongue.

“Did someone touch you?”

“Hang up!” I holler, reaching for his phone and slapping the red button on the bottom to get rid of him. The call disconnects, and I sit up with my hands covering my face.

“Payton!”

“Stop, it’s fine!” I shout.

“Who the hell touched you?”

“I kicked him in the balls. I’m fine...”

“Don’t lie to me too!” He pulls my hands away from my face. His grey eyes are torture, gazing into mine. The pure fear in them is possibly only an ounce of what I felt when that stranger grabbed me.

“Last night was a shit fest and Charlie knows. I had the chance to just tell her how I felt about you and I didn't. I just lied. She...” I heave in a mouthful of air. “She kicked me out of the car and when I walked upstairs... it just happened so fast.”

Terror fills his eyes as he glances at all of me with a hand running down his mouth.

“No, no...” He grabs me by the cheeks, pushing away the hair sticking to my face.

He’s white as a ghost. I’m opening my mouth to suck in air but only tasting the salt on my lips.

I’m trembling all over, chills running down my back.

My head can’t think straight. It’s me stomping on my tiny box to delete the memory of that freak touching me.

All I can process is that I’m crying. My face is blistering hot, and my cheeks are sore from the amount of times I’ve wiped the waterfall of tears.

“Talk to me, Payt. Stop bottling it all in.”

“No... I. ” I shake my head, sucking in air from a foreign planet and I don’t know how to get in any oxygen. “That’s why I went home last night, and that’s why I came here. I don’t want to be alone.”

“We are done hiding this. Let’s call Charlie right now. If everyone sees that you’re my girl, no one will dare touch you. If I’m not there and someone...” He bites his bottom lip. “I won’t ever be able to live with myself.”

“I’m fine...”

“No, you’re not. Look at yourself. This is not okay. He’s taken Roulette too far. This is not okay.”