“I yelled for her to sit down, but it was too late. When we tipped over I went under and the current started pulling me away from the canoe. When I finally pushed myself to the surface, Abbey was screaming my name. She was being pulled away by the current too.” He turns to me for the first time since telling me Abbey was dead and I see the terror and anguish in his tortured eyes.
“I tried. I tried to get to her. I kept swimming until my muscles were on fire, but I couldn’t reach her. Even though she had a life vest on, the water was freezing and she kept getting pulled away with the current. I kept yelling for her to swim. Keep swimming, Abbey!” he yells, like he’s back in the frigid, racing waters and she can hear him. “The last thing she said before she disappeared around a bend in the river was, ‘I can’t, Dak. I’m sorry.’ Christ. She was sorry. She was apologizing to me for not being able to fight the freezing water and current.”
His eyes are pleading with me now; pleading with me to say something to help him understand why or how this could have happened.
“Oh, Dak. I’m so sorry,” I whisper and stroke his arm. “But you know this wasn’t your fault, right?”
“There’s no question it was my fault. Abbey wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for me. She didn’t want to go. I insisted. I told her it would be fine and she thought I would be there for her, protect her and take care of her. But I fucking couldn’t. I was too weak.”
It’s like he can’t hold himself up and he slides off the bed onto the floor. He crosses his arms onto his knees and drops his head onto them. His shoulders are trembling and he’s gasping for air between sobs. I shift off the bed and join him on the floor.
“No. You tried. You did everything you could.” I try to comfort him with my hands, making small circles on his back, although at this point he’s so distraught he may be numb to my touch.
“Yeah. I did everything I could to pull myself onto the shore,” he sneers into his own arms. “My muscles felt like they were paralyzed from the cold, but I tried to run along the shoreline to see if I could find Abbey and pull her out. I couldn’t find her.” He shakes his head.
“Dak, it was—”
“They found her several hours later, downriver.” Dak finally looks up at me, his beautiful face and eyes swollen and red. “I stayed at the river to help search, even though the rescue team kept insisting I needed medical attention and should leave in the ambulance. There was no way I was leaving there without Abbey.”
His voice drifts off in a distant whisper. “I saw her when they pulled her out and laid her onshore. Her beautiful hair was tangled across her face and for a second the ridiculous thought crossed my mind that it wasn’t her. Can you fucking believe it? I tried to convince myself it wasn’t her.” His lips flatten into a tight line as he shakes his head and blows out a forced snigger.
“When they moved her hair off her face, she was so blue I almost couldn’t recognize her. And when they asked me to identify her, I…I threw up. Her big strong hero, the guy who was supposed to take care of her, threw up.” Still sitting on the floor, he drops his head back onto the mattress. Staring at the ceiling, he stretches his legs straight out in front of him on the floor and blows out another huge breath.
“You weren’t responsible for Abbey. She was an adult, able to make her own decisions, and she decided to go with you to the river.”
“She decided to go with me because she loved me and would’ve done anything I asked her to,” he says, not looking at me.
“I get that.”
Believe me, no one gets that kind of devotion better than me.
“Even so, it was her decision. It was an accident. You did your best to save her. You aren’t a superhero, you’re only human. You did everything humanly possible.” I push myself back up onto the bed and he turns his head to look at me.
“An accident. That’s what everyone keeps telling me.”
“Yes, but…”
“But what?” He pushes himself up and sits next to me on the bed. He’s looking at me with such anticipation, like I’ll speak some words of wisdom to make this all better. I want to. I want to say something to make it better.
“What if there are no accidents? What if things happen the way they’re supposed to happen? What if it was just Abbey’s time?”
“You mean Abbey was supposed to die?” he asks in wide-eyed disbelief.
“I think…it could be no matter what she did that day it was her time.”
“Like everything happens for a reason. Is that what you’re saying?” He smirks. “You don’t really believe that.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I do.”
“So everything that went down between you and Sean was supposed to happen?” He sneers, like he’s angry with me for suggesting Abbey’s death wasn’t his fault.
The suggestion takes me aback for a moment. I had never thought of it in those terms before. “I suppose so, because…if…if I hadn’t gone through what I did with Sean, I wouldn’t be here now and I…I would never have met you.”
He stares at me for a moment and then reaches over and takes my hand, lacing his fingers in mine.
“I’m glad you’re here, Trace. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Abbey last night, but I thought you’d already been through enough, talking about all the crap from your past. I wanted to give you some time. I’ve been trying to get past my feelings of guilt over what happened for three years. I don’t know if I ever will, but I know I want to. I’m glad we’re friends.” He stops talking and stares at me.
“Please don’t go. Please stay with me for a while. I promise I won’t touch you or bother you…just…please stay.”
He won’t touch me. I know. He made the vow of never touching me again perfectly clear last night. But can I make the same promise to him?
