by Kent, Julia
His eyes widen for a brief moment before the calm expression slips back in place.
Finally evoking a reaction gives me a small sense of satisfaction. I know he’ll never be able to trust me around his bar again, and he shouldn’t have in the first place, but at least something I said seemed to fucking matter.
“No, they didn’t tell me that, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything.”
“Dammit, Arion, it changes everything. You’ve changed everything! What do I have to say to get you to see that I’m no good for you, not right now? I’m a fucked-up mess, but you made me want to be better. Except now…”
“Now what?” Panic seizes his face, and I know he finally realizes just what he’s lost. Again.
“How can I trust you, knowing you had someone look into me?” Visions of Nick having me followed, checking my purse, accusing me of something every time I came home come to mind.
“I did it for us!” He sags against the door jam, looking as broken as I feel.
“Well you may have ruined us in the process! I can’t do this. Either take me to the farm or let me go, and I’ll figure something else out, but I’m done here.”
Thirty Three
Angel
We’re in his truck, and this time I’m grateful for the center console. It’s only a fraction of the space I need. But while I may not have space in my heart or my head, there is space all around us. We’ve left the city behind, and if I wasn’t drowning in misery, I’d be awestruck.
Everything but the road itself is green. Like, really, really green. The rolling hills, the towering trees that gather in abundance, even most of the road signs.
And the things that aren’t green are white or black. Endless wooden fences line pastures surrounding sprawling barns and winding driveways. Who knew that to find paradise, you only had to travel as far as Pennsylvania? I’m not even sure that I mind the rain anymore; it certainly matches my mood. Heavy drops fall from the leaves and branches creak around us, noticeable over the quiet hum of Arion’s radio.
He hasn’t said a word to me since we left his apartment. As soon as I said I was done, he quit fighting, and I think he may have quit me.
I can see all the bad choices I’ve made that have led me and Arion to this moment, but just like with Nick, I can’t see a way out. Even if I wanted to make a move toward Arion right now, I couldn’t, because Nick’s memories stubbornly drag me away.
I finally have no tears left, after crying all night—my first night at Nick’s as his live-in girlfriend. Instead of a romantic dinner and maybe our first time having sex, he crushed my phone, my computer, and my heart. At first, I thought he was going to break the door to his room down as he screamed for me to unlock it. Tears streaked my face as I lay there, trying to summon the courage to face him.
At last it grew quiet. Too quiet. I didn’t even have my sobs left for company, I was all cried out.
Now I’m up, looking for him or escape, I’m not really sure. I’ve convinced myself that my mind has warped last night into something it wasn’t, but I think I need some space. I can’t find my purse, which has my keys, so I’ll find him and ask if he moved them. I’m going to apologize and tell him I’m going to go to my mom’s for a few days while I sort everything out.
A large unattached garage behind the house has been converted into a workshop where Nick and some of his buddies work on cars. I’ve never been in there, because it sounded private when he talked about it. But I can’t find him in the house and his car is still out front, so that must be where he is.
The Tucson sun burns down from above, urging me back inside, but of course I don’t listen. The door to the workshop is closed and muffled voices drift out.
“Nick?” I raise my hand and knock.
There’s no answer, but the voices inside cease.
I tell myself I’m being silly; supposedly I live here now, I don’t need permission to go in.
When I turn the knob, I dissolve any chance I might have had to walk away. A square-built man in a TPD uniform jerks toward the doorway, all but foaming at the mouth as he snarls, “What’s she doing here, Nicky?”
“It’s fine, don’t worry about her.” Nick glares as he starts toward me.
I want to run, but my feet are heavy, glued in place by sticky terror.
“I’m not going down for your little girlfriend. If you want my protection, I’ve got to have assurances that we aren’t about to crash and burn together if the two of you have a little lovers’ spat. Maybe she’d be willing to talk.”
I’m not entirely sure if his last words are a question, a warning or both. I can’t quite tell, but I know I don’t like them and I don’t like him.
Nick’s arm slips around my waist, guiding me into the workshop. My eyes focus on the bag of powder in the cop’s hand then on the wad of cash Nick is slipping into his pocket. “Tell him, Tess. You love me, and you’d never rat us out, right?”
“Of course,” I stammer. “I didn’t see anything. I-I’ll just go back inside.” I try to turn, no longer caring about my purse or keys. I’ll run to the pay phone down the street and call my mom to come get me.
Nick’s fingers dig into me, and I yelp.
The cop is shaking his head. “She don’t look so sure.”
“Tell Officer Lopez that you aren’t going anywhere. That you know if you leave or betray us in anyway, you know we’ll be forced to eliminate the risk you present. Go on, Tess. Tell him like a good girl.”
I wonder how I ever thought Nick loved me as I nod my head. “I won’t tell. I’m not going anywhere.”
I keep my eyes turned out the window so Arion won’t see the tears pooled in my eyes. Is any guy ever what they seem? For a little while, I was starting to believe Arion and I could have something different, something real. But then the door opened and the truth stepped into the room.
Everything Arion has done is just another form of trying to keep me here. He’s as much my captor as Nick was, but at least Nick was honest about it. Arion went behind my back to find out my secrets so he could use the truth to keep me with him. I don’t know if it gets much lower than that.
