To the Stars

by Molly McAdams

  “Again . . . cool?” Deacon said slowly, drawing the words.

  After a few rough breaths, I sneered, “He lives there with Harlow . . . they’re married. He is the reason I didn’t end up with Harlow.”

  “How long have you known this?” Deacon asked.

  “How do you know?” Graham interjected.

  “Yeah, that’s what I meant. How do you know?”

  I finally stopped pacing and looked at them, and Graham’s face morphed back into confusion when he saw the agony and rage I’d been trying to conceal the last couple of weeks. “I ran into her when I was on my way home two weeks ago.”

  “Shit,” Deacon breathed.

  “Then they were at the fund-raiser for the firehouse that weekend, and he—” I cut off and ground my teeth. After a few seconds I gritted out: “In front of everyone, he was using pressure points on her. He’s threatened to kill her family, he abuses Harlow, and she’s fucking terrified of him! This is the guy she left me for, and I can’t help her!” I raked my hands over my face and groaned. “She looks sick. She’s so thin; I thought she was dying. She’s not who she was, and it’s because of him.”

  “Knox, you can’t go through this again with her,” Deacon said.

  I glared at him. “Go through what again? Her husband is beating her!”

  “So she says,” Graham said.

  “No—what? Why do you guys do this every time Harlow is involved? It’s like you have to make her seem as bad as you can!”

  “Knox, she played you for over two years. Now it’s been, what, shit, almost five? And all of a sudden, you run into her and she just happens to tell you that her husband—whose dad is the prosecuting attorney, as we already talked about—is beating her and threatening her family? Who just comes out and says that?”

  “She didn’t! And I told you, I saw him doing it in front of everyone. I saw the fucking bruises!”

  Both stayed quiet for a moment, then Graham sighed. “If what you’re saying is true . . . if she is in an abusive relationship, what exactly is it you think you can do? You’ve known for two weeks, and since you’re just telling us, then I’m guessing you haven’t gone to the police yet. Do you plan to?”

  My mouth formed a tight line, and I shook my head. “She said I couldn’t.”

  Graham nodded. “And you can’t just go in there and rip her away from her marriage, no matter how much you want to.”

  “You say that like I don’t already know that,” I sneered.

  “I’m just saying, Knox, you’re already driving yourself crazy over something you can’t change, no matter how much it may seem like it sucks.”

  My eyes narrowed. He still didn’t believe me.

  I looked at Deacon to find him shaking his head like he was annoyed. Finally, he said, “We already know she likes playing games, man. You never know, she’s probably beating herself. She could be one of those women who are psychotic and fake the whole thing so they can ruin their husband’s life, too.”

  I huffed, and Graham whispered, “That was too much.”

  I took a step back and sighed heavily as I said, “And this is another reason why I didn’t know how to tell you. Fuck you both.”

  “You know just as well as we do that if you actually believed her, you would’ve gone to the cops as soon as you found out. Don’t act like we’re the bad guys in this.”

  I stopped on my way out of the room and stared ahead for a second, then looked over my shoulder. “I’ve thought about it at least a hundred times. Every time I did, I also thought about someone in her family being killed because of me, and how her father-in-law would get her husband cleared of any charges. How her husband would come after her again, and how this time, she might not be alive when he was done with her. I have been in physical pain thinking about what’s been happening to her. But it doesn’t compare to the thought of losing her, and for now, at least, I know exactly where she is. I will get her away from her husband, but it’s not going to be as simple as showing up like some white fucking knight. You two made it hell for Harlow and me before, I’m letting you know now, that if you do it again, or if you keep pulling the shit you just did, I will walk away from thirteen years of friendship with both of you, and I won’t look back.”

  Chapter 12

  Harlow

  Present Day—Richland

  I WOKE UP gasping the next day, then quickly began choking. My mind whirled as I fought to open my heavy eyelids, and I wondered what Collin was doing to me. But there was no pain other than the dull ache in my throat and pounding in the back of my head. There were no harsh words or demands to hide my pain, and the sensation of being choked slowly faded, leaving me to gasp for air again. But I knew it was all in my mind. I knew if I could just open my eyes I would know Collin wasn’t there, and I would know that I could breathe. Just as I finally wrenched my eyes open, I heard heavy and quick steps pounding down the hall.

  I shot up in bed and looked around to the rumpled comforter and sheets covering me, and blinked against the harsh light coming through the open window as Collin came running into the bedroom with a wild look in his eyes that immediately calmed when he saw me sitting there.

  Collin came around to the side of the bed and sat in front of me, but didn’t touch me until my breathing was mostly under control, and then it was just to grasp my chin and tilt my head back to look at my throat for a few seconds.

  After he released my chin, his fingers gently ran down my bruised throat, and he mumbled, “Look at me, Harlow.”

  I dropped my head but was having a hard time keeping eye contact with him. All I could see was how Collin had pointed the gun at me the day before, and everything else that had happened after that dreaded doctor appointment.

