Chapter 4 - Her Bully

Dickson’s POV

Anna's question still echoed in my head months later.

What the hell did I ever do to you?

The answer hadn't changed because she had done absolutely nothing to me.

Months before her birthday, I'd learned about the affair between her father and my mother. When Mom died, I became convinced my father had killed her because of it.

I hated Harry for what I believed he'd done. I hated Johnathan Bennett for having the affair that started everything, but neither of them was someone I could punish. Harry was my father, and Johnathan wasn't within my reach.

Anna was.

When I discovered she was Johnathan's daughter, all that anger finally had somewhere to go. Every time I saw her at Galeforge, I saw the man I blamed for helping destroy my family, and somehow I'd convinced myself that hurting his daughter meant I was hurting him.

It was pathetic. Johnathan probably didn't even know what I was doing to her, while Anna lived with it every fucking day.

Her birthday had forced me to see exactly what I'd become.

When someone revealed she'd once had a crush on me, I'd walked toward her without thinking. I pushed the hair away from her glasses and almost kissed her before one of my friends laughed and asked if I was actually considering it.

I'd spent months making jokes about Anna's body while noticing far too much of it whenever she walked past me. I already hated that truth about myself, and having an entire lecture hall witness it made something vicious take over.

Everyone had just watched me want Johnathan Bennett's daughter, so I reached for the weapon I'd spent months using against her and made sure she regretted noticing.

Then she slapped me and asked the question I still couldn't answer without hating myself.

Later that afternoon, I saw Anna walking across campus with Williams.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

Williams answered before she could. “I'm taking Anna for coffee.”

I looked at her. “You're going with him?”

“Why do you care?”

“I don't.”

The answer came too quickly, but admitting that watching her leave with my brother bothered me wasn't going to happen.

“Then stop asking.”

Williams laughed and told her to come with him. I watched her start walking away before her name left my mouth.

“Anna.”

She looked back.

I had no idea what I intended to say. Don't go with him? Stay here with the asshole who had humiliated you in front of an entire lecture hall instead?

“Nothing.”

She rolled her eyes and followed Williams.

I watched them leave together and hated how much it bothered me.

The next morning, my eyes went straight to Anna's usual seat.

It was empty.

She wasn't there the following day either, and by the end of the week, someone in my group joked that Fatso must have finally been too embarrassed to show her face after getting rejected.

“Shut the fuck up,” I muttered.

The laughter died around me.

By then, I'd also heard that Anna had been with Williams after they left campus, so I found my brother near the vending machines.

“You were with Bennett?”

“For a while.”

“What does that mean?”

Williams shrugged. “She was upset. I cheered her up.”

Something about his answer irritated me. “How?”

“We hooked up.”

I stared at him. “You slept with Anna?”

“Thought you didn't want her.”

“I don't.”

“Then why do you look like you want to hit me?”

My jaw tightened. I turned and left before I gave him an answer neither of us needed to hear.

When Anna finally returned a week after her birthday, relief hit me before I could stop it.

Then I got a proper look at her.

She seemed different. Exhausted. Quieter. She kept her head down and wore clothes that covered almost every inch of her body.

Someone near the stairs shouted, “Hey, Fatso! Heard Williams finally gave you that birthday present!”

Laughter erupted around us and Anna froze before hurrying away.

I looked at Williams. “What the fuck happened between you two?”

“I told you. We hooked up.”

“Then why is she acting like that?”

“Because half the university knows.” He shrugged. “She's embarrassed.”

It made sense. At least, I wanted it to.

Later that day, I caught Anna watching me across the corridor. I still didn't know how to look at her without hiding behind the same bullshit I'd used for months, so I smirked.

Her reaction wiped it straight off my face.

There was no anger this time. She looked at me with a kind of hatred I hadn't seen before, then turned away.

I didn't understand it. I knew I'd given her plenty of reasons to hate me, but something had changed since her birthday.

