by Rye Hart
I took a step back and watched her before I headed back to the kitchen.
The washer was going and we were on the couch eating breakfast. One of the things I really enjoyed about Whitney was that the silence with her was comfortable. There was no need to talk to justify the time I was spending with her. The sun was beating down onto the snow and I could already see it dripping from the gutters of the cabin.
At this rate, half the snow that dumped onto us would be gone by tomorrow.
I gathered up our dirty dishes as Whitney traipsed back down the hallway. I could hear her fiddling with the dryer while I rinsed all the dishes and she started it up just as I made my way to my room.
“Let me put on some decent clothes and we’ll head out,” I said.
“All I gotta do is slip on shoes,” she said. “If that’s okay.”
“Unless you wanna go shooting guns naked, that outfit’s just fine,” I said, grinning.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
I held her gaze for a spell before I broke it, sliding into my room and getting changed.
By the time I emerged, Whitney was standing by the door. I could tell she was excited and anxious at the same time. I held my shotgun in my hand while I stuffed my pockets with ammunition and, the moment her eyes connected with mine, they lit up with anticipation.
“Ready to learn how to shoot a gun?” I asked.
“You’re starting me off on that thing?” she asked.
“I don’t have anything smaller,” I said. “But don’t worry. The kickback isn’t actually that bad if you hold the gun right. I’ll teach you.”
I slipped on a coat before I handed her a sweatshirt. Then we left the cabin and started for the backyard. I walked us a bit into the woods before we came to a clearing where I’d set up my own targets to practice on
“Okay, first, you have to hold the gun properly,” I said.
I handed it to her and watched how she naturally held it before I stepped behind her and started correcting her posture.
“You want the butt of the gun to lay right in the crook of your arm. Let the excess meat on your chest settle against the side of the gun.”
She giggled and shook her head and I grinned at her reaction.
“Hold your trigger hand like so. Then support the gauge of the gun with your other hand like this.”
I maneuvered her hands and fingers to where they needed to be so she could get a feel for what a gun felt like in her hands. I stepped back and let her point it at a couple of things so she could get used to the weight of the gun in her hands. Then, it was time for me to direct her on how to aim.
“Aiming down the sight of a gun gets a little trickier because everyone sees things a bit differently. Some people have to close one eye or the other, depending on how good their vision is, while others can keep both eyes open and sight a target just fine. But I want you to look down the barrel of the gun right here and tell me what you see.”
I helped her to align her head but, already, I could feel her arms shaking.
“This gun’s a lot heavier than it looks,” she said.
“You wanna take a rest?”
Even though she was beginning to tremble, she shook her head.
“Okay, what do you see down the end of that barrel?” I asked.
“I see the barrel but then there’s a mirror image. A picture of the gun that’s a bit fuzzier than the actual one.”
“Then close one eye and figure out which gun image is the one that’s less hazy.”
I watched her test it out until she figured out what I was talking about.
“That’s so weird,” she said. “Why does that happen?”
“It has to do with a lot of factors. Your vision. How far apart your eyes are. When you’re looking at an image, your eyes are coming at it from two different angles. Your brain fuses the two images together, calculates the average, then provides you with the picture you see now. But if anything gets distorted, then those two images split apart. The one that’s fuzzier is the image being interpreted by your less-dominant eye. That’s why you want to go with the one that’s not as fuzzy. Because that eye is going to be more reliable when it comes to aiming at a distance.”
She kept opening and closing one eye at a time as a grin spread across her cheeks.
“Too cool,” she said.
She finally allowed her arms some rest and I took the gun from her. She shook her arms out while I loaded two shots into the gun and, when she was ready, I handed it back to her.
“The safety’s on, for now, so just get yourself back into the setup you were in before,” I said.
I watched her get into position and I corrected a couple of things before I toggled the safety.
“Okay. Close your non-dominant eye and aim the barrel of the gun just below the target.”
“Just below?” she asked.
“Yep. Just trust me. Whenever you’re ready.”
I watched her take a deep breath before she pulled the trigger and the loud shot that rang out caused me to jump. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before I heard Whitney cock the shotgun. Then, the second shot rang out before she dropped the gun from her shoulder.
I could feel the tremble starting at my fingertips while she cheered herself on.
“How was that?” she asked.
I opened my eyes and looked at the target. The shot was pretty scattered but that was to be expected. She hit the target right where I thought she would, which meant her aiming was pretty good for someone who’d never shot a gun before.
I looked over at her smiling face, her eyes anxious for what I had to tell her.
“Your aim’s actually pretty good and you cocked that gun like a pro,” I said.
“I’ve seen that done in movies,” she said. “I knew nothing else about this thing.”
“Let me reload it and we can go again,” I said.
