Pieces (The Breakaway #2)

by Michelle Davidson Argyle

  Naomi stepped into the hallway, her pulse pounding in her head. Then she looked down and realized she hadn’t put her shoes on. She needed her purse too. Swallowing, she backed into the apartment and closed the door. She didn’t want to go outside. She didn’t want to walk down the stairs and risk having to see the arguing couple. She fastened the chain and rushed to the couch, grabbing her purse from a nearby end table. Her phone was at the bottom. She wasn’t sure she dared turn it on. It had been off since before she and Jesse had flown here to Italy. The problem was he didn’t know she had a new phone. He had told her he would buy her one here so she could call him once he started working every day, but he had yet to get her one. He didn’t know she had gone behind his back and upgraded to a global plan so she wouldn’t feel cut off from everything she was leaving behind. It was the one secret she had kept from him. It made her feel dirty, as if she was cheating on him. With a phone. How stupid was that? Even keeping Finn’s kiss a secret for so long hadn’t made her feel so terrible. Maybe if she never used the phone, that would make it all better.

  Or maybe not.

  Glaring at the phone, she almost dropped it back into her purse, then changed her mind and pressed the power button with her thumb. She could at least check to see if anyone had tried to call her from home. She scrolled through the voicemail message list.

  Three voicemail messages from Karen Jensen.

  One voicemail message from Jason Jensen.

  Her heart sank. They knew something was going on. Her father had never left her a voicemail message in his entire life.

  Next, she scrolled through her text message list.

  Four text messages from Karen Jensen.

  That was surprising. She didn’t know her mother even knew how to text. Her finger trembling above the screen, she selected the first message.

  Hi, sweetheart, I’m texting because you haven’t answered your phone and I’m a little worried. Please give me a call when you can.

  Naomi selected the next message and then the next and the next. They were all similar, each one sounding a little more worried than the other. When she finished, she went back to the voicemail list and dialed the number to listen to the first message.

  “Hi, Naomi,” her mother’s voice chirped, “I hope your Thanksgiving went well with—Finn, I think?—but I hope everything was great. Give me a call when you can.”

  Naomi saved the message and listened to the next.

  “Hi, sweetheart, it’s Mom. Give me a call when you can.”

  And the next.

  “Give me a call, sweetheart.” She paused. “Did your phone break? Maybe I’ll try texting you.”

  Naomi paused before listening to her father’s message. She noticed it had come yesterday, after all the worried-sounding texts from her mother.

  “Hi, Naomi, it’s Dad. I’m not sure what’s going on, but we’re a little concerned about you not answering your phone. You understand why we might worry, right? You told Mom you were spending time with someone over Thanksgiving and we haven’t heard back from you, that’s all. I hate to be one of those pushy parents, but give us a call when you can, alright?” His voice got a little muffled, as if he was covering half his mouth with his hand. “If you’re mad at Mom or something, you can call my office ... alright? Don’t let us worry like this.”

  Naomi saved the message and lowered the phone to her lap. It had been ten days since she had last talked to her mother. That didn’t seem like too long to go without talking to her. She had gone much longer before, but her father did have a point about her not following up with them after the holiday. They were paranoid because of her past. She sighed and opened up her text-messaging program. Jesse’s voice echoed in her mind. When we’re more settled, you can tell your parents you’ve decided to move here.

  He was right. Telling her parents where she was would not go over well, but she could at least let them know she was alive. She typed to her mother, I’m fine. Just super-busy right now, so I’ll call you back when I’ve got some time. Love you!

  Not a complete lie, at least. She hit send and quickly turned off the phone.

  XVII

  THE NEXT DAY, AFTER READING BOOKS until she thought she would go mad, she walked to the door again. She heard no arguing this time, but when she reached for the handle she broke into a sweat and turned around.

  Not today.