CHAPTER TWENTY
Dak
One of the things that always gets me about the show Outlander—yeah, I watch it on the DL. The guys would never let me live it down, even though it’s totally not just for chicks. There’re a lot of rugged fight scenes between all those Scottish dudes. Anyway, one of the things that always catches my attention is the vivid green of the open fields of grass where they film. It’s like the true green I used to color my drawings of grass when I was a kid. The same color of the vibrant green eyes staring at me right now. The eyes which were like a molten aphrodisiac the first time I gazed into them. Trace is staring at me with such intensity I think those eyes are piercing right through me and cleansing away all the black webs of guilt clinging to the recesses of my heart.
She’s the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time. I pray she doesn’t realize what I already know. She’s too good for me.
“Between the two of us we’re a big enough melodramatic shit show to deserve our own reality series don’t you think?” she purses her lips into a half smile and shrugs.
“I guess we are.” I return the smile. It’s incredible. With a few words, she’s able to bring me back to the here and now, pull me out of my tortured past, help me ease the heavy guilt burdening me.
I was scared she was going to think I was the biggest loser when she found out what happened to Abbey because of me. Instead, she’s telling me it’s not my fault. Maybe she’s right. It’s possible everything happens for reasons unknown to us. But even if she believes there are obscured forces in the world mapping our paths, I don’t know if she’ll want anything to do with me. This whole thing might be too much drama for her. She’s recovering from her own ‘shit show’ as she put it; she sure as hell doesn’t need to deal with mine. But despite my fear of her walking out of here and never wanting anything to do with me again, it feels like a colossal weight was lifted off my chest and I can breathe for the first time in a long while.
“I can’t let you weasel out of doing your share of this research report. I suppose I’ll have to stay for a while.” She gives me a little push against my chest and I grab her hand and hold it over my heart. She leaves her hand in mine a
nd keeps penetrating my soul with those doe eyes.
“We better get started before it gets any later.” She slips her hand from mine and picks up her backpack from the floor, pulls out her laptop and notebooks, and drops the bag next to the bed. “I can use my backup battery if we need it since the power’s still out.”
“I have an extra battery too. Let me get my laptop.” I jump off the bed to retrieve my computer and external battery from my desk.
“You sure you’re okay? We can work on this tomorrow if you want. We’ve got a few days. I’ll bring the samples in tomorrow and tell Clancy we’ll turn in the paperwork in a couple of days.”
“No. I’m good.” I swipe a hand across my face. Christ. I’ve never cried in front of a girl before. I never talked about any of this to a girl before either.
“Dak, I’m sorry about what I suggested last night. I understand now why you can’t help me out. Like you said, I don’t want it to be weird between us.”
“It’s cool. Nothing’s weird.” We’ve shared so much, and since she brought it up, I need to know what prompted her to make the outrageous request last night. “I’m a little confused why you had such a radical change of mind, though. And what do you mean ‘help you out?’” I sit next to her on the edge of the bed.
“Forget it. Sorry I brought it up. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me. What is it?”
“Nothing. There’s nothing.” She’s biting on her overworked bottom lip, again. I know she’s thinking hard about something.
“I would say the request you made was based on the dream-provoked…or should I say finger-provoked orgasm, but you made your proposition before the incredible incident even occurred. I heard your moans when I pumped my fingers inside you last night. But again, it was after you asked me to fuck you. So why did you change your mind?”
“Can you stop it with the blow by blow description already!” She puts her hands over her ears. The fifty shades of red creeping up her neck and face after I mentioned finger fucking her is the only proof I need to confirm Trace is not the type of girl to want, or ask for, a one-night stand.
“There. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You can’t even hear me talk about putting my fingers inside you, but all of a sudden you’re into a casual fuck like nothing matters. Why?”
“Never mind. Forget it, okay? Since when does a guy need to know the hidden meaning of life and love when a girl offers to fuck him no strings attached anyway?”
“Since the girl is you. What’s going on?” I reach out for her hand, but she backs away from me.
“I thought you said you wouldn’t bother me if I stayed with you. I’m going. We can finish the project tomorrow,” she snarls and stands up to leave, but this time I manage to grab her wrist. There’s no way she’s running out of here and leaving this bullshit hanging in the air between us again.
“We can finish it now. What aren’t you telling me? I opened up to you about some shit I never told anyone because I trust you like I’ve never trusted anyone. You obviously don’t trust me because I know there’s something you’re not telling me. What the fuck is going on?”
“I trust you. It’s why I asked you to…to…”
“To fuck you.”
“No. Why do you always put it like that?”
“How else should I put it? Isn’t that what you want? You want to get laid. You want me to fuck you. That’s what you’re saying, right?”
“No…well, yes. But…fine. You’re right. I didn’t exactly tell you everything last night. After…after Sean came to my apartment the last time…um…things kind of got worse.”
Oh fucking hell.
“How can they have gotten any worse?”
“Trust me. They did,” she whispers.
“Christ. How much more crap do we need to rehash tonight.”
“See? I told you. Never mind. I don’t want to talk about it and you don’t want to hear it.” She tries to pull her arm out of my grasp, but I pull her back to the bed.
