[COMPLETED]
❝Death is inevitable. It's a promise made to us at birth.❞
Arielle is a studious young woman striving to be a chef. Her life is full of going to class, reading textbooks, and hanging out with her friends, until she meets Zayn. Zayn's an...
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➳ ARIELLE'S POV
Yesterday plays over in my mind again as I zone out at whatever's playing on the television. Sighing, I fiddle with the remote in my hand, desperately wanting a distraction from the drama.
After running out of the warehouse and towards the safety of the police yesterday, Janet and some other unnamed officers removed the wire from me. But the moment they saw the look on my face, along with the briefcase still in my hand, they knew something was wrong.
I hesitated to tell them the truth, knowing just how horrible the truth really is, but I felt like I had to. I mean, these were police officers, which meant that they'd most likely find out one way or another.
The rest of the evening was spent in the company of Janet, telling her my entire past with Sullivan, or as we now know, Ezra. Though it was horrifically painful to recount it all again, I knew that it was the right thing to do. Janet seemed pleased with the fact that they had some new background on him, and I can only hope that my help will lead them to catching him.
Janet even brought up something else that made vile rise in my throat—she asked whether I'd like to place charges against him. She said the statute of limitations wasn't up for all those times he raped me, and when I told her that he danced around a confession on the wire, she said that could seal his fate.
I've battled with the thought before. I don't want to campaign against him in court, I don't want to relive it all, and I especially don't want to recount everything that happened to me during my childhood in front of an entire crowd of strangers. I don't want the looks of pity, the empathy—I just want to put it all behind me. I want to forget it ever happened. It's taken me years to even regain some sort of normalcy since those events, I don't want to backtrack.
I told Janet I didn't want to press charges. She seemed awfully displeased with that response, and after pressing me for another hour and realizing I wasn't going to budge, decided to drop it. She told me she hoped whatever I got on tape would seal the deal—effectively ending his life as he knows it. I hoped so too, wanting him to end up in jail, and out of my life for good.
Now here I sit, maybe twelve hours later, pretending to watch some TV show in a desperate attempt to distract myself from thinking about yesterday, and Ezra. I baked a cake, I did laundry, watched a movie—all of it in an attempt to forget, even just for a moment, but none of it has worked.
But just as I'm feeling completely hopeless, I hear the front door open along with Nyjah's voice. "Oh, fuck she was a fit one."
I hear a familiar chuckle. "I dated her mouth for a month or two," Zayn comments.
I cringe and roll my eyes, turning to face the front of the house so that they'll see me sitting on the couch once they step around the corner. I don't speak up, curious where their conversation is headed.