I reloaded the gun and she popped off two more shots. One was a bit high and the other was still a bit low, but I just kept trying to encourage her. Even though I could feel the panic rising, I wanted to try and stay out here long enough for her to at least hit the middle of the target once.
I just had to keep a lid on it until then.
I’d shot my rifle to hunt and I shot my shotgun into the air once to clear a bear off my property, but there was something different about another person shooting a gun off so close to me. I wasn’t in control of it and that bothered me. I wasn’t the one holding the gun and wielding it and I could feel the sweat prickling the back of my neck. Whitney shot off two more shots. One was still low, but the next one hit as close to the middle of the target as she’d come yet.
And that was just going to have to be good enough.
“Look, Liam,” she said, smiling. “I almost got that one.”
I nodded and smiled before I took the gun from her hands.
“Your arms are trembling pretty badly and that’s a bad thing when holding a gun,” I said.
I watched the smile slowly slip from her face but she didn’t question it.
I gripped the gun hard as we started back for the cabin. We walked in silence as the wind kicked up and dried the sweat off the back of my neck. I could tell Whitney knew something was wrong but I was trying to conceal it as best as I could.
There was a massive part of me that wanted to talk about it with her but there was another part of me that kept telling me I hardly knew this woman.
“Everything okay, Liam?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m just worried about the weakness in your arms. If you dropped that gun after shooting it, someone could’ve gotten hurt.”
I reached for the cabin door but I felt her hand come up and rest on my forearm.
“Are you sure?”
Her eyes were prodding me and I almost caved. I almost scooped her up into my arms and spilled everything to her. About the deployment. About the capture. About how much of a coward I really was.
But, i
nstead, I nodded my head and plastered a smile on my face.
“Yep, sure am,” I said.
She sighed, resigning herself to my answer before we both walked back in. I made sure the gun was empty before I put the safety on. Then I walked it back into my room and placed it in my closet. Whitney made her way over to the dryer and started tugging clothes out, folding them and putting them on my bed before she made her way out into the living room.
Only this time, the silence was uncomfortable and I cursed myself for ruining what was supposed to be a perfect day.
CHAPTER 20
WHITNEY
I knew something was wrong and it had to do with the guns. It had to do with those nightmares and his Navy days. I knew it was all connected. I just had no idea how. His Purple Heart. The gunshots bothering him. The nightmare he had that night. Something had happened to him during his time in the military. Something terrible that had forever imprinted itself onto his mind.
I wanted him to know he could talk to me if he wanted. I wanted him to know that I wouldn’t judge him for anything that might’ve happened. Anything he felt he might’ve done or anything that might’ve been done to him.
But the only way I knew to make him comfortable about opening up was by opening up myself.
I stood in the kitchen in nothing but his flannel shirt and some socks as I cooked dinner. Rice and beans was a simple dinner I’d learned to make from my grandmother at a young age. She always knew how to do it right. A little bit of butter, cayenne pepper, and red pepper flakes went into the rice to cook as she soaked and boiled the beans with six strips of bacon. By the time dinner was done, the smells rolling around in the kitchen were making me salivate.
“Liam?” I asked.
“Yeah?”
“Want some toast to go with dinner?” I asked. “There isn’t really anything that has a crunch.”
“Sounds good to me.”
I could tell he was still far away, off in his mind and losing himself in his thoughts. I threw some bread into a little toaster oven he had sitting on the counter. Then, I started setting the table.
And all the while, Liam was simply staring into the fire.
“I don’t know where my parents are,” I said.
I heard the couch creak and, as I looked out the window, I could see his reflection on the couch, staring at me.
I had his attention and I could feel my hands already beginning to shake.
“They left me with my best friend Gwen and her family when I was in high school,” I said.
“Why?” he asked.
I drew a deep breath through my nose before I settled myself into the story of my childhood.
“I had a wonderful childhood,” I said. “We weren’t well-off by any means but we got by. My father taught me how to be frugal. How to rub two quarters together and make a dollar. Gwen always teases me about how cheap I can sometimes be.”
I allowed a small giggle to leave my lips before I felt tears brewing behind my eyes.
“But then my father lost his job and it was hard. We tried everything we could to pay our rent but, eventually, we found ourselves on the street.”
I heard Liam get up off the couch and slowly walk his way toward me.
“It was hard,” I said. “I was just starting high school and sleeping in a homeless shelter. Mom was begging on the streets for money while Dad was applying for every job he could possibly find.”
I felt the heat of Liam’s body at my back as I started scooping up rice and beans into the bowls I’d found.
“Eventually, I broke down to Gwen about what was happening and her family took us in. It was the most gracious thing anyone had ever done for me but I knew it could only be temporary. Her parents were well-off but supporting another family is hard.”
“I can’t even imagine,” he said.
