To the Stars

by Molly McAdams

  I stared at her blankly, unsure what part of Collin’s psychotic tendencies she didn’t understand. “No, Hadley. Do you not remember what just happened to you yesterday?”

  “Of course I do, but why didn’t you just leave him before? You left last night; why did you wait so long?”

  “I tried leaving him at the beginning of our marriage. Do you remember the night that beach house you guys vacationed in caught fire? I made it to Oregon before I was pulled over and arrested for DWI without even having a sobriety test done. Collin picked me up soon after and made me wait with my phone for hours when we got home until I got the call from you.”

  Hadley’s eyes widened in disbelief, and my mom’s cries got louder.

  “Leaving him meant losing you. I couldn’t risk that. Staying with him, no matter what it meant for me . . .” I said through my tears, and had to stop when it got too hard to speak. “Staying meant you were supposed to be safe.”

  “But at what cost?” Dad asked; his tone was hard, but his face was filled with grief. “You haven’t told us most of what happened, and I can’t begin to imagine because I don’t want to. Seeing what happened that led to you being in a hospital tells me more than I need to know; I can see now that those years with him aren’t something that you should’ve gone through—no matter what it meant for us. We could’ve figured something out, Harlow!”

  I shook my head, because none of them could understand that it wouldn’t have been that simple, but stilled and reached toward my dad when he stopped fighting it and finally burst into tears. “Dad,” I whispered. “I’m sorry, I know you don’t understand, but I couldn’t tell you. Collin was my burden, and I never would have forgiven myself if I’d let his evil slip into your lives more than it was already able to.”

  “Oh, honey,” Mom whispered, but then the room quieted except for their soft sobs. “We’ll make this up to you somehow. We’ll take care of you, I promise. We’ll find a doctor you can talk to in Seattle, and—”

  “Mom.” I cut her off quietly. “I love you, but what you’re doing . . . there’s no point for it. You don’t have to make up for anything.”

  “That’s not it,” she assured me.

  “That’s a lot of it,” I argued gently. “I know you want me close after everything that’s happened, too, but most of this is just guilt that you don’t need to feel. And Seattle? Mom, I don’t want to be there.” My throat tightened again and tears filled my eyes, but I smiled through them. “After years without him, I just found Knox again. I never stopped loving him, and I never stopped regretting the mistake I made in choosing Collin over him. Now that he’s here, I can’t go back to a life where he isn’t.”

  My parents shared a look, and Hadley turned to look at the door as if expecting Knox to walk through it again. When she turned back around, she nodded and gave me a reassuring smile—but I’d had no doubts she would take my side. Of course Hadley would side with love.

  “Harlow, we’ve respected Knox for a long time, and we’re thankful he was here for you,” Dad finally said. “However, after the events of the last couple days now might not be the best time to make this kind of decision. Starting a relationship with Knox would also probably not be the wisest decision. You need time.”

  “I plan on taking things one day at a time, Dad. I won’t rush into anything with him just because he’s back in my life. But staying here with him . . . I know that’s what is right for me. He has always been right for me. I just lost my way for a little while.”

  Before anyone could respond, there was a knock on the door, and one of the earlier nurses came in with some papers in her hands.

  “Are you ready to go home?” she asked brightly.

  “I’m ready to leave,” I responded, and wondered at the word home. At the moment, it felt like I didn’t have one. The house I’d lived in with Collin could never be considered a home.

  My eyes flitted up to the person now filling the doorway, and my tensed body eased seeing Knox’s warm smile.

  I might not have a home now, but I knew in that smile that someday, with that man, I would.

  Knox

  Present Day—Richland

  “WE’LL CALL A company to come pick it up. All of it can be donated,” Harlow said dismissively a week later.

  “Donate—what about—wait, don’t you want to go through any of it?” Mrs. Evans asked, stumbling over her words as she looked around the piles of things in Harlow’s old living room.

  Harlow looked at her mom, then the piles with a confused expression. “We’ve spent most of this week going through all of it. Everything else went to the dump; this all gets donated.”

