Retrocognition

49 | vile

The shower water is so hot it stains my skin a deep shade of red, though I make no move to turn down the heat. I scrub my flesh until it is left raw, stinging as though I've been cut down to bone. Yet I continue to lather myself with soap, trying to wash away the disgust and dirtiness I feel within.

Jacob will not get out of my head, and for once I find this to be a curse instead of the blessing I once considered thoughts of him to be. I feel ill as I think back on all of the time I have spent with him over the past few months—the trust I put into him and the personal details of my life and feelings I have shared with him. Bile rises in my throat as memories of the two of us play out through my head, leaving me delusional. I let him touch me. His hands were the first to ever roam my body, to get to know me in the most intimate of ways. His kiss still lingers on my lips, which I have rubbed to the point of peeling. His eyes have seen every part of me I have to offer, physically and mentally.

I wish I could take it all back, but I can't. So instead I try to wash away the memory of him in the shower, trying to rinse my history with Jacob Beckham down the drain.

It isn't working.

He is everywhere, haunting my mind, clouding my vision and distorting my reality. It's hard for me to believe that I could have possibly allowed someone so vile to enter my life, and yet I know I must accept the truth. When Naomi died, I'd been terrified by the thought of living on campus with her potential killer. Little did I know her murderer was right under my nose the whole time, living so dangerously close.

I break down, losing it as my weight gives way beneath my feet. I sink to the shower floor, my body racking with sobs as I heave for air. My grief leaves my body in the form of tears and cries, the noises I'm making positively wretched.

I clutch my head in my hands as I think about Jacob's hands all over the body of a girl who was too disoriented to consent or tell him no. My mind wanders, leaving me wondering if he was the reason she was so out of it that night. Did he drug her to leave her incoherent, so he could take from her what he wanted? I think about him invading her in the worst of ways, inflicting the sort of pain upon her that never completely fades. I recall his hands on me, his touch one I used to find endearing and safe. Did he think about her when he was with me? Did she cross his mind when he was inside of me? Did he ever feel an ounce of remorse over what he did to her, or was it merely a thought that crossed and slipped his mind shamelessly?

I bite down on my lip hard to contain a scream, to the point of drawing blood. My mouth fills with a metallic taste as memories of my hallucinations enter my mind. I think of Jacob's hands wrapped around Naomi's ankles as I witness her death in visions, pulling her body across the wet ground while she was already too intoxicated to stand or fight him off. My hands claw at my neck as I remember the feeling of hands around her throat while I am forced to experience her pain, stealing the air from my lungs. Jacob had choked me in bed—it had always been a part of our foreplay. It's sick to realize that the hands that had teased me in such a way had taken someone's life brutually in the same manner. I wonder if he ever pictured her when he looked down at me in those moments. He never seemed bothered; he never seemed to be living with any guilt.

The thought is repulsive.

I turn toward the drain, the bile that had previously been stuck in my throat suddenly surfacing. My limbs shake as I puke relentlessly, the tears pouring down my cheeks washing away with the remnants of my illness.

I don't know how I'll ever face Jacob again, though I know I have to.

After all, someone has to make sure Jacob Beckham gets exactly what he deserves.