Page 9

Veronica

D ear Ian Petrakis,

We’re pleased to inform you that you have been offered the position of a Game Developer at Quantum Pixel Entertainment. After reviewing your skills, experience and passion for game development, we are confident that you will be a valuable addition to our team…”

Veronica’s eyes skim the email displayed on her phone over and over again, her fingers trembling as her free hand pulls a blue sweater over her head with one hand.

The email landed in her inbox over thirty minutes ago. And somehow, she is still struggling to process it. It is too good to be true. Quantum Pixel Entertainment is the number one leading game company. It feels like a scam even though their name, logo, and production manager’s signature is attached to the email.

Weeks have passed since she last saw Ian. A month and some days since she stood outside his door, knocking, pleading, but met silence instead. She can’t go ahead and confess her lies to the school board. Can’t unspin the web she has woven. But if she can fix it, if she can give him something better than the job he lost, maybe he will forgive her.

Ian Petrakis isn’t just a mathematician. He knows how to code and design games. He has tried designing a game a few times, but it didn’t work out due to lack of access to the right resources. Teaching mathematics at Daxton High was never really his dream. It was a last resort after rejection upon rejections.

Veronica believes she has a magic touch. That if she submits applications on his behalf, luck will follow. And she did…multiple times. But unfortunately, it never does. But she still has access to his portfolios and email.

After the incident happened, Shiro has been helping her send application letters. But each rejection always weighs heavier than the last. Every time a rejection email arrives, she winces. And she wonders if Ian even bothers to check his inbox at all, if he is receiving the emails. But he hasn’t blocked her access. Either he isn’t checking his emails, or he still cares about her.

This morning, after the email arrived, she has called maybe a hundred times, sent texts but no reply. This is a big opportunity that he doesn’t realize. His life is about to change, a dream he gave up on is now within reach.

She desperately needs to tell him. And she is going to see him today no matter what.

Done dressing up, she plugs on her headphones—still no music, the sound of her door slamming shut as she exits her room.

It’s nearly 10 am. The house is as quiet as a graveyard. She should be at school now, studying. She just doesn’t feel like it today. Sleep has been a stranger to her lately. Nightmares upon nightmares. They are getting worse, getting bold. She was hoping she could try sleeping again when the email came in.

Locking the front door, she tosses the key under the flowerpot by the living room window, sprinting down the steps, the chilly morning air combing through her hair and biting into her skin.

Her sneakers pound against the asphalt as she races down the street. Ian lives in the next town. And the bus leaves in ten minutes.

She has to catch it.

About thirty minutes later, she is walking up the driveway of Ian’s apartment, the blue front door looming ahead, mocking her.

There was a time when the sight of that door filled her with warmth. When stepping onto his porch meant slipping into his arms, his laughter rumbling against her ear.

But now the door is a reminder of the pain she has caused, a relationship she has ruined with her own hands.

Taking a steadying breath, she climbs gently up the steps, the floorboard whining beneath the weight of her feet as she walks across the porch.

She exhales through her nose, raises her knuckles, and places a tentative knock on the door.

She waits...patiently. He needs to open the door. He really has to.

A shuffle of footsteps behind the door sends a sharp jolt to her chest. Her breath hitches, anxiety weaving tight into her nerves. He is there.

He is coming.

The lock turns and the door is opened.

But it isn’t Ian.

A wave of chestnut hair moves before her, sharp gray eyes regarding her with caution, lavender and citrus scent invading her nostrils.

Veronica’s stomach drops. A sharp brutal ache twisting through her ribs. For a moment, she can’t breathe.

“Hi,” she forces out, her voice strained.

“Hello.” The woman steps out, shutting the door behind her. She is wearing a pink silk robe.

Veronica swallows, forcing down the lump in her throat. “Um, I’m looking for Ian Petrakis.”

The woman’s brows furrow. “And you are?”

Veronica ignores the question. “Does he still live here?”

“Yes.”

“Can you just tell him to check his email?” The words come out tight, dry. “It’s—it’s really urgent.”

The woman hesitates. “Who are you?”

Veronica’s jaw clenches. Why must she interrogate her? It’s just a simple message. “Just tell him to check his email, please.”

She turns sharply, barely holding herself together as she hurries down the steps, her vision blurry.

Ian has moved on.

She has spent weeks trying to fix things. He didn’t even give her a chance. He just…moved on. Like it was easy. Like his love for her was so easy he quickly moved on.

By the time she reaches the bus stop, her hands are trembling. She curls them into a fist, pressing them against her thighs, as the bus pulls up, as she sits stiffly in her seat, staring out the window at nothing.

In the entire ride home, she feels like she is suffocating.

Veronica steps into the house, locking the door behind her, her head resting on the door.

The house is quiet, just as she left it. And she hates it. She can hear her own thoughts. And they are not happy thoughts.

Raising her head off the door, she kicks her sneakers off and walks to the kitchen, her limbs moving on their own. Her eyes burn, but she refuses to cry.

She grabs a loaf of bread and sets it on the counter. She opens the peanut butter jar and fetches a knife.

The three things are in front of her.

Knife. Bread. Peanut butter.

A rush of memory slams into her. Violent and unrelenting.

The kitchen, late at night.

His voice, a slur. The way he touches her arm. The way he runs his fingers down her spine.

She tries to leave. And he follows. She tries to scream, and he muffles it with his palm that smells like cigarettes.

She cries, bucks, and pleads for him to stop. But he ignores her. He forces himself onto her anyway. And he keeps saying she deserves it. He says she deserves being raped. That she should be thankful to him and not be an ingrate.

Her hands tremble, and the knife slips from her grip, clattering against the counter, then the floor. The sharp sound echoes through the kitchen, a jagged crack in the silence.

He is dead. Long buried, but she can still feel him pressing against her back, his voice uttering malicious words against her ear.

Her chest tightens, the weight unbearable and crushing.

She stumbles back, barely registering her own movements as she bolts out of the kitchen, down the hall and into her room.

The door slams behind her. But it isn’t enough. Finding a corner in the room, she curls up in a ball, her arms wrapped around her knees, her forehead pressing against her arm.

The sob tears from her throat before she can stop it, raw and aching.

Ian is gone.

Marlene’s boyfriend is dead, but the scars he left behind aren’t. And so are the scars left behind from nine years ago, back at the alleyway in Rue Augustin Boulevard , and the ones left every other day by Marlene. All the scars are there, an accusation against her skin, a punishment for a crime she didn’t commit.

And Shiro isn’t here either.

She is alone. Like she will eventually be one day.

Her fingers dig into her arm, her nails pressing against her skin as she tries to hold herself together. But she is already unraveling.

And then her phone rings, cutting through her sobs, the sharp vibration against the wooden floor making her jolt.

She slowly lifts her head, blinking through the blur of tears. She glances at her screen.

Snow white.