Page 64 of I Will Ruin You

I was afraid her first one would be whether the abuse allegation was true. So I decided to beat her to it.

“Are you going to ask if I did it?”

She shook her head without hesitation. “No,” she said, and put her hand on mine and squeezed. “Somebody might have, but not you.”

I’d included Anson Reynolds in my story, the newly revealed information that he had taken his own life.

“Thank you,” I said weakly, taking a sip of the tea with my free hand. The right side of my head had gone numb from the ice pack.

“You should have told me right away.”

“I’ve told you why I didn’t.”

“Not good enough.”

I nodded. I took the ice pack away from my head and put it on the table. “How’s it look?” I asked.

Bonnie examined me. “The swelling might have gone down a titch. Your eyelid looks less swollen.” She pressed her lips together angrily. “That son of a bitch.”

“Yeah.”

Bonnie said, “Marta got it right. How what happened might affect you. This whole week you’ve been in shock. You’re not thinking clearly. You’re not making rational decisions. Look, this would throw anyone for a loop, but for someone who’s just gone through what you have? It’s over the top.”

“Maybe it’s not irrational to spare us from a scandal, even if it’s bullshit.”

“There’s no proof. If he comes forward, we level the extortion accusation. And if he makes an anonymous allegation, no one’s going to put any faith in that. Wouldn’t be the first time some student tried to smear a teacher who’d given him a bad mark or suspended him, or just did it out of mischief.”

“What about Lyall Temple?”

Again, she shook her head. “That boy himself said what you did was compassion, pure and simple. That you comforted him in a time of need. His father had died. You can ride this out. They might put you on a paid leave, but you’d get through it. We’d all get through it. I don’t think you have any choice but to ride this out. If you pay him, you’re saying you’re guilty. And if you pay him once, he’ll come back again and again.”

I knew she was right, but it still felt like rolling the dice, doing it her way. I still had a backup plan in the back of my mind, one I didn’t want to share.

“He wants the money tonight.”

“If he shows up, we call the police,” she said emphatically. “And we shouldn’t wait for that to happen. We need to bring Marta into this. She needs to know. That’s how we get ahead of this.”

I was less sure about that. “You might believe I wouldn’t molest some kid, but will she?”

“Yes,” Bonnie said, but I thought it took her about half a second too long to answer. “She will. If she has any doubts, I’ll make sure she comes around.”

“The thing is,” I said, and this was going to be difficult to admit, “I feel humiliated. I allowed myself to be bullied. I let this fucker intimidate me. It’s as if I had only so much courage—or stupidity, depending on how you look at it—in reserve, and used it all up when I faced down Mark LeDrew, and I need time to build it back up.”

In what was the only moment of levity that entire day, Bonnie grinned and said, “It’s kind of like trying to have sex twice in half an hour.”

“Thanks for not adding ‘at your age.’ But yeah, like that. So can you let me think of this till morning, about whether to bring Marta to the rescue?”

Bonnie thought about it. “Okay. And anyway, I need to find out how she’s doing. I hope she wasn’t foolish enough to go back to work today.”

“I’ll bet she did.”

“I’d promised to drop by and then things got away from me.” She glanced at the wall clock. “I’m going to order you guys a pizza. And pick one up on the way to Marta’s.”

That made me nervous.

“Promise me. Not a word about this to her. Not yet, anyway.”

Bonnie considered my request, and nodded. “I promise.”