  This was what had stopped her from trying to escape the house—a deep-seated fear of the unknown, of wondering what might happen if things didn’t go right, a precarious feeling her universe might implode if she couldn’t plan everything down to the last detail and know how it would end. So, instead of trying, she held back. It was what had kept her from leaving Brad before her kidnapping. More than Jesse’s plea, it was what kept her from calling her mother.

  She curled into a ball on the bed and cried herself to sleep until Jesse came home and woke her up. He started rubbing her back.

  “This is how it’s going to be,” he explained, leaning down to her ear. “I’m sorry, but I have to work if we want to live here. Your money won’t last very long and we’ve spent most of mine now.”

  “You want to work,” she said, burying her face in the pillows. “I know you love the job you have. It’s everything you ever wanted.”

  “Everything I ever wanted is right here.” He scooped her into his arms and held her close. “You’re scared, I know, but you’ll get used to everything. It’ll get easier. This is a new start, remember?”

  “I don’t know what I was thinking,” she said, feeling like an idiot. “Why can’t I be strong?”

  Turning her to look up at him, he lifted a hand and traced her lips with his fingers. “You’re stronger than you think, just not in ways most people expect.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He continued tracing her lips as a warm smile lit up his face. “Do you think you’d be alive right now if you weren’t strong? Eric would have killed you in the first three weeks if you hadn’t kept your cool like you did.”

  “I was too scared to try anything,” she whispered. “I wasn’t being strong.”

  He lifted his fingers from her lips as his smile melted into a straight line. “Strength doesn’t always mean fighting back. Sometimes it means enduring to the end—quietly. Not everybody could have handled your situation the way you did. Most would’ve tried to get away because they would’ve been too impatient to evaluate the kinds of people they were dealing with. They would have pissed Eric off so much he would have shot them in the head the first chance he had. You saw past that. I don’t care if you call it cowardice or fear. To me, it was smart and brave.”

  Naomi didn’t know how to respond. She hadn’t thought of herself as handling her captivity very well, but maybe Jesse had a point. He watched her for a moment, admiration sparkling in his eyes. It made her want to hug him and never let go.

  He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “How about we get some dinner and then read for a while?”

  She nodded, embracing him before he sat up. “That sounds good. Maybe that little soup shop we keep passing by when we’re out?”

  He laughed. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

  The soup they decided to get was white and creamy, thick with dark red kidney beans and wilted spinach. Naomi ate so much her stomach felt like it might burst, then Jesse read to her from The Great Gatsby—the one book he had brought with him from home. He sat crosslegged on the bed, resting on the pillows as Naomi lay in his lap, her arms folded over her full belly as she scanned the words on the yellowed pages in front of her. Jesse’s voice spread through her like a comforting mist. Hours later, when her stomach felt normal again and she was starting to get sleepy, Jesse paused on the last passage of the book, his words faltering until they caught and held strong.

  “‘So we beat on,” he read, his knuckles turning white as he squeezed the edges of the book, “boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.’”

  H
e closed the book and let out a sigh so loud it was like longing and awe and heartache all wrapped into a single vibration. It made Naomi wonder what he thought of that last sentence—if he meant something by reading it with such passion. The past, it seemed, was something he wanted to escape forever, but perhaps he believed it was impossible. Maybe it was.

  IN THE morning, she woke with her head full of Jesse’s voice. He was already gone to work, so she wandered into the kitchen, her stomach rumbling. So far, she and Jesse had eaten out for every meal except breakfast, which was always bread and fruit Jesse picked up the night before. She was tired of the same things over and over. She wanted to cook. Her fingers were itching to do something productive. If she sat around long enough, she would start to feel like she was back in the house again. Kidnapped.

  Forcing herself to bathe and dress, she grabbed some money and stuffed it into her back pocket, then stared at her purse and wondered if she should take her phone. Perhaps it was silly to freak out over going to the market, but having her phone would make her feel a little bit safer. She snatched it out of the purse and turned it on. No new texts or phone calls. Yet. Once it was in her pocket with the money, she made it as far as the stairwell before stopping to second-guess herself. She held tightly to the handrail.