It wasn’t long after I discovered what was really going on in the workshop that Nick said Officer Lopez still wasn’t satisfied, and they wanted me to start participating to make sure I was fully invested in keeping their secret. My job became to distribute some of the product they brought over from Mexico to a few customers who would approach me while I was working at the cafe. Nick didn’t deal in street-level sales; instead he was a midpoint between the cartels in Mexico and the dealers on the street.
My part was simple enough that I couldn’t screw it up, but involved enough to ensure I couldn’t feign innocence. Each week, Nick would give me a series of packets and a stack of fake mail to load the packets into. Then I took the mail to work, and his ‘brothers’ would show up, asking if any mail had been forwarded to Nick’s place for them. I’d hand it over, and they’d leave with an empty promise to update their address with the post office.
End of story and end of my innocence.
When I got fired from the cafe, I thought maybe it would be a blessing in disguise, but he just found new places for me to make my deliveries, and they were far worse than the cafe.
I risk a glance over at Arion. He’s staring straight ahead, and I desperately wish he could see that I’m trying to look ahead, too. To a better chance for us.
Thirty Four
Arion
She’s done.
Her words are on repeat through my mind, the chorus to the track of, “You fucked up.” But if she’s done, I have to be, too.
Every now and then I glance at her out of the corner of my eye, but she doesn’t move; she just keeps staring out the truck window. The roads are slick with rain, and I use the excuse that I need to pay attention to the road to try to convince myself to pretend she isn’t there. Because soon she won’t be. It’s time for me just to accept it.
Sh
e’s done.
Mud and rocks torment my tires as we slosh up the driveway of Chadwell Farm. The pastures lining both sides of the long drive are deserted; all the horses have been kept in out of the rain. If any of them slipped and broke a leg in the mud, it could set the farm back more money than most people make in a year.
Her silence screams at me as I turn off the truck in front of the sprawling two-story farmhouse. If she’s not going to talk to me, then so be it. I’m sure as hell not going to put myself out there just to have her toss my words back in my face. Despite what she thinks, I didn’t hire Kevin to check into her past to hurt her—I did it to spare her. I could see that talking about it hurt her, but without knowing what I was dealing with, I didn’t know how to protect her.
Might as well get this over. I open the door and surrender to the rain. She climbs out, keeping her head tucked to her chest, and follows me to the door. Her suitcase in my hand is a heavy reminder, and I just pray I can get out of here before I break down. A wraparound porch with wooden railings offers respite from the rain but not from my thoughts. The humidity is curling up her hair beneath her hood, and I have the momentary urge to push it back off her forehead and kiss her in a way that would leave her no doubt about how I feel. But I don’t, because I don’t think it’s a lack of her knowing how I feel—I think it may be the fact that she does. She’s running scared, not trusting herself or me, and if only she’d run to me instead of away from me, we’d be all right. But she’s not, and I can’t keep offering myself to a girl who is constantly running away from me.
As soon as I shut the door behind her, a little bundle of brown and white fur barrels down the grand staircase in the foyer, and I brace myself for Molly to launch herself into my arms. Except she doesn’t. Instead, she leaps up against Angel’s long, slender legs and immediately begins to lick her offered hand.
Fucking mutt. Even she isn’t on my side. “That’s Molly.” Molly is technically my dog, but she’s happier out here at the farm than in my apartment in the city, so she stays here most of the time where she has space to be herself. So why can’t you give Angel the same courtesy you show the dog? Is Molly any less yours because she’s here?
I try to push that thought away, because it isn’t one I want to harbor for long or else I might start turning my anger at myself instead of at Angel. And it’s so much easier to be mad at Angel.
“Molly’s adorable.” Angel laughs between the dog’s frantic kisses. Even as angry as I am, her laugh still tugs at my heart, but it’s bittersweet.
“Don’t tell her too much; it might go to her head.” I reclaim Angel’s suitcase from where I dropped it when I heard Molly coming and start up the stairs. I pass by the closed door of my bedroom—I was going to put her in there, but I’ve changed my mind—and into the guest room at the end of the hall. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep at night if I have to lie there and imagine Angel here, alone in my bed.
Who am I kidding? I’m not going to be able to sleep anyway. Her suitcase plunks onto the hardwood floors with more force than necessary—but not enough force to make me feel better—and I spin toward the door. I’m suffocating, and I’ve got to get away from here before I completely fucking lose it.
“Arion.” Angel reaches out, lightly resting her fingers on my arm as I brush by her, back into the hall—now free of her suitcase but not free of the pain gnawing at my insides as I think about her not coming home with me.
I don’t want her sympathy; she’s the one who’s doing this to me in the first fucking place. “Come on, I’ll show you the barn before I go. Don’t forget to water the plants in the kitchen, and Molly’s food is in the garage.” I know my tone is needlessly harsh, but so was her choice.
Her hand falls away, and her lips press into a thin line. “Okay,” she says in a small, resigned voice.
