Never Let You Go (Never #2)

by Monica Murphy

  I forgot to check the mail when I came home Saturday night. I was too damn tired, physically and emotionally, after my day with Katie. When I finally manage to check it this morning, Molly following at my heels, seeing the single envelope with small, neat print on the front in the box throws me. I rarely receive mail, considering I pay most of my bills online. So when I have a handwritten letter, that’s especially odd. The only ones I’d received in the past came to a different box, to a different person . . .

  Unease slipping down my spine, I grab the envelope and look at the return address. There isn’t one.

  But I’d recognize that handwriting anywhere.

  There was a movie I watched a long time ago, though I can’t remember what it was called. Some eighties chick flick, I think, which is probably why I shoved it out of my mind. There’s a line from the movie that stuck in my memory, one I always think of when I see anything from this particular person.

  You have the handwriting of a serial killer.

  The letter is from my father. Sent to my address—my Ethan Williams address. The address he’s not supposed to know.

  Shit.

  I clutch the letter in my hand, crumpling the envelope as I make my way back into my house, shutting and locking the door behind me. As if it’s that simple to keep the bad memories out. Molly runs around my feet, excited, and I absently pat her head, the envelope seeming to burn into my palm. I’m tempted to throw it away. Never read it, pretend I never even received it.

  But I can’t do that. I have to know what he says. I refuse to ever let him get the upper hand again. I don’t care that he’s in prison for life and can never get out. No one is safe when it comes to Aaron Monroe.

  Least of all me.

  I collapse on the couch and tear into the envelope, pulling out the single sheet of lined paper with shaky hands. His handwriting is small, precise, almost square-shaped. And since he’s been in jail, it’s like he’s turned it into an art form, perfecting his handwriting over the years.

  Taking a deep breath, I start to read his letter.

  Dear Will,

  Or should I call you Ethan? I find it funny that you changed your name. Not that I’m surprised really. I guess you’re in hiding, afraid to be associated with me. I can understand that, yet it hurts, too. It hurts real bad. A man should be proud of his boy and a son should be proud of his father, but I guess I haven’t given you much to be proud of through the years.

  Lisa Swanson is the one who told me you changed your name and gave me your address. I appreciate her honesty. She’s never been anything less than kind. She’s been a real blessing in my life lately. It’s a life that’s not filled with many blessings, so hers is most appreciated.

  Have you met her? She says you two have talked over the phone but it’s always been a brief conversation. That’s a real mistake on your part, son. You should get to know her. She’s an interesting woman. One who’s been very vocal in getting me what I want and understanding my desire to speak to the world. To share my side of the story. No one has ever heard my side before, beyond what’s in the court records.

  But right now, more than I want to tell my story, the thing I want most in this world is to see you.

  I miss you, son. With much reflection, I’ve come to realize that I’ve done you wrong and I need your forgiveness. All those years you suffered living with me, it was unfair. You were just a kid and I took out all my anger and frustration on you. Until eventually that wasn’t enough, and I started taking my anger out on other people.

  Like that poor little Katherine Watts.

  I can’t take back what I’ve done, to you or to those other poor souls, may they all rest in peace. I want to confess my sins, Will. I want to cleanse my soul and make life right with God and my victims and you.

  I’ve already said it in this letter but I’m saying it again: I need your forgiveness. I want Katherine’s forgiveness, too. And the only way I can get that is if you both do the interview with Lisa. That way I can send my message through Lisa to each of you. And maybe eventually, I can convince you to come see me in person. That would give me so much joy, but I know these sorts of decisions take time.

  It’s been years since I’ve seen you, looked into your eyes, heard your voice. I bet you’ve changed. I bet I’d hardly recognize you, son, and that breaks my heart. It tears me apart, knowing that I can’t be with you, that we can’t be a family. You don’t want to acknowledge that your old man is in prison and I get that, I do. But we’re family. We share the same blood. And because as much as I know I should, I never want to let you go.

