I’m not going to take the blame for the hand he’s been dealt in life. That’s not on me, but he’s going to make me pay for it anyway. It hardly seems fair, but that’s life for you.
Slipping back into a pair of comfy PJs at only four in the afternoon, I try to focus on anything other than Cullen, but he’s clouded my brain. And thinking about him has me thinking about that case and my journal article. So, I sit down at my laptop and pull up the drive with everything from that year. All the research and data is still there. I haven’t looked through this stuff in a few years, but there were still so many loose ends I was never able to tie up after the arrest was made. Once the FBI had what they wanted, they lost interest in the case entirely. Never mind the still missing person cases or the other crimes George Ayers probably committed. So many of his employees were undocumented trafficking victims, immigrants, and those in poverty who were just happy to have a job and a place to live they didn’t care that they had to forfeit their passport and freedom to get it. It was heartbreaking to see, but when I went back through the case a couple years later, I was so devastated to see that many of the displaced people had never been reunited with their families or returned home. Many of them ended up in worse situations or at the very least very similar ones, working in terrible conditions for very little pay or at the very worst deported back home with no money or security to live.
Flipping through the cases again has me feeling worse again, like nothing I did really mattered. Yeah, George Ayers ended up in prison, but did the problem really go away? Not at all. Which means…Cullen’s grief is for nothing.
I find myself stopping on pictures of him and his family from about fifteen years ago. Most of my research was from his childhood and before. So, I have pictures on my hard drive of a tiny Cullen with dark hair and big round eyes. His mother was so fair, blonde haired and blue eyed. He must have really favored his dad, although she was beautiful. I can see why he dyes his hair. With those bleached locks, he almost looks like her now.
As I scroll back through the case files, I realize there aren’t many pictures of him with his mother. She was there, but he was usually in the arms of his nanny, a young woman who looks no older than sixteen. I remember starting the case on her too but gave up when I realized a few years back that any record of her existence just disappeared, just like the rest of them. There’s no telling what happened to these victims after the case, and that sense of helplessness only makes me angrier.
So, I crack open a bottle of wine and leave the case file open on my laptop. I barely notice it’s past ten when there’s a harsh tap on the door.
My body freezes, my mind racing, trying to remember if I invited anyone over.
“Miss West…” a familiar voice calls through the door.
What the fuck? Cullen Ayers is standing outside my door. I jump up from the couch and rush to the door, peeping through the window to see him standing there under the light in a black pair of tight jeans and a white V-neck shirt. There are two necklaces hanging from his neck, and I hate myself for how I peer at him. After how he treated me today, grabbing me the way he did, I should not be even entertaining the idea of opening that door for him. I should be calling the police instead of letting a teenager intimidate me, but somewhere deep down I know Cullen isn’t out to really hurt me. I think he’s the one hurting, alone and scared and there is no one left from his past…but me. Which is a really twisted thing to think, I know that.
“What are you doing here?” I shout through the window.
He bites his lip with a devious smile, and I get a rush of chills. Cullen desperately needs to learn boundaries, but he never will if I keep giving in to him.
He presses his face close to the glass, resting his cheek on the pane. “Don’t you remember our conversation in the car?”
“It’s late, Cullen. You should really go home.”
“Open the door. I just want to talk.”
What is wrong with me? Is it guilt or curiosity that has me reaching for the door handle? Why am I welcoming chaos into my life?
Because, I remind myself, what Cullen said earlier was true. I am bored. Bored with my life in general. Bored and lonely.
As I peel open the door and he stares down at me with a glimmer of mischief in his eye, a spark of excitement courses through every vein in my body.
“Can I come in?”
Leaning on the door jam, I already know I’m going to say yes, but first I block his entrance. “After how you treated me in the car? Are you insane? Go home.”
He laughs. “We can talk about my grades if you want.”
Forcing myself to swallow, I glare at him. “Why would I let you in my home when you hate me so much?”
His face falls, sincerity coloring his features. “I think that’s exactly why you should let me in.”
“So you can push me around some more? I’m not going to put up with that, Cullen. You can’t keep blaming me for what happened.”
“Who would you blame then? If someone single handedly dismantled your whole life?”
“Start with your father maybe? The actual criminal,” I reply, letting my words pass by my mouth without any filter at all.
“Oh, I hate him too, but he’s out of my reach right now. You’re not.” With that, he reaches a hand out, pressing firmly on the door until it opens far enough for him to squeeze his body through. He’s pressed against me, toe-to-toe, and my heart races so fast in my chest I can feel it pulse in every limb of my body.
Finally, I step away, letting him pass by until he’s standing in my living room, looking around like he’s inspecting everything.
“Nice place,” he mutters, and I instantly become aware of the wine sitting out and half-eaten cheese tray on my kitchen table. He walks over, taking the glass and swallowing down half before I can stop him.
“Come on! You’re not old enough to drink. I can go to jail for that.”
He doesn’t respond, but he grabs a cracker from the tray and scoops up a slice of brie before piling it into his mouth. “What? I’m hungry.”
I literally have no choice as I stand there and watch him devour half the food in my kitchen, taking an apple from the pile and shoving it into his pocket before opening my fridge to snatch up a single serving of Greek yogurt.
This is insane. It’s like I’m a bystander in my own life, and Cullen is now behind the wheel, dictating everything. I should stop him, call the police, or at the very least yell at him for his terrible manners, but I can’t. All I can think about is the little kid I walked away from eight years ago and how all of this is in some way my fault.
Why didn’t I check up on him? Why when I was following up on all of those missing person cases did I not follow up on the boy left orphaned by eleven? If I had done any digging on his uncle then would I have known that he was an abusive drug addict and alcoholic?
When the news came out a few years ago that Thomas Gilmore, brother to the late Valerie Ayers, had been arrested for driving under the influence and in possession of narcotics, I didn’t think anything of it. No one did. By that point, the Ayers case was old news, and no one cared about the family anymore. Not like anything they did now would be surprising.
But I should have known there was a teenage boy in Thomas’s house. I should have known to search that news article for mention of the child under his care, but the story never mentioned Cullen, and I never looked.