“Dad kept applying for all these jobs. Any job he could find, anywhere in the country. He applied in Florida and the Dakotas. He applied to jobs in California and Texas. Anywhere that had an opening for anything he felt he was qualified to do, he applied.”
I felt Liam’s hand come up to my waist but I stepped out from underneath his touch and took the bowls to the small kitchen table.
“Could you grab us some glasses of tea?” I asked breathlessly.
“Sure,” he said.
I could feel his eyes on me and I suddenly felt exposed. I was worried about what he would think of me now. Would he look at me with pity? This wasn’t how today was supposed to go. This was my last day with him and all I’d wanted was to be in his presence and drink him up as much as I could.
Before I had to leave and let him go.
I sat down at the table while Liam brought our glasses and it wasn’t until he sat in front of me that I felt like I could continue.
“My father finally got a call back from a job and started the interview process. My mother was so excited for him. But it was a world away. The Dakotas, to be exact. And it made me angry.”
I drew in a deep breath before my mouth began to run away from me.
“It spurred all these yelling matches. Dad took the job and Mom was calling me ungrateful. I kept telling them I wanted to stay with my friends. That I didn’t want to move with them. The arguments got ugly and we all said things I knew we’d regret. In the end, Gwen’s parents suggested I stay with them and finish out my high school years. I was practically bouncing off the walls with happiness. At first, my parents turned it down but, eventually, they caved and I lived with Gwen and her family until we graduated.”
“What happened to your family, Whitney?”
I closed my eyes and drew in a shaky breath before I grabbed my spoon and started playing with my food.
“I don’t know. I just… never heard from them. I was so wrapped up in high school and being a teenager and hanging out with my best friend that it never really occurred to me that they never called. I heard from them when they arrived safely and that was it.”
“They just… didn’t contact you?” Liam asked
“It’s insane, right? I didn’t even realize how insane it was until I began law school. The only thing I can really come up with is that they felt guilty.”
“For what?” he asked.
“For not being able to provide for me the life they felt Gwen’s family could. Maybe they didn’t come soaring back into my life because they felt Gwen’s family could somehow give me something they couldn’t. Like a mother giving her child up for adoption because she knows she can’t take care of it or something like that.”
I finally took a small bite of the food in front of me but, somehow, it didn’t quite taste right. I felt like every single one of my senses were dulling. Liam’s voice seemed far away and it felt like my feet were floating off the floor. We sat in silence as I choked back my tears and, eventually, Liam was the one that broke the silence.
“I’m so sorry, Whitney.”
“It is what it is,” I said.
“I couldn’t imagine doing that to my own child,” he said. “I never would.”
“I just keep telling myself it’s what they thought was best for whatever reason. Have you ever done something fucked up because you thought it was for all the right reasons?”
I watched him freeze and I immediately regretted my words.
We ate in silence for a little while longer and, soon, my bowl was empty. I was swallowing down the last sip of my tea while Liam picked up my bowl, taking it to the sink with his and dumping them in their rightful place.
“What are you going to do tomorrow?” he asked.
I saw him hunch over the sink, propping his hands up on the edge while he bowed his head.
“Go back to the resort, I guess. Get out of your hair.”
I watched him shake his head.
“Get out of my hair,” he said.
“You don’t want me to leave?” I asked.
But all I got in return was silence.
“Liam?” I asked.
“
Yes?”
“Would you like to come spend a couple of nights with me at the resort?”
I watched him slowly turn around until his eyes connected with mine.
“With you,” he said.
“With me. The cabin’s a studio cabin, sort of like this one. But I stocked it with food before I went on my fun little ankle-breaking adventure. There’s only one bed but I figured, based on last night, that might not be an issue for us.”
I watched a small grin creep across his cheeks as the tension in the room alleviated. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t going to open up to me and it didn’t matter that I had the capability of leaving tomorrow. All I knew was that I felt better telling someone else about what happened to me and I wasn’t ready to let Liam go.
Not if I was still going to be in the area for at least two more weeks.
“I think I’d like that,” he said.
“So, you’ll come back with me?” I asked.
“I’ll even pack clothes so I don’t have to wear yours,” he said, grinning.
“You know you like me in your clothes,” I said.
There was an expression that rolled across his face before he turned back to the sink.
“Thank you for opening up to me,” he said.
“Thank you for listening.”
I felt much better about going back tomorrow now. I’d be able to spend a little more time with him, and maybe I could finally get him to open up to me. It felt good, talking to him about what happened. He didn’t try to offer any advice and he didn’t try to ease my mind about the situation. He merely sat, listened, and took everything in.
It was refreshing and I wanted the ability to give him the same in return.
“When you pack,” I said as I stood from the table. “Pack a bathing suit.”
“A bathing suit?” he asked.
“Yep,” I said. “There’s a clubhouse on the grounds with multiple hot tubs. Figured we could use one of them sometime.”