  “No,” she hissed to herself. “You can do this.”

  One step down the stairs. Then another and another. Jesse had taught her how to count euros and read prices. She knew her way to the market. There was nothing stopping her.

  Fifteen minutes later, she was wandering aisles made up of vegetable stands overflowing with onions, turnips, and tomatoes. She picked some of each, and then stopped in front of a stand stuffed with artichokes.

  “Very good to try,” the market owner said in English.

  Naomi looked up and smiled. The woman was middle-aged but pretty, with skin so smooth it looked polished. It reminded her of Finn’s skin—that sweet caramel color.

  Naomi blinked. “I’ve never cooked with artichokes before,” she said, picking one up. It was heavier than she expected, and such a beautiful green, like a faded emerald.

  “Oh, it easy!” the woman said, picking up two and placing them in Naomi’s basket. She picked up another artichoke and held it up for Naomi to see. “You slice off thick leaves, see?” She bent back one of the leathery outer leaves. “Then put whole artichoke in water with lemon.”

  She turned the artichoke upside down and then spun to her left and snatched two lemons from a nearby stand. She put them in Naomi’s basket.

  “When soaked, you take two out.” She lifted two artichokes and pretended she was beating them against each other. Her eyes grew big and round. “You hit together to open up!” she said with a loud laugh. Some of the other shoppers looked over, smiling. “Then salt and pepper and fry in olive oil upside down. Push down so look like flowers, see?”

  She set down the artichokes and spread her fingers wide. “Like sunflowers! Put water on leaves when frying to make crunchy.” She kissed her closed fingers and grinned. “The best! You buy?”

  Naomi looked down at the artichokes and lemons in her basket. “Of course,” she answered, remembering the sunflowers Evelyn had told her about when she first described Italy and how wonderful it would be to come here. “I hope I can remember what you told me.”

  “You remember. I tell you again when you pay, yes?”

  Nodding, Naomi grabbed two more artichokes and put them in her basket. Maybe this going out thing wouldn’t be so hard, after all. Next, she found the bakery and bought a crusty loaf of bread. She would worry about finding a butcher later. It seemed there was no large supermarket nearby, but Jesse had said they were awful, anyway.

  “Thank you very much,” the man at the bakery said in thickly accented English as he dropped change into her open hand. He seemed accustomed to foreign-speaking customers. He had been able to spot Naomi as one even though she hadn’t said a word to him yet.

  “Thank you,” she answered, smiling as she left the shop with her arms full. The sun was shining and the sky was the exact color of blue she had always imagined it would be. For a moment, she stopped in her tracks and stared at it. Sapphires. She had dreamed about coming here for so long. Italy had been a simple idea when her kidnappers were deciding everything for her, but now she was making her own choices and she was choosing to live in a place that scared her so much she couldn’t walk down the street without trembling. It was all so new. It smelled different. It looked different. She didn’t know the customs or traditions, no matter how many things Jesse had told her. It was all new to him, as well. She could do this. She could be strong and push beyond her ugly past as she embraced something new. Even if it was frightening at first. People didn’t know about her past here.

  Taking a step forward, she continued up the road and around the corner to her and Jesse’s apartment. Her phone beeped in her back pocket as she pressed the buzzer for the door. She said her name into the intercom and the door clicked open. Lalia rushed across the room and helped her.

  “You go shopping today!” she said with a big grin, holding the door open. “What you make tonight?”

  “I’m not sure. What do you call artichokes shaped like sunflowers?” she asked, laughing.

  “Beautiful, beautiful!” Lalia cried, clapping her hands together. “You make carciofi alla guidia!”

  Naomi loved the way she spoke, how every syllable was pronounced so succinctly. “Yes, I guess so,” she laughed, and set her bags on a little bench near the door. “Phone,” she explained to Lalia, and pulled it out of her back pocket. For a moment her heart seemed to freeze in her chest.

  Incoming text from Finn Giachetti.