  “I thought you had finally—” He broke off suddenly and looked away for a few seconds; his eyes were red and glassy when he looked back to me. Every muscle in my body tensed at the sight. “I thought you had finally decided you couldn’t live like this anymore. When I heard you, I thought you were . . . I thought you were trying to . . . well I guess it doesn’t matter, does it?”

  Even with his indifferent words, it didn’t change his tone, it didn’t change his broken and unsure sentences, and it didn’t change the look in his eyes or the slight tremble in his chin. He thought I’d been trying to kill myself, and he was trying not to cry. Some women might feel like their men were more human after seeing them get emotional for the first time. Some might even have the urge to comfort their strong husbands when they show this rare vulnerable side, but I couldn’t move and I wasn’t breathing. I was afraid the tears were a trick, and if I made a wrong move I was going to pay for it.

  “Do you love me, Harlow?” he asked softly. For the first time, it sounded like a genuine question, and he looked like he didn’t know what my answer would be. When I didn’t respond, his eyebrows pinched together, the light in his eyes died, and a rage I knew all too well covered his face as one of his hands shot out and grabbed my wrist. But just as soon as I felt the pain of him digging his thumb into the pressure point there, it was gone as he snatched his hand back, as if he’d realized what he was doing. Collin closed his eyes, and after a deep breath in and out, he slowly opened them again with a calmer expression. “Do you love me?”

  “You know I do,” I said in a hoarse voice. The lie came easily, thanks to the years of practice with him.

  “And do you know that I love you?” he asked warily.

  Something in his voice made my chest ache. Not for his love, and not for the guy I’d fallen in love with before he became my monster. But for all the lies I’d said in the past five years, for the lie I’d been living, and for the pain this man had cost me—only for him to now act like this was hard for him.

  Before I could respond, fear flooded my veins when tears started quickly slipping down my cheeks. I tried to stop them, tried to gather whatever strength I could find, but there was nothing as more tears continued to fall. A sob burst from my chest, and my body s
lumped forward when I decided that after what had happened the day before, I didn’t have enough in me to care that he was seeing me break down. And once he’d seen the tears, there was no point in lying to him. But the tears also served as my answer, an answer Collin would have never accepted in the past, and an answer I didn’t think he was going to accept then.

  I waited for my monster; I waited for the pain. My body jerked when his fingers trailed over mine and then slowly up my arms; but instead of stopping at any of the number of pressure points on my arms, Collin gently pulled me onto his lap.

  “I do love you,” he whispered into my ear. “I swear to God I love you, Harlow.”

  All I could manage was a nod against his chest while I internally screamed, You’re a monster! You don’t know what love is!

  “What I do, I do for us; to better our relationship, to better you as a woman and my wife.”

  There he was . . . my monster. Still hiding, but there in Collin’s words. Always waiting, teasing me, lurking behind the perfect mask of my seemingly perfect husband.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured before his mouth was on my skin.

  It took all my strength not to recoil when his lips brushed against my neck, and then again when he tilted my head back to brush a deceptively soft kiss to the hand-shaped bruise on my throat. His lips slowly moved up my neck, but just before they reached my own, he paused. Seconds passed as his breath mixed with mine, and I slowly let my eyes open. His blue eyes were narrowed into slits, and the sight didn’t match his broken words.

  “You’re shaking. You’re scared of me,” he said softly, the last statement sounding more like a question—as if he didn’t understand why or how that was a possibility.

  And if he hadn’t been right, and if I hadn’t been in his arms, I might have laughed. But I was scared of him; I was terrified of the man holding me. And I’d never been more terrified than I was in that moment. He didn’t apologize to me like this, he didn’t cry, and he didn’t worry about me not loving him. No matter how much I wanted to believe that things could change, that I could have a future without living in fear of what would come next from Collin, I knew it would be stupid and dangerous to let myself believe that the past few minutes were signs of change for us. I also knew that not answering this question would be a mistake, but my throat wouldn’t work as his blue eyes lost the life behind them.

  Oh God.

  My head shook slowly at first, then faster. “No, no,” I swore, and ran my hands through his blond hair.

  Collin swallowed roughly, then did it again, and even though there wasn’t a change in his eyes, and his hands were starting to hold me tighter and tighter, I could tell in his expression that he was trying to remain calm.

  “Yesterday?” he asked, and I hesitated in my reassuring brushes through his hair and against his neck while I waited for something more.

  “Yesterday?” I repeated, and let my eyebrows slowly rise to hint that I didn’t know what he wanted me to say.

  “You’re scared because of yesterday.”

  I forced my gaze not to leave his even though I desperately needed that small break from his intense stare to attempt to gather myself. “Of course not.”

  “Good girl,” he murmured, and his tight grip eased up. With a soft kiss to the corner of my mouth, he whispered, “You know I would never hurt you.”

  I didn’t respond because it sounded like he was saying it more for himself than for me.

  “So, what do you do on Tuesdays? What do you have to do today?” he asked, and I suppressed a relieved breath when I saw his blue eyes light up again, since I knew that for now, my monster was gone.