  Her mom waved off Harlow’s words. “No, I meant don’t you want to go through any of it to see if you want to keep it.”

  Even Harlow’s sisters looked shocked.

  Hadley sifted through a pile closest to her. “The jewelry in here alone has to be worth close to a million,” she said in awe. “You can’t tell me you don’t want it.”

  “What about the furniture?” Harlow’s dad asked. “It’ll help with that apartment you’re getting.”

  “You can’t just give all this away!”

  “Mom’s right,” Harlow’s older sister, Hayley, said. “At least sell it if you don’t want to keep it.”

  The only people in the house not trying to persuade Harlow to do something with everything she and Collin had bought together, or that he’d forced her to buy, were Graham, Deacon, and me.

  I knew she didn’t want to keep anything from their fucked-up life together—who would? And whether Graham and Deacon understood that or not, they just wanted whatever Harlow wanted.

  “No,” Harlow said with a shake of her head. “Donate.”

  “Har—” Her mom began again, but was cut off.

  “Everything in this house is a memory in the form of a nightmare. I don’t want it, and I don’t want the money from it,” Harlow whispered harshly, each word holding a pain none of us could imagine. But from the looks on her family’s faces, they weren’t going to try to push her anymore.

  “I’ll look up a company and arrange a pickup,” Hayley’s husband said, and immediately began tapping on his phone.

  “Thank you,” Harlow said, and her body relaxed as she closed the distance between us. “I just want to be out of here and done with this place.”

  When she got close, I pulled her into my arms and pressed my lips to the top of her head. “Soon,” I promised.

  We’d all stayed in the hotel, with the exception of Graham and Deacon, for three nights before Harlow’s entire family had piled into our house. No one had wanted to stay in Harlow’s old house. I couldn’t blame them, and my roommates didn’t complain as long as they got to put an endless amount of food in front of Harlow.

  When we hadn’t been clearing out the old house, we’d been apartment hunting for Harlow. She’d wanted, and found, a place in Richland so it was close to me, but still far enough away that she felt like she could have her space to figure things out. Her family didn’t understand why she was renting and continued to remind her it was a waste of money when she had enough to buy a new house with cash. Deacon and Graham had moped for nearly an hour when they’d found out the location. I’d gone with her to sign the papers and had smiled through it, because I knew it was what she needed.

  I wanted her next to me every second of every day, but this apartment was what was best for her now—and for us later.

  Harlow had picked up the keys this morning, but wanted to wait until her family left for their homes tomorrow—Hadley with her parents—to go shopping for the furniture and everything needed to move in.

  She shifted in my arms when her phone chimed, and pulled it out of her pocket. With a slow exhale, Harlow showed me the screen, which held a text from Collin’s mom, asking if she would come over to talk.

  “You gonna go?”

  Harlow nodded once, then shook her head. “I’ve hardly talked to them since everything happened. T
hey’re good people, Knox,” she whispered. Words she’d said before. “They’re good, but when I did talk to them, they sounded so mad.”

  “They aren’t mad at you. They’re just having a hard time, too,” I reminded her. “It’s different than what you’re going through. They probably didn’t know this was happening.”

  “They couldn’t have.”

  “Then they’re probably in shock and didn’t know how to react to the situation, or how to talk to you. But it looks like they’re ready now . . . if you are.”

  Even though Harlow had reached out to them a few times, Collin’s parents had been distant all week. They’d come by the house yesterday while everyone was gone to make sure there wasn’t anything they wanted after we’d already piled up everything that was to be donated, and bagged what was to go to the dumpsters. As far as we could tell, however, they’d only taken a few of Collin’s things from high school and college, and hadn’t responded to most of Harlow’s attempts to talk to them. Something that had been hard on her all week.

  “I want to go, I know I need to. Will you go with me?”

  I made a face and glanced back at the text, like it would give me the answer to whether or not I should go. “Do you think having me there the first time you see them would be best?”