  You’re a part of me. You are my legacy. And I want us to have a relationship before it’s too late and I’m dead and gone. Or worse, what if something happens to you? I could never forgive myself.

  I want you to think real hard and consider my suggestion. The girl has already talked to Lisa once. It won’t hurt to talk to her again. I think my request is pretty simple. The least you could do is honor it. Honor me.

  After all, I am your father.

  Dad

  My phone rings around eight in the morning, startling me out of a deep sleep. I sit straight up in bed, frowning at the phone where it’s perched on the bedside table. People don’t call me. I text. I much prefer texting. That way you don’t have to work up the nerve to actually make a call.

  The phone stops ringing before I can grab it and I lean over to see who it was.

  Ethan.

  I’m about to return his call when my phone starts ringing again. I answer it this time, before the first ring is done. He doesn’t even give me the chance to say hello.

  “Katie, God, I uh . . . I’m sorry to call you so early.” He sounds frazzled. A little out of breath. His panic bleeds through and worry grips hold of me, making my heart pound.

  “Are you okay? Did something happen to Molly?” I sit up once more, brushing my hair away from my face. I’d been sleeping hard; I can feel a crease on my cheek from having it firmly pressed into my pillow.

  “Happen to who? Oh. Molly. She’s fine. This isn’t about her.” He clears his throat yet doesn’t say a word. It feels like he’s stalling for time and I flop back against the pillows, closing my eyes as I wait for him to say something, anything to clue me in.

  But he still doesn’t.

  “What’s going on?” I ask. “Are you all right?”

  “No. Shit. I’m not all right. You won’t be either when I tell you.” He hesitates, and in that tiny moment my heart rate shoots up even more. “I . . . received a letter from my father.”

  Oh. Now it’s my turn to not talk. I have no idea what to say.

  “And he mailed it to me here. To Ethan Williams.” He sucks in a harsh breath, then releases it in a shuddery exhale. “He knows my home address, Katie. And my new name.”

  “Has he ever reached out to you before?”

  “He’s written me a few letters over the years. I keep a post office box under Will Monroe.”

  Hearing him say his real name makes something splinter inside of me. Like tiny shards of glass shooting throughout my body, piercing my most vital organs. I close my eyes, rest my hand over my chest. It’s still difficult to grasp that I’m actually talking to Will. That I’ve spent so much time with him, kissed him. Had sex with him.

  “He’s never written to me here. I never gave him this address or my new name. I’m not that stupid. I needed distance from him. I wanted him to believe I’d fallen off the face of the earth, you know? He said that bitch Lisa Swanson gave him my mailing address. How could she?” Now he sounds furious. “What the fuck did she think she’d gain by doing that? What’s that crazy old man going to do for her while he’s stuck in prison, huh?”

  I try to interrupt him but he won’t let me. He’s too angry, and I can’t blame him.

  “I considered letting her interview me for all of about ten minutes and decided against it. Is this some sort of retaliation on her part? Because she couldn’t get me to do what she wants? I think
she’s sick. Selfish. Bitch only cares about herself.”

  “Ethan.” I say his name firmly, and he stops talking. “What exactly did the letter say?”

  “A bunch of bullshit about how he wants my forgiveness and hopes to see me again soon.”

  My stomach cramps. He wants to see Ethan. Of course he does. Ethan is his son. They have a connection that goes beyond anything that Ethan—Will—and I share. How can I even consider being with Ethan when there’s any possibility that he might reconnect with his father—my rapist—and I’d have to live with that? I couldn’t deal with it. There’s just no way.

  No way in hell. I’d rather die than have Aaron Monroe be a part of my life once again.

  But if I want Ethan to be a part of my life, then that means his father would be, too.

  I close my eyes again, squeeze them tight to prevent even a single tear from falling. I refuse to cry. This isn’t about me right now. This is about Will. Ethan. God, whatever he wants me to call him.