  “Uh . . .” I blinked quickly, and tried to remember what he’d asked rather than focus on his eyes. “Tuesdays?” I asked warily. Collin never asked about my routine. “I clean; I cook dinner. There isn’t much else unless you give me your card on those mornings. I need to go to the grocery store. I was going to go yesterday after the, um . . .” I cleared my throat and this time my eyes did dart away from his for a moment. “After the appointment.”

  Collin was watching me intently while I spoke, so it was impossible to miss the slight hardening of his stare when I mentioned the store. “The store? Do you need to go to the store?”

  “Yes, I . . .” My voice died and stomach dropped when it hit me. There was no food in the house at all. Usually if Collin felt bad for a punishment, then he would cook, but we didn’t have food last night, and I’d slept through the afternoon and night. “L-last night. I’m so—I’m so sorry. There wasn’t any food. I didn’t—”

  “I do know how to fend for myself, Harlow,” he said with a sly grin. “Why do you have to go today?”

  I didn’t understand what he was trying to trick me into saying with these questions. I went every week; he knew I went. I had to go every week because of one of Collin’s forms of teaching, as he liked to call it. He threw away every item of food in the pantry and fridge on Sunday nights—not including spices and what was needed for breakfast on Monday. “You’re the one wasting the food, Harlow, since you can’t seem to figure out how to buy the right amount of groceries,” he always said.

  I swallowed and tried to push down my irritation with him for making me explain something that he so often used against me. “Because I only buy enough food for the week when I go, so we don’t have any food.”

  Collin’s eyes flickered to the side, like he’d just remembered that fact, then his eyes fell to my throat. “I guess if we have no food then you have no choice, but I’m going with you.”

  My hand shot up to the large bruise on my throat, and it was then that I finally understood the questions, and understood how he could forget about our foodless house. Collin didn’t want me leaving the house at all because he’d left visible proof. He was going to the store with me to make sure I didn’t do something stupid, like tell someone.

  “Get ready and let’s go.”

  I tried to hide my confusion as he got off the bed. How long had I slept if he was able to go to the store with me now? I glanced at the clock, and my head whipped around to look at Collin again when I saw it was only eleven in the morning. “Shouldn’t you be at work?” My body tightened the second the question left my lips. It had been a simple question, and an honest one, but that wasn’t something I could ask Collin. I wasn’t allowed to question anything he did, and I couldn’t believe I’d done it just then.

  Collin’s head slowly tilted to the side, and I wanted nothing more than to run from the dark, lifeless look he was giving me. A look of pain flashed across his face as he took the few steps back to the bed and knelt onto it. If it weren’t for his eyes—which were focused just under my chin—I would think he was about to beg for forgiveness judging by the expression on his face. His fingers faintly traced over the bruise before his entire hand was wrapping around my neck and he was slamming me onto the bed. My shocked gasp was cut off when he covered my mouth with his and, one at a time, tightened his fingers on my throat. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready?” he asked quietly against my lips.

  As if my monster had never made an appearance, Collin’s hand jerked away from me and he got off the bed. I watched as the hand that had been on me flexed and relaxed over and over again as he tried to keep himself in check; his eyes never once left me. “Get dressed, Harlow,” he demanded so softly I barely caught the words. “Make sure you cover that—just cover yourself.”

  I waited until he walked out of the bedroom before I released a shaky breath that sounded more like a sob, and let the tremors take over my body. I’d thought it would be dangerous to let myself believe that we could change. I was wrong . . . that wasn’t the danger. The danger was that for the first time, Collin was trying to control the monster inside of him, and was now more unpredictable than ever.

  Chapter 13

  Harlow

  Present Day—Richland

  I AUTOMATICALLY REACHED out and opened my mouth to stop Collin when he pulled a pack of eggs off t
he store shelf an hour and a half later, and realized a second too late what I was doing.

  His arm froze with the eggs in the air. “What?” he sneered, soft enough that his voice wouldn’t carry.

  “Um, it’s just, well that’s a lot.”

  “You said you needed these.”

  “We do,” I said quickly, and finally got the carton out of his hands. “But not three dozen. I’m lucky if you finish a dozen in a week.”

  Collin turned to smile at me, but from where I was standing I could see he was clenching his teeth. He leaned in and brushed his lips against my jaw. “Watch yourself, Harlow,” he warned, then took the eggs back from me and placed them into the shopping cart. “Now what?”

  I glanced at the list on my phone, but before I could say the next item we needed, a deep voice called out my husband’s name.

  “Collin Doherty. Playing hooky, are we?”

  I looked up in time to see Collin’s million-dollar smile as we both turned to see who had called him, and my skin crawled.

  “Ah, Ren. I guess that makes two of us.” Collin put his hand on the small of my back and brought me closer to his side when Ren stopped next to me. “Ren, you remember my wife, Harlow?”

  “Of course.” Ren barely spared me a glance as his meaty hand drifted from my elbow down to my wrist, and didn’t seem to notice the way Collin pulled me back a step as Ren asked, “What has you away from work today? And who is taking care of the county’s money if you are here, and old Alfred McKenzie is probably out getting a hip replaced?”

  Collin laughed. “The money is fine. Besides, the wife and I have some personal things we need to take care of this week. I’ll probably be working from home a lot.”