  “Probably not,” she said laughing, but there was no real humor behind her tone. “But I’d thought they would have contacted me first. I had thought they would have come to see me. The fact that it’s been the complete opposite is terrifying me for how it will be when I do see them.”

  My first reaction was to tell her that I would do anything she asked me to, but I was worried that if she was scared how they would react, then my presence might make it worse even though they wouldn’t have any clue who I was.

  One look into Harlow’s eyes and I knew what my answer was then, and would always be. “Of course I’ll go.”

  “I’M SORRY . . . what did you just say?” Harlow asked a couple of hours later once we were at the Dohertys’ house. We’d barely gotten our introductions finished before they’d dropped a bomb on us.

  Mrs. Doherty just continued on: “And we want to get you help for those things, dear. There’s a place we can have you admitted to today; we know the director there. It’s a great facility, the care is said to be some of the best.”

  “I don’t need help. I’m not depressed, and I’m not on drugs!”

  “We’ll pay for the treatments and for your stay there,” Mr. Doherty added. “With everything you put our son through, and now that he’s gone, this is very generous of us.”

  I scoffed, but bit back the comments running through my head.

  The prosecutor pinned a glare on me. “I’m still not sure why you’re here.” Looking back to Harlow, he said, “As for the drugs, we just have to make a call to the hospital to find out what was in your system last week. The depression won’t be hard to prove, and it’s not a bad thing to admit to.”

  The Dohertys sighed and gave each other a sad look. “Collin told us everything,” Mrs. Doherty said. “He’s been telling us for nearly a year about your depression with being unable to get pregnant, and for months about your substance abuse because of the depression. We’ve stayed quiet about it because he was worried it would only get worse if you knew that we were aware of what was going on. But now that he’s gone, we feel we have no other option.”

  “Wha—no!” Harlow yelled, clearly in shock. “No, none of that is true! I haven’t been getting pregnant, because I refused to have a child with your son!”

  “Harlow,” Mrs. Doherty said disapprovingly.

  “I had an implant put in so I wouldn’t get pregnant, and so Collin wouldn’t find out about it! Your son was abusive; there is no way I would’ve let a child enter into that house wi—”

  “Young lady, hold your tongue! Our son has given you the world,” Mrs. Doherty seethed. “Every single thing you have ever asked for he has given you, and more. To speak of him this way—”

  “Asked for?” Harlow asked, cutting her mother-in-law off, and laughed humorlessly. “Asked for? I never wanted any of it, which is why all of it is being donated and I’m not keeping any of it. He forced me to buy things for myself, and if I didn’t I had to pay for it in ways you couldn’t begin to imagine! He threatened my family to keep me with him, and tried to kill my sister the morning of your anniversary party. That night he tried to drown me in our guest bathroom!”

  “Drown you?” Mr. Doherty asked loudly. “Collin called us before the party started, panicking because you’d overdosed and were in the hospital. He was so worried that he was going to lose you that night!”

  My eyebrows rose, and a shocked laugh ripped from my chest at how ridiculous each thing they said sounded.

  “He said he was going to tell you that I was upset over Hadley and drowned myself . . .” Harlow whispered. Then, as if something had just clicked for her, she said, “You would’ve known that wasn’t true if you’d tried to come see me when I was supposedly in the hospital.”

  “Collin didn’t want us to miss our party.”

  This time Harlow laughed. “Miss your party?” She stood from the poolside chairs we were sitting at and took a few steps away before stomping back. “Miss your party?” she asked louder. “I know you’re both all about image, but I’ve always said that the two of you are good people. I would’ve thought that if you thought your daughter-in-law was in the hospital, supposedly about to die, you would rather come see her than make it to your anniversary party!”

  The Dohertys had the decency to look ashamed, at least, but didn’t say anything.

  “And how does any of it make sense in your minds? That Collin would be so worried about me, but make sure to keep you away from where I was? That the car chase between Collin and us began early the next morning in Thatch, and ended in Richland where we were on our way to go to the new chief of police—but I was supposedly in the hospital the night before with Collin from a drug overdose? And I know you’ve heard every detail of the chase because it’s been all over the news.”