My heart hardens, trying to shut out the thought that this is hurting her, too. She chose this. It didn’t have to be this way. The walk to the barn is miserable—not from the punishing rain but from my stubborn refusal to talk to her about what we’re doing and why. I try to make my resolve to be as indifferent and as hard as the matching stone foundation that decorates the base of the house and barn.
My dad redid all of the interior and exterior finishes on the property after my mom left, as if he was trying to erase any sign of what they’d built together. I think I finally understand, because so help me God, if I could erase the ache that Angel’s injected into my heart by doing a bit of remodeling, I would.
The door to the main barn glides on a track, revealing both the entry to the hay loft above and the concrete aisle lined with forty stalls below. We no longer keep the hay in here for fear of fire—it’s in a smaller barn several yards away—but the sweet smell of alfalfa lingers in the air from horses munching in their stalls.
Alexis is walking a bay mare up and down the stable aisle, letting her stretch her legs. I can’t recall a time when Alexis wasn’t hanging around the farm. First she was just the horse-crazy kid from down the road, and then eventually we let her start mucking stalls in exchange for the chance to exercise a few of the calmer horses. Now she does pretty much everything. I don’t think she’s ever met a horse that intimidates her. Or a guy that does, either, for that matter. No matter how they try, she won’t give most of them the time of day, but they continue to try. She’s no longer the gawky kid; instead she’s become a slender, long-legged beauty with pale blue eyes and wheat-blonde hair. I’ve already had to scare away a few guys, and I imagine I’ll have to scare away a few more.
The horse tosses her head, skittering with nervous energy. They stop before us, and I gesture between the two girls.
“Angel, this is Alexis, one of our employees. Dennis is off today, but he’ll be in tomorrow. You’ll be reporting to him here in the barn.”
“Call me Lexi,” Alexis chirps, extending a hand to Angel. “And this gorgeous girl is Sable, or at least that’s what we call her around here.”
I can’t help but smiling, at least a little bit. I forgot Alexis decided that Alexis was too grown up and instead dubbed herself ‘Lexi.’ She might as well have decided to call herself Trouble. But in a good, cute, little-sister way.
Lexi tells us she was just about to shut up the barn for the evening; she’s done walking out all the horses, and since there is no turnout to do, she’s going home. She reminds Angel that there’s an alarm that monitors the temperature and the fans in the barn, and it will sound inside the main house if there’s a problem. Emergency numbers are listed by the phone, organized in the order in which she should call them.
Angel seems to take it all in, but she keeps darting worried glances in my direction. Lexi leaves, and I walk Angel back to the porch. We stand facing each other for a long, weighted moment, and part of me is praying she will say something to change what I’m about to do. When it’s obvious she isn’t going to, I cup both my hands behind her head, lean down and briefly touch my lips to her forehead, and then turn and walk away.
I can’t bring myself to utter the words that are lodged in my throat, but I know she feels them all the same.
The little sob she chokes out nearly shatters me and my step falters, but still she doesn’t call out to me and that’s all the confirmation I need.
Goodbye, Angel.
Thirty Five
Arion
The road blurs behind hot tears, but somehow I make it back to my apartment in one piece. Physically, anyway. Every stoplight was like an annoying devil on my shoulder asking me if I was really sure I didn’t want to turn around and be tortured a little more. After having her in my apartment for a week, the absence of her hits me the moment I walk through the door.
The Keurig I bought her sits abandoned on my counter, and I have an immense urge to shove it off and let it shatter into a million pieces. Somewhere in the grown-up part of my mind, I know that isn’t appropriate, and I haven’t forgotten how much I scared her the last time I rampaged around my apartment.
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br /> But she isn’t here to be frightened.
She isn’t here to be frightened because I let her go. But it isn’t like I could force her to stay. I’m not a little kid anymore, and I’ve learned if someone wants to go, there’s no stopping them. It’s been years since I thought about my mom. Like really thought about her. Most of the time, I try not to, but today has brought her back front and center. I’m done. Angel’s words pushed play on a memory I’d worked so hard to unrecord.
My mom stands in the long galley kitchen, her hand braced against the counter, and she shakes her head at my dad. She doesn’t know I’m hiding behind the staircase, watching.
“I’m sorry, Tucker, I just can’t do it anymore. I’m done.” She sounds tired, and to my five-year-old mind, I think someone should tell her she needs a nap. That’s what everyone tells me when I get tired or cranky.
Dad sounds tired, too, but his is more of an angry tired. “You don’t mean that, Joyce. Don’t be melodramatic.”
“Melodramatic?” Mom screeches in the same tone she uses when she says, ‘Axel Joseph Chadwell.’ Daddy must be in big trouble, I wonder if he broke one of his toys. “Finding out from the girls at the club that you’ve been sleeping around—again—and being upset is not melodramatic.”
I guess Daddy fell asleep in the recliner again or in his office. He does that a lot. Usually, Mommy says it is because he works all the time. But I guess this time she’s tired of him sleeping around the house, instead of in their bed.
“I’m going home for a few weeks, and then we’ll see. I need space. I told my mother to expect me in the morning.”
“That’s right, run home to Mommy. Why would I expect any different. Maybe if you could disconnect yourself from your mother half an inch, I wouldn’t be looking elsewhere.”