The Inheritance by Zelda Reed Read Free Book Online Page A

father would kill you if you did this while he was alive.” The woman’s eyes grow wide before she shuffles away.)
    I can’t stop talking. Neal nurses another beer as I tell him about Justin and Suzanne and the summers we spent together. I tell him how Suzanne couldn’t stand Justin when we first met. He was too short, too baby-faced and he followed me around like a puppy.
    “Get rid of him,” she always sneered. “Or I swear to god, I’ll shove him off the train platform.”
    I tell him about our lustful summer of love, a wispy, dreamy feeling crawling into my throat; the memory of Justin-then greater than my knowledge of who he is now. Mr. Suzanne Meraux.
    “Did he break up with you?” Neal asks, knocking his knee against mine.
    I duck my head. “No. I broke up with him.”
    His eyebrows furrow. “Why? Weren’t you in love with him?”
    Yes . I was stricken dumb and blinded by my love for him.
    The summer before I left for college our dates were less frequent, kisses stiffer, and whenever he fucked me he would roll over, tug on his pants and announce that his father was expecting him home. It was a lie. His father rarely expected anything from him, but I chose to swallow my fear because I didn’t want to push him away. I wanted our summer together to be perfect.
    He told me he didn’t want a long distance relationship and I ignored him. Oh, he’ll change his mind once he tastes these cupcakes I made. Oh, he’ll rethink that decision when he sees me in this dress.
    Instead of falling for me all over again, he grew cold and distant, like my father. But unlike my father, Justin was a coward. He couldn’t face me, like a man, and end it. He drove me out to a cliff, opened the car doors and shoved me off of it.
    To be more clear: One week before I hopped on the plane back to Baltimore, back to my mother and her SUV filled with boxes, packed up for BU, I traveled to Justin’s house in Lincoln Park for lunch. His parents were out – his father, working, his mother, shopping – and we were going to drink their wine in the backyard before heading up to his bedroom for lazy, tipsy sex. I was wearing the same dress as the first day he kissed me. It was going to be nostalgic. It was going to be perfect.
    The door was open, as always, and I called out for him. Loudly . He heard me screaming his name at the base of the stairs but there was no response. I climbed to the second floor, clutching the railing as muffled voices filled the hall.
    “Justin!” I called again. No response.
    That afternoon, my mind played a wonderful trick on me, distorting the voices behind Justin’s bedroom into something pleasant. That wasn’t a moan of pleasure, but a moan of pain; that wasn’t a guttural, fuck-me -groan but a fuck-you -groan, the kind Justin made when he was playing video games with his friends. I’d convinced myself that if there was someone on the other side of Justin’s bedroom door it was Dylan or Tom or Hunter, one of Justin’s friends.
    The door wasn’t locked. I flipped my hair and smacked on my flirtiest smile, sauntering my hips as I walked inside and saw them. Justin and the girl from down the street (Sasha, maybe?) naked, on his bed. She was on her knees, gripping his pillowcase and burying her face in his mattress as he fucked her from behind. His hips moved quickly, one hand flying out before he smacked her ass. She moaned and he threw his head back, eyes glazed over with lust, mouth parted in ecstasy.
    I was going to throw up.
    “ Justin .” My voice was so small, I barely heard it. But he did. He heard that .
    He looked at me. Our eyes locked and he kept fucking her. “I’m close,” he said.
    I couldn’t tell if he was talking to me or her, but she moaned in acknowledgement. “Me too,” she gasped.
    I ran out of the room, my stomach twisting into knots, bile rising in my throat, the world spinning on its head. My feet caught on the steps and I almost stumbled forward. My hand on the railing