Page 86 of Arseni
It’s because her worst nightmare is coming true.
32
MARGOT
Six years ago, I made the worst mistake of my life.
I agreed to foster a seventeen-year-old boy who teased me, taunted me, and haunted my dreams every night that I fell asleep.He turned me into a monster, a woman capable of preying on the young and innocent.
I wanted that seventeen-year-old more than any respectable grown woman should ever think to, and it made me sick to my stomach.So sick I had to get rid of him if I had any chance in hell of saving my soul.
When he was gone, he still managed to haunt me.The friends he brought to my house occasionally showed up looking for him, and one scorching summer day, when I was at my most vulnerable, I invited one in for a glass of lemonade.
Please understand that I was in shambles.My identity was fractured.The caring, loving person I thought I saw in the mirror was now gone.
I didn’t know who I was.I didn’t know who I wanted to be.
Hudson knew something was wrong that afternoon.He was charming and handsome and kind in ways that were a stark contrast to my old foster son.He claimed he was eighteen, and I believed him.He seemed so mature, so beyond his years.
He came by the next day with a homemade batch of cookies just to say thank you for the lemonade.I took them with a quivering smile and nearly broke.It had been so long since someone had cared about me, since someone hadthoughtof me.
I was weak.
And he was kind.
The sex we had that day in my bed was the most passionate I’d ever had.When he delivered a gorgeous bouquet of roses to my work two days later, I thought my life was turning around.
We had sex every single night for weeks.I saw myself on his phone’s background and blushed.I listened to his declaration of love and wept.
Looking back, there were so many red flags I missed.The way he would fume if I didn’t take his call at work… The endless questions about my male coworkers… The missing panties, the missing stray cat that hung around my back porch, the possessive way he held me.
The first flag I finally recognized was the trip to Paris he booked, going so far as telling my boss I wouldn’t be at work the next two weeks.My boss threatened to fire me—I’d been so distant lately—and I confronted Hudson with barely contained frustration.
He hit me.Then wailed, begging me to forgive him.I tried to break up with him, and he threatened to kill himself.I changed my locks, and he broke a window.I got a new phone number, and he loaded my inbox so full of rants, clients’ emails were swallowed up in the storm.I was fired and remained unemployed for six months before I finally allowed Hudson into my house again, begging him to stop sabotaging my prospects with his calls to potential employers.I cried to him.Ibeggedhim.And he relented.
For the moment.
Not a day went by for two years that he didn’t threaten to call the police on me for my relationship with him.He threatened to tell them I raped him, groomed him even.
Then he became a police officer.The threats intensified.I offered to pay him to leave me alone.He declined for six months.Then finally,finallywe worked out an exchange.
I would pay him every month to keep my secret and not approach me.For years, it’s worked.
But now he’s back.
“No!”I cry as Hudson knocks Arseni out with his gun.My hand over my mouth, I fall to my knees and inspect the lump on Arseni’s temple.It’s skipped over red and gone straight to purple.
I tap Arseni’s face and bend so close that our lips brush.“Wake up.Please.”
I peek at Hudson as he struts to the three men who were after me.
“Arseni, wake up!”I slap his face while my tears drip onto his cheeks.He doesn’t stir.
Hudson fires two shots a piece into the men before turning back to me.I hunch over Arseni and cower, my head spinning.
What do I say?
What do I do?