  “Do you want me to come over still?” I ask. If he wants to be alone I can understand. He might need to take time and process everything his father wrote to him. But maybe he wants me there, too . . .

  “If I could have you here with me right now I could probably get through this shit a lot better,” he admits, sounding so incredibly tortured, so sad. “But . . . I understand if you don’t want to deal with it. This is a lot for you to take in, I know.”

  He’s right. It is a lot for me to take in. And it all circles back to me. To what happened to me at the hands of his father. I’m not sure I’m ready to absorb it all, deal with it. It was bad enough discovering that Ethan is really Will. That he’d tricked me the entire time we were together and like an idiot, I never caught on.

  Knowing that his father is the man who abducted and raped me, held me captive for days, is hard to face. It’s so hard to compare the two men, too. Ethan is nothing like his father. He’s sweet and kind and funny and thoughtful. He protects me, watches out for me, only wants the best for me.

  He would be the perfect, understanding boyfriend if I could just be with him. But how can I? In all reality, we both know we shouldn’t be together. No one else would understand. I can barely understand.

  I’m thinking Ethan feels the same way.

  “I can’t lie to you. It’s overwhelming, and it’s scary to imagine that he’s reached out to you like this,” I tell him, trying my best to choose my words carefully. “I want to be there for you. I want to help you as a friend, Ethan. I hope you know that.”

  “I could really use a friend right now,” he murmurs.

  “Give me ninety minutes,” I say before I end the call.

  It takes me closer to two hours before I finally arrive at Ethan’s house. Traffic wasn’t the best, plus I stopped off and bought us large coffees before I got to his house. I figured we’d need the caffeine boost.

  By the time I approach his front door, he’s already there, standing in the open doorway, wearing a button-down black-and-blue flannel shirt undone over a black T-shirt and jeans, Molly at his feet and wagging her tail furiously. She looks ready to burst with excitement. The moment she spots me she comes wiggling over, her tail whipping fast, lashing through the air as she sniffs my legs from the knee down.

  “Coffee,” Ethan says gratefully as he reaches out to take the small cardboard tray from my hands. “Thank you.”

  “And the doughnuts from yesterday. I left them in the freezer, but hopefully they mostly thawed out on the drive over,” I say as I follow Ethan into the house, closing the door behind me with my foot. I reach for Molly’s head and give it a rub, balancing the pastry box in my other hand. “How did she do last night?”

  “She was great. Got a little whiny when we first went to bed, but eventually I picked her up and let her sleep next to me on the bed, curled up like a ball all night.” He rolls his eyes, looking the faintest bit embarrassed. “I told her we shouldn’t make a habit out of her doing that.”

  “Why not? I think it’s adorable.” I set the box on the coffee table and turn to look at him, purposely keeping my expression as cheerful as possible. I don’t want him to think I’m worried or apprehensive over the real reason I’m here. Knowing I’m going to read that letter, or at least catch a glimpse of that man’s handwriting on a piece of paper that he’s actually touched, shouldn’t make me so nervous.

  But it so does. And maybe it’s not right, me unable to be real with Ethan when I expect nothing less from him, but I can’t help it. The man that is his father is a complete monster. I’ve suffered at the hands of Aaron Monroe and I’m one of the few who actually survived.

  So did Ethan. We’re both survivors.

  We make nice and pretend nothing bad has happened. I grab the box of doughnuts and bring them to the small kitchen table. Ethan walks over and sits down, bringing our coffees with him. His gaze never leaves me as I putter around his kitchen like I belong here. I find plates and napkins, then ask if he might want a glass of milk when finally he tells me to come sit down and eat.

  “Thank you,” he says when I sit across from him and reach into the box, extracting a doughnut covered with rainbow sprinkles. “For coming over. I know—I know you probably don’t want to deal with any of this. So I appreciate that you’re here.”

