17 minutes. That’s how much time passed between when Brett walked through her front door last night to when Bowen strolled back into the living room like nothing ever happened.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched that 17 minutes on loop, thinking about what went on inside that house, thinking about how many times he’s done something like that, and to who.
Part of me thinks I could’ve stopped it. If I’d told Brett about him sooner, maybe she would’ve believed me. But then I remember I don’t deal in hypotheticals. I know people don’t want to believe that those they love can do such horrific things to one another.
I know this better than anyone.
Maybe Brett only survived the night because I didn’t tell her the truth about Bowen, because I didn’t give her enough to really start questioning him. That was my original plan, to get in her head and let her find out who he is on her own, while I watched her the entire time—while I watch him the entire time.
This is what I should’ve done back then, from the moment Evie told me Bowen asked her to race with him to when she told me she was meeting him at the skate park. Maybe I could’ve made more of a difference. But that’s what hypotheticals do; they drive you crazy. That’s why, when Dallas sent me that picture of Bowen sitting with Brett and Barrett at Calhoun’s last year, I realized I was out of time. I decided Brett wouldn’t end up like Evie.
Or like Emily.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Emily’s no longer alive. A 7th-grader with a smart phone could tell you that. Hacking into someone’s social media to make it look like they’re still active isn’t that difficult, especially if you’re their abusive boyfriend and you want people to believe they’re still alive. Granted, it also helps if you discover that your best friend inadvertently married into Emily’s estranged family, and one of them holds a grudge…
And anyone could’ve figured this out, if only they’d bothered to check. Emily exists somewhere, she’s just not been found yet. But I won’t leave her behind—we won’t leave her behind. She’s part of this now.
I never wanted to admit how similar Bowen and I are; irreverent, conceited assholes who do what we want, when we want, and never stop no matter who gets in our way. I was weak and broken enough in college for him to get in my head and take Brett from me, too, before he even knew she existed. But things happen when you spend years in relative solitude. You have space to focus. You have time to build up enough venom in your heart to devote your life to destroying one person while saving another.
Fortunately, Bowen gets in his own way without my help. He’s just as cocky as me, but with a worse temper, which unfortunately makes him impulsive at the most inconvenient times. It was a real Hail Mary moment for him to show Brett my mugshot and assume she wouldn’t dig too deep. If she had, he would’ve had a few more questions to answer.
But it takes all I have not to smile when Dallas finds the spyware on Brett’s phone and sings into it like a little demon doll. In many ways, it’s really the icing on the cake. And while Brett’s recoiling in horror and puking into Dallas’s trash can, I’m mentally singing Bowen’s praises. After what he did to Evie, this is better than any clandestine sex video with bad lighting.
It’s poetic.
I always figured he was lurking somewhere like a cockroach in the shadows, especially after watching him gaslight the hell out of Brett with Hannah’s help and sending her those anonymous texts she thought were from me. I should’ve felt bad about both of us coming at Brett like that at the same time, but it had to be done.
“Back up, Colson!” Dallas barks, brushing past me and swooping in to sweep Brett’s hair over her shoulders while she heaves into the trash can.
Not much comes up, anyway, which makes me wonder when she last ate. I do what Dallas says and step aside, taking the opportunity to look away for a moment before I betray my stoic exterior. Dallas thinks I’m being polite by not looking at a woman while she’s vomiting her guts out, but I’m just trying not to lose my shit. I want to leave, go find Bowen, and unload my weapon into him for destroying Brett’s book.
But I also want to laugh in his fucking face. If I’d known Bowen audibly witnessed every interaction I had with her, I would’ve thrown in a few more gems just for him and lit him up like Times Square on New Year’s Eve.
As if listening to her come while I fucked her with my knife wasn’t enough to break a man.
But I wasn’t the one who planted that app on her phone, either. Even I can’t hit him where it really hurts, because the only one who can truly destroy Bowen is Bowen.
It’s nearly 2:00 and I’m due back up front for the rest of the afternoon, so after Brett calms down enough, I take her with me and tell her to stay here until we figure out what to do.
“Bowen didn’t take my money,” Brett mutters, arching her brow at her phone screen.
I glance over my shoulder from the bay of monitors, “No?”
“At least I have that, I guess,” she sets her phone face down on the table, “the money from my condo that I sold, so I could live in Bowen’s house, that now I can’t go back to,” she says with a bitter chuckle.
“You’re coming home with me,” I say, still looking at the monitors.
She picks up her phone again, “I’m not going home with you.”
“Yeah,” my voice has a warning edge, “you are.” I’m in no mood to argue with her and, besides, where the hell does she think she’ll go?
“I have to talk to Barrett,” she looks up from her phone, “in person.”
She’s right, of course, but that doesn’t mean I won’t keep an eye on her there, too. As soon as she finishes her sentence, I’m crafting a plan for the evening. I’ll make sure she gets to Barrett’s, stays there, and then I’ll be Bowen’s shadow for the night. Because following him around is easier than wondering where he’ll show up next.
“Why didn’t he just break up with me if he was so angry?” Brett takes a deep breath, not looking up from her phone, “If he knew everything that…happened?”
“You could’ve shot his dog in front of him and set his house on fire,” I swivel around to face her, “he’s not going to break up with you no matter what you do.”
She contorts her face in disgust, “Why not?”
“You ever wonder why abusive parents don’t just surrender their kids to the state?” I ask, “It’s the same reason some men prefer giving their woman black eyes. To him, you’re property, relinquished only by death. He’d rather kill you than let anyone else have you.”
I can tell she doesn’t like being referred to as livestock to be bought and sold, but that’s the reality, whether she likes it or not.
Brett’s voice softens at this sobering fact, “Was Bowen always like this?”
It still fucks with me to hear his name come out of her mouth, like I’m in some parallel universe where she’s stepped into a part of my world where she never should’ve been.
“In a sense,” I glance at my phone, at the rapid-fire texts coming through every few seconds, “I think he just got better at it.”
Brett gazes out the window at the sprawling fields across the road, “Do you ever think about the small micro-decisions you make every single day?” she muses, “Like if you decide to leave your house two minutes earlier or two minutes later, you could change the course of your entire life?”
“Like the butterfly effect? What’s that story called—The Sound of Thunder?” I can’t believe I remember that, “Are you afraid you flapped your wings and caused a typhoon?”
“Something like that,” she smiles.
I give a shrug, “That depends on how much of your life you think is left to chance. You might be walking blind, but that doesn’t mean everyone else is, too.”