  Crap. Not now. She pushed the button to receive the text.

  Hey, did you move to Italy with Jesse? I haven’t seen you at Java. Is everything going okay? Please, please let me know if you’re okay.

  She stared at the words, her heartbeat rapid. Her parents were constantly in her thoughts, but she could handle that. Finn, however, was another story. Knowing he had reached out to her was like watching a bridge form across two continents—and it wasn’t a bridge she was ready to cross. She didn’t want to remember Finn’s caramel skin and that moment on the dance floor when she had felt free and open and more herself than at any other time in her life.

  “Naomi,” Lalia said, “you look hurt.”

  She looked up, forcing a smile. “Oh, it’s nothing. Thanks again for your help.” Gathering her bags, she rushed up the stairs and into the apartment. Her heart was still pounding, but she was sure it was from the climb up three flights of stairs instead of Finn’s text. She wouldn’t let it get to her. That part of her life was over. She would cook an Italian meal in her Italian kitchen with her Italian produce. She would forget Finn and Stacy and the smell of the beach.

  As she started slicing the leaves off the artichokes, she thought about her and Jesse’s plans for the weekend. They would go see the Colosseum and she would try her first gelato. For a moment, nothing felt real. She looked out the balcony doors to the apartment building across the street. It was unseasonably warm today. An older woman was hanging laundry on her part of the line, moving lazily. Naomi remembered the bedroom once again. There was the soft quilt on the bed, the clean smell of the sheets, and the shiny deadbolt on the door. And then Eric was undoing the lock and stepping inside. When she fell into his embrace, she breathed in the smell of him and held tightly to everything he represented. He was guilt and pain and suffering. He was loss and grief and the abuse she had never left behind.

  “You’ll stay?” he asked.

  She pulled away a fraction of an inch, her focus moving to the door behind him. He had closed it, but she knew what was on the other side—herself, set free, curled into a ball, helpless and alone. It was what she had always been, she realized. Even after she had escaped, she had moved from one prison to another, and it was all her own doing.

  Looking into Eric’s eyes, she knew there was n
o escape as long as she could remember what she had done to him and the others, and what they had done to her. The cuts ran too deep.

  “I’ll stay,” she said.

  WHEN JESSE came home, Naomi was on the couch facing the balcony doors. The lady’s laundry hanging on the line was swaying back and forth in a gentle breeze, reminding Naomi of seagulls on the horizon. She was aware Jesse had returned, but couldn’t tear her focus away from the laundry. Jesse would see dinner unfinished on the counter, half-prepared artichokes and sliced lemons, noodles draining in a colander in the sink. They were probably sticky and ruined by now.

  “You went shopping,” Jesse said, standing in the middle of the living room. She could feel him looking at her.

  “I did,” she whispered. “I made it out the door. I didn’t get lost.”

  “That’s great.” He came closer and knelt beside the couch. His head obstructed her view of the swaying clothes. She moved her attention to his face. He gently touched her shoulder. “What’s the matter? Are you still upset about me having to leave you every day? I thought you would be okay with this.”

  “I am,” she answered, the words coming out in a croak. “I’m ... this is all so new and I feel so alone.”

  “Alone? I’m here with you, even if I leave for a few hours. If you need me, you can call me on the landline down in the lobby. I wrote down my number for you. We’ll get you a cell phone soon, okay?”

  “Okay.” She closed her mouth and then opened it again to tell him about the phone she already had, but couldn’t force the words out. Instead, she moved her attention to the buttons on Jesse’s shirt. He dressed so nicely in clean, pressed clothes. She had ironed a few of his shirts already. She guessed she would be doing it a lot more, but it didn’t bother her. For a moment, she compared the way Jesse dressed to the rip in Finn’s jeans. She would see her parents again—someday, somehow— but what about Finn? And why did she care? He had Carly now, and she had Jesse. She wasn’t in love with Finn like she was with Jesse, but there was something about Finn, so casual and carefree and open, a splinter twisting into her heart.