I found Williams again later that week.

“What exactly happened with Anna?”

He gave me an irritated look. “How many times are you going to ask me this?”

“Until your answer stops sounding like bullshit.”

“We slept together. Everyone found out. She's embarrassed. End of story.”

I studied him, but Williams only laughed.

“You've spent months following that girl around campus just to make sure she notices you, and now you're interrogating me because I fucked her.”

“She's a fat bitch. She's not my type,” I snapped.

His smile widened. “That's not what I said.”

I walked away before the conversation went somewhere I wasn't ready to follow.

Over the next two months, I left Anna alone. She stopped eating in the cafeteria and barely spoke in class anymore. Whenever Williams or I was nearby, she found somewhere else to be.

My friends continued making jokes about her and expected me to join them until someone commented on her body one afternoon and looked at me, waiting for something worse.

“Find something else to fucking talk about.”

After that, they stopped expecting me to participate.

I thought about apologizing to Anna more than once, but every version sounded useless in my head. Sorry I spent months humiliating you because I hated our fathers? Sorry I almost kissed you and then tore you apart because I was embarrassed that I wanted to?

So I said nothing and convinced myself that leaving her alone was better than another apology she had no reason to believe.

Anna's seat eventually became empty again, and by the third day, rumors about her pregnancy had spread across campus. According to the version everyone seemed to know, her father had found out and thrown her out.

I found Williams as soon as I heard.

“Anna's pregnant,” I said. “Is it yours?”

He barely reacted. “How the hell would I know?”

“You told me you slept with her.”

Williams shrugged. “Doesn't mean I was the only one.”

Anger tightened my jaw. “Don't talk about her like that.”

His mouth curved into a knowing smile. “There it is again.”

“What?”

“You caring.”

I walked away before the conversation ended with my fist in his face.

The following day, I stopped one of Anna's classmates outside a lecture hall.

“Do you know where Anastasia is?”

She looked surprised to hear me ask. “Why? It's a bit late to start caring about her now.”

I couldn't argue with that. “I need to talk to her. Do you know where she is?”

“I heard she's staying with her aunt after her father kicked her out.”

“Jane?”

“I think that's her name.”

I knew who Jane Bennett was. I'd seen her pick Anna up from campus before, so finding her address wasn't difficult. I drove there that evening, but the moment Jane opened the door and recognized me, her face hardened.

“What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to Anna.”

“That's not happening.”

She started closing the door, but I stopped it. “Please. I just need to know she's okay.”

Jane stared at me. “Now you care if she's okay?”

I let go of the door. “I know what I did to her.”

“Do you?” Her voice stayed quiet. “Because I watched that girl come home every day pretending your words didn't hurt her. I watched you make her hate herself.”

I couldn't argue with that. “I want to apologize. I know it won't fix what I did, but I need to tell her I'm sorry.”

Jane shook her head. “Anastasia doesn't need your apology, Dickson. She needs a chance to move on from everything you put her through.”

“Then just tell me where she is, or give me her number. I won't hurt her again.”

“You already did.” Jane's face hardened. “You humiliated her for months, and now you think being sorry gives you the right to show up and make her listen to you. It doesn't.”

The words landed harder because I knew she was right. “I just want to know she's okay.”

“She's somewhere she can start over, and that's all I'm telling you.” Jane reached for the door. “If you actually regret what you did, leave Anastasia alone.”

I wanted to argue, but after everything I'd done to Anna, I couldn't stand there and pretend I deserved another chance to force myself into her life.

Jane closed the door.

I sat in my car outside her house as Anna's question returned to me.

What the hell did I ever do to you?

She had done nothing, and now I had finally come to apologize when she wasn't even there to hear it.

Jane had told me to leave her alone, and after everything I'd done, I couldn't convince myself I had the right to ignore her.

I stopped looking and told myself staying out of Anna's life was the first decent thing I'd done for her.

It would take me ten years to understand how wrong I'd been.