  “I want to help you, Ethan. I want to be your friend,” I tell him, ducking my head. I’m sure he hates that I say I only want to be his friend. Isn’t that the worst way to break up with a guy? Besides, I can’t face him right now. It’s too hard. “We’re eventually going to have to talk about everything that’s happened, but I just . . . I don’t know how. I don’t understand exactly how we came back into each other’s lives, and why you felt it necessary to keep your identity a secret.”

  “Would you have been happy to know it was really me, Katie? That it was Will you were talking to? Spending time with?”

  If I’d known he was Will, I’m not sure how far I would have taken any of this. “I don’t know how I would’ve reacted,” I admit.

  He takes a deep breath and I keep my head bent, fear and nerves and anger making me tremble. My appetite leaves me yet again, the doughnut sitting in front of me totally unappealing. I don’t want to hurt him, yet I do. I want to give him comfort and I also want to hit him. Scream at him. Allow him to speak and then beg him to shut up.

  I’m completely conflicted. Hopelessly confused.

  “When I saw your interview, it was a total shock, to hear your voice, to see your face. You looked the same, yet different. So grown up, so beautiful. And I knew . . .” His voice drifts. “I knew I wanted to try and find you.”

  I wait for him to say more, refuse to allow his words to touch me. Affect me. I need to remain strong. Impassive. As though what he says doesn’t mean anything.

  “Do you really want to hear this?” he asks, his voice soft, the slightest bit shaky.

  I lift my head, my gaze meeting his. I see the reluctance there. And the pain—so much pain. “I need to hear it. Before we can move forward, I have to know what led up to our meeting.”

  Yesterday was the two of us playing at normal. Pretending life was fun and carefree when it so wasn’t. Our problematic past will always plague us. I don’t think it’s possible for me to be with him right now, not romantically, but I can’t let him go, either. We’ve shared too much, been through too much together. To walk away after everything that’s happened would be cruel.

  But what he did to you was cruel, too. Don’t forget it.

  “After the interview, I started to search for you on the Internet. I found you through your sister Brenna’s Facebook page,” he admits. “I saw a photo of you there.”

  My mouth drops open. I’d purposely avoided social media just to stop this sort of situation, yet that’s how Ethan found me.

  “I’ll admit I did a few illegal searches. There are ways to hack into systems, to find out information that people don’t want you to know.” He pauses, shaking his head once. “But I
found the purchase of your house legally. Your address was right there. I knew where you lived, so I went to your house.”

  My heart sinks. “You did?”

  He nods, his expression grim. “I never did anything else. I wanted to see where you lived. I wanted to make sure you were happy, Katie. That’s it. After so much suffering, after dealing with everything all those years, I just wanted . . . hell, I don’t know what I wanted. My motives were selfish, too, I can’t lie.”

  “Selfish how?” I frown.

  “I wanted to see you. See you in person, just once. I only went by your house that one time. Your neighbor called me out and questioned me, so I left. But after that I started . . . fuck, I started to follow you.”

  This went so much deeper than I realized. I should be terrified. I should run out of his house and never look back. “Why?” My voice is nothing but a rasp of sound.

  “I was worried about you, Katie. You seemed so alone. And you were being reckless. When you went to the park where it all happened, I couldn’t fucking believe it. I told myself to keep driving, to let you go out there on your own, but in the end, I couldn’t. I kept pace behind you the entire time you were there that day.”

  “And those kids who tried to mug me?” He frowns and I wave a hand. “You didn’t set that up, did you?”

  “My God, no. I would never do something like that to you. Those kids were trying to take your purse. And I stepped in. I couldn’t just stand by and let them hurt you. I could never forgive myself if something happened to you.”

  So he really did run in and rescue me that day. Once I discovered he was Will, my mind had gone back to that moment and I wondered if he’d set it up. Not that I ever wanted to believe it, but I wasn’t sure. I was unsure of everything at that point. I’m still unsure.

  “Why did you cut me off when we were younger? You just . . . quit talking to me.” I need to know. That had hurt so much and I’d been so devastated. I never understood how he could just end all contact like that with me so easily.