Love You More (Tessa Leoni, #1)(91)

She lost her ability to concentrate at school, always had dark shadows under her eyes, because if it was Friday, then Tommy might come home so she had to be vigilant. She added a lock to her room. Two weeks later, she came home to find her entire bedroom door splintered into bits.

“Terribly sorry,” Tommy had said over dinner. “Shouldn’t have been running in the hall like that.” And her parents had beamed at him because he was their oldest son and they adored him.

One Monday morning Juliana broke. Went to school, started to cry, couldn’t stop. Tessa tugged her into the end stall of the girl’s restroom, then stood there until Juliana stopped weeping and started talking.

Together, the two girls had devised a plan. Tessa’s father had a gun. She would get it.

“Not like he’s ever paying attention,” Tessa had said with a shrug. “How hard can it be?”

So Tessa would get the gun and bring it over on Friday night. They would have a sleepover. Tessa would stand guard. When Tommy showed up, Juliana would produce the weapon. She’d point the gun at him and tell him if he ever touched her again, she would shoot off his balls.

The girls practiced the phrase several times. They liked it.

It had made sense, huddled in a bathroom stall. Tommy, like any bully, needed to be confronted. Then he would back down, and Juliana would be safe again.

It had all made perfect sense.

By Thursday, Tessa had the gun. Friday night, she came over to the house and gave it to Juliana.

Then they sat together on the sofa and, a bit nervously, started their movie marathon.

Tessa had fallen asleep on the floor. Juliana on the couch. But both had woken up when Tommy came home.

For a change, he didn’t look at his sister. Instead, he’d kept his eyes glued on Tessa’s chest.

“Like ripe apples,” he’d said, already lurching for her when Juliana triumphantly whipped out the handgun.

She pointed it at her brother. Screamed at him to go away. Leave her and Tessa alone, or else.

Except Tommy had looked right at her and started laughing. “Or else what? Do you even know how to shoot that thing? I’d check the safety if I were you.”

Juliana had immediately raised the gun to check the safety. At that moment Tommy had lunged for her, going after the weapon.

Tessa was screaming. Juliana was screaming. Tommy was snarling and pulling Juliana’s hair and making grabby grabby.

The gun, squished between them. The gun, going off.

Tommy staggering back, gaping at his leg.

“You bitch,” her brother had said. Those were the last words he’d spoken to her. “You bitch,” he’d said again, then he’d fallen down and, slowly but surely, died.

Juliana had panicked. She hadn’t meant … Her parents, dear God her parents …

She’d thrust the gun at Tessa. Tessa had to take it. Tessa had to … run … just get out. Get out get out get out.

So Tessa did. And those words were the last Juliana had spoken to her best friend. Get out get out get out.

By the time Tessa had arrived at her house, the police were arriving at Juliana’s. Juliana could’ve admitted what she’d done. She could’ve confessed what her brother was really like. But her mother was screaming hysterically and her father was shell-shocked and she couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t do it.

Juliana had whispered Tessa’s name to the police and, that quickly, fiction became fact. Tessa had shot her brother.

And Tessa never said otherwise.

“I would have confessed,” Juliana said now. “If it had gone to trial, if it looked like Tessa was really going to get into trouble … I would’ve confessed. Except the other women started coming forward and it became clear that Tessa would never face charges. The DA himself said he felt it was justifiable use of force.

“I figured she’d be okay. And my father … by then, he was a wreck. If he couldn’t accept Tommy had ever assaulted other women, how could he believe what Tommy had done to me? It seemed better to just keep my mouth shut. Except … the longer you go without speaking, the harder it becomes. I wanted to see Tessa, but I didn’t know what to say. I wanted my parents to know what happened, but I didn’t know how to tell them.

“I stopped speaking. Literally. For an entire year. And my parents never even noticed. They were too busy with their own nervous breakdowns to bother with mine. Then Tessa disappeared—I heard her father had kicked her out. She never told me. Never stopped by to say goodbye. Maybe she couldn’t speak either. I never knew. Until you showed up yesterday morning, I didn’t know she’d become a cop, I didn’t know she’d gotten married, and I didn’t know she had a little girl named Sophie. That’s my middle name, you know. She named her daughter for me. After everything I did to her, she still named her daughter for me.…”

“The daughter who’s now dead,” D.D. said bluntly.

“You’re wrong!” Juliana shook her head.

“You’re wrong, Juliana: We saw the body. Or at least the pieces after she blew it up.”

Juliana paled, then shook her head again. “You’re wrong,” the young woman insisted stubbornly.

“Once again, from the woman whose family could give lessons in denial …”

“You don’t know Tessa.”