  “Us? Was that your truck?” the prosecutor asked me, and I nodded once. “Were you injured?”

  I glanced at Harlow for guidance, but she was still looking at her in-laws with frustration and hurt. “I was shot,” I finally responded, but didn’t expand on the details.

  From the way Mr. Doherty’s face fell, I didn’t need to. He was piecing it together on his own. “Collin has said for so long that you were depressed, and you looked it. With the weight loss, it wasn’t hard to believe that everything else was true—it still isn’t. We want to get you help.”

  When Harlow spoke again, the anger was gone. “I don’t do drugs, but, honestly, I don’t have to prove that to you. I’m sorry you lost your son—I’m so sorry. But I’m not sorry that I’m finally away from that nightmare. Depressed doesn’t even come close to what I felt. It felt like I was dead, and I remember praying to be taken away from him. I’m sorry if that’s hard to hear,” she said when Mrs. Doherty began crying. “But even though I understand that you loved your son and want to believe he couldn’t do this, you have to understand that I lived it and it hurts that you can’t believe me when the evidence is right in front of you.

  “I know you went by the house yesterday and took whatever you wanted to keep, but I want to know if you want what money is left in Collin’s bank account, or our cars. I don’t want them—I don’t want anything. I don’t want the house, you can have it.”

  Shock swept through me. I’d known she wanted to rid herself of everything that had to do with Collin, but I hadn’t known about all of this. Other than paying her first and last month’s rent, as she already had, she wouldn’t be able to afford her apartment . . . or anything. And with the fight she’d already had with her family about wanting to do all of this herself, I doubted she would let me help.

  I looked over to the Dohertys, and saw my shock multiplied on both of their faces.

  Shock slowly mor
phed into confusion, and it was Mrs. Doherty’s turn to ask, “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

  “I don’t want any of it,” Harlow said, exhaustion laced through every word. “I just want to know if you do, before I find something else to do with all of it, like I did the things in the house.”

  “But that house, that house is paid for,” Mr. Doherty said. “The cars are only a year—the money—Collin said . . .”

  “From some of the things he’s said, we were sure you’d take the money and valuables, and run,” Mrs. Doherty finished. With a quick look at her husband, she said, “We don’t want those things. They’re yours. If—if he really was that kind of—no. Uh, those things belong to you, Harlow. Just . . .” She trailed off with a quiet sob.

  A moment passed, and it looked like Harlow was trying to figure out if she should go comfort them or not. Eventually, she said, “I’m sorry you lost your son.”

  With a look at me, she nodded to the side of the house, and we quietly walked away from the Dohertys as their guilt for missing so much settled, and confusion with what they’d thought they’d known of their son mixed with their grief of losing him.

  Chapter 24

  Harlow

  Present Day—Richland

  I’D BEEN SITTING in my car in front of the house for nearly forty minutes. I didn’t know what was so hard about what I was trying to do, because when I’d made the decision to do it, I hadn’t had any hesitations. But now . . . now I was shaking and wringing my hands and considering just leaving instead.

  It’s not him, and it’s not what you came to do . . . it’s where you just came from, I reminded myself.

  It’d been three weeks since I was released from the hospital, and I felt like I hadn’t stopped running the whole time—which was probably a good thing. It kept my mind off of things for too long.

  I’d moved into my apartment after selling both BMWs, buying a brand-new Camry in their place, and using some of the leftover money to furnish my new apartment. Since Collin’s parents hadn’t wanted any of the money, I’d tried to help the guys, but had been met with rejection after rejection. Graham had refused to let me pay for his truck repairs, and Knox had laughed before giving me a firm “No” when I’d tried to pay for his new truck, even though I knew insurance hadn’t covered the entire cost. So after fighting with Knox on what I could do with the money since I didn’t want it, we’d figured out how to go about dispersing it the way I wanted to. We were putting the two-part plan into action today now that the house was finally up for sale—which was where I’d just come from.