Sin & Savior

CHAPTER 9, PART 1

She tripped over herself, scrambling around the loft in search of Broderick's laptop. There was only one person that hated her enough to want to see her drugged, her brother harmed, her purity tarnished, and her reputation dashed and eviscerated. It wasn't Ricky. But what if they were working in concert? Why, though, would he fold himself into half a man to justify running off to cheat with that bitch?

I mean... she was undoubtedly beautiful: graceful, strong, smart... even smarter than her... but her reputation — right or wrong — was undoubtedly whorish. So why... why would he cheat on her with Scarlett, of all people, when he had such an unhealthy obsession with Seraphina's own purity? Why conspire against her career? Nothing in the equation added up, and her fight to unsurreptitiously reconfigure variables in her own mind was getting her nowhere, fast.

Her and Evan were on limited time: she'd had maybe another 30 minutes remaining until Rick headed home from whatever unspeakably imaginative new endeavor he'd be making anywhere in the world at this moment: playing beer pong, beating off, pretending not to love her, or swimming yet another lap while ignoring a past-due essay he'd ultimately ask her assistance with later. She rolled her eyes in exasperation and fatigue. "He's so exhausting," she said, before finally spotting his laptop.

Unsurprisingly, with no thought to security in mind: Broderick's Macbook — with more linux-based security protocols and multi-factor authentication methods than Fort Knox — was configured through settings to never lock while plugged in: a true testament to his languid, indolent, lazy-naturedness and hedonism. Access: he was obsessed with it. She was unsure if this was because it placed his excess on an equilibratable axis and balanced who he believed he was with actuality, or because of some other quietly unseen motivation he was sparse to voice that made him so desperate for influentuality. He saw himself as this grand, larger-than-life figure, and — while his confidence was attractive in the beginning — his hubris had slowly become the most unappealing thing to Seraphina as their relationship stretched itself in length. Although she loved him more than she loved herself at times, and couldn't deny this if she tried, and often she wanted to, she was happy their relationship was finally over. They'd bonded so quickly and so thoroughly throughout the course of their long talks processing the trauma of their fathers both having passed away while they were at such an early age. She never thought she could break free of the grasp he'd claimed on her emotions, and now: she'd at least have some measure of choice in the matter.

She navigated deftly and adept towards his iMessages, having used the machine many times in points previous, trying to shore up the final vestiges of unfinished assignments in service to his athletic needs. Seraphina was sure that, if not for her, he'd probably have fallen behind in his classwork too far to keep hold of his athletic career long ago. It required her to pull double-duty at times, but as she was autodidactic, intellectually curious, and a keen essayist: it was for her own benefit moreso than it was detrimental to her in the long run. Still, if Broderick was proven to have had anything to do with the events of this past weekend: she'd shatter his computer herself before she'd ever aid him with another assignment.

Acting quickly: Seraphina began analytically scanning every message thread aged 3 months or younger, searching for some relevant evidence to substantiate her curious aims. It began innocent enough, at first. Messages to professors, TAs, swim team members, and his fellow fraternity members. Less innocent, then, when male names like Benjamin, Johnathan, Marcus, or Grant began asking him where he was, who he was with, and requesting whether or not they could come over. Then: a contact named "D.J.", thanking him for "helping stretch them out after practice."

Just as quickly and sordidly as she'd developed the accusations in thought: reality came crashing onto her instead like a tidal wave as Broderick burst through the front door and smacked the drywall with an open palm as hard as he could, and shouted, "SERAPHINA!!!!"

Startled and flinching in place, she immediately siloed her emotion towards the rear of her responsiveness and stood to both feet.

"FUCK YOU, BRODERICK!!!"

He positioned himself in front of her quickly, gliding across the floor like an ice dancer.

"If you EVER speak to me like that again in MY HOUSE," he said, a threatening tone underscoring his words, "I will HURT MORE THAN YOUR FEELINGS."

She looked at him, shaken and terrified, not realizing that things would ever get this far. Before she knew it: she began crying — tears shedding themselves silently from her eyes — before placing her palms into her hands.

"You... you... you cheated on me..." She cried, falling to her knees and breaking down in front of him in weeping sobs.

"All I ever was was good to you..." She cried.

"Good for nothing, you fucking tease," he said, in a low, raspy, guttural growl. "You never loved me, or you would've put out. You loved being with me because I'm the king of this campus, nothing else. Besides: who the fuck said I cheated on you? Get out of my house. NOW."

Seraphina sat there, voiceless, speechless, and entirely devoid of coherent thought for what felt like seven centuries worth of time, elapsing like granules of sand passing through her fingers. How had they wound up like this? Fighting one another, when their hearts were as interconnected as the atoms all around them? And, like those atoms, everything of which her heart had been made... was him.

She shook her head from left to right with the insistence of a rattlesnake's tail while standing to her feet and outstretching her hands with a flood of shed and unshed tears clouding her eyes, outstretching her hands towards him. "I'm so sorry, Ricky... I... I've had a long week. I think I need some water, and to calm down," she said, trembling. Her feet lurched towards the kitchen, ignoring his demand that she leave, and — as she reached toward the cabinet for a glass: so quickly as she'd picked it up, it fell from her hands and onto the floor as everything she'd gone to went from a kaleidoscope of possibility to the transfixed realization and clarity as her eyes fell onto the object that stood beneath the cabinetry. Instantly: her trembling halted, then restarted: her panicked emotions replaced with just one: an untempered rage she was incapable of controlling.

"You MOTHERFUCKER!" she shouted, taking a glass and throwing it in his direction.