“No. I want to hear it. I need to hear everything the prick did to you. Tell me what else happened and what’s going on with you.”
Although it sickens me to hear the levels of douchery the asshole put her through, I need to know and she needs to share all of it if she is ever going to move on from the pain. She says it was even worse than what she’s already shared. Once again, I’m consumed by the desire to beat the crap out of the motherfucker.
“Like I said, I was…crushed by what happened.” She blows out a long breath and hesitates before speaking again to tell me the worst part of the trauma she endured. “The whole thing was so surreal. I felt like I was walking around inside a nightmare. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t focus on schoolwork. A few days later when I went to skate practice because I thought skating would help take my mind off of everything, I see a bunch of the girls standing in the corner of the locker room all focused on the screen of a cell phone. They’re all giggling and pointing and making comments like ‘holy shit’ or ‘what a slut’ and other things. When they see me they get quiet, their cackling becomes snickers and their loud comments become whispers. When I ask them what they’re looking at, they snicker again and walk out of the locker room. I didn’t know what was going on. A few seconds later one of the girls I hung out with from the team comes back in the locker room and pulls out her cell phone. She says, ‘Holy shit, Tracey, what were you thinking letting them take pictures?’
“I asked her what she was talking about, and let who take pictures? I had no idea what she was talking about. She holds her phone out for me to see. I looked at the screen, but there was no way I could be seeing what I was seeing. It was a picture of me naked on Sean’s bed, with Sean on top of me. You couldn’t see the face of the other guy, but you could see him naked from the waist down, standing next to the bed. Kyle had managed to take a picture showing enough to make it appear to be the two of them having sex with me. She asked if it was me, but she knew. My face was crystal clear on the screen. I ran into the nearest stall and threw up.”
Fuck.
Bile begins churning in my stomach and it feels like it’s about to flame out of my eyes. If those assholes were standing in front of me right now I’d rip both their heads off and spit down their necks.
“Christ. Trace…”
“It was pretty bad.” She shrugs, like it’s taking everything she has to keep going. “I sent Sean a text and told him I had to see him right away, told him to meet me at the quad. He didn’t answer. So I threatened to out him and Kyle to get him to answer. He answered in about five seconds, said he would meet me in ten minutes. When I saw him after not seeing him for several days I didn’t know if I wanted to kick him in the balls or hug him.”
“Hug him? Are you fucking kidding me? You should’ve cut his balls off, never mind kicking him. Why the fuck would you want to hug him?”
She went through a different kind of hell than me, but it was hell nevertheless. I’m so angry I can’t manage to be sweet and understanding. I feel like I can spit nails at the two dickholes who took advantage of her. My thoughts are back to beating, murdering, slashing.
“I know. So dumb.”
“Fuck that noise. You weren’t dumb. You just—”
“I was dumb. Even after everything he did, I missed him. We were together for a year. I couldn’t believe that was how it was supposed to end. I confronted him with the picture posted on the university’s social media site. He claimed he knew Kyle was taking the picture. They had discussed using the night and the photo as some kind of insurance. But he swore he didn’t know Kyle was going to post it, not unless he had to.
“I asked him why he would do such an awful thing, because I still didn’t get it. If they were so into each other why didn’t they just go their merry way and leave me out of it? He said Kyle thought guys on the team were getting suspicious and they needed some kind of proof they weren’t having a relation
ship. The night with me and the photo was supposed to be their proof. Kyle decided to post the picture in case I said anything about the night with them. If he posted the picture, it would look like they were two macho football dudes fucking the same girl.
“Kyle figured if I said anything after the picture was out there, everyone would think I was trying to cover for sleeping with both of them and they would believe the star football players on campus rather than me. I knew he was right. No one would take my side over theirs.” Her gaze drops to the floor and she shakes her head, like she still can’t process what happened.
“I told Sean if I ever meant anything to him he would make Kyle take down the post. Sean stood there staring down at the ground. He couldn’t even look at me. He said he tried to get him to take it down, but Kyle said none of their teammates would want anything to do with them if they found out about their relationship and they might even be thrown off the team. He convinced Sean the picture was their insurance no one would ever question their relationship. That’s when I knew. It took that one final, awful jolt for me to realize Sean never felt anything for me.” She looks up at me again and brushes one lone tear off her face.
“It was only a horrible game of pretend, a cover-up. In the end, the university got the photo taken down, but enough people had already seen it. My life on campus or on the skating team was never the same. I kept spiraling down into a pit of depression until my parents finally insisted I drop out of school for a semester to get myself together. I was basically like a walking zombie. My heart had been ripped out of my chest and stomped on.”
She sighs and the desperate sound pierces my heart.
“It wasn’t any better at home. I couldn’t stop thinking about Sean and how naïve I’d been. I couldn’t stop the depression or the pain. One afternoon when everyone else was out I went into my mom’s bathroom, found her bottles of sleeping pills and painkillers and…and…” Her breath catches and she’s blinking rapidly again and I can tell she’s fighting back tears.
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