Outsiders

by Lynn Ames

  She studies my face, searching for clarity. Her eyes narrow just a touch, then open a little wider as she puts the pieces into place. “You said he’d never bother me again.”

  “That’s right. He won’t.”

  “Never?”

  “Never.”

  “Is he…dead?”

  I hold her gaze for several seconds. I can feel her probing mine for the answer. “He will never bother you again, Rebecca. I promise you that. He will neverbother you again.”

  Tears well up in her eyes, and she lets out a little whimper-gasp. “Oh, my God,” she whispers. “Oh, my God. It’s over? It’s really over?”

  “It’s really over.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  A combination of near-disbelief and utter relief takes up residence on her face, an uncertain smile topping off the expression. I’ve seen it before on other women, on Hayley. It’s beautiful, and it makes every doubt that plagued me earlier absolutely worthwhile.

  It takes a few minutes for belief to settle in completely, but I know when it does because Rebecca Cassidy is suddenly in my arms, great wracking sobs of relief tearing out of her body.

  “Thank you,” she says in my ear with such emotion that I feel the surprise of a lump in my throat. “Thank you, thank you, thank you…”

  I hold her tightly, relishing the moment, and in that snapshot of time, I don’t care what anybody says or how harshly you might judge what I do. For Rebecca Cassidy, the balance has been restored, and for that, I am proud.

  Chapter Ten

  I open my eyes and squint in the pre-dawn gray of the bedroom. A smile spreads its way across my face as I realize I slept all the way through the night. No two o’clock wake-up. No nightmares. No flashbacks. I release a deep, relieved sigh. It’s been six weeks since my return from North Carolina, and last night was the first night my sleep hasn’t been disrupted by my guilt.

  Don’t misunderstand. I’m not asking for or expecting your sympathy. I know that I walk a very fine line of ethics and morals and right and wrong. But until I—or you, for that matter—can come up with a better way to help the women I help and save the women I save, I do the best I can. If it takes my sleep, my appetite, my sanity, so be it. The balance must be kept. Of that, I am certain.

  Hayley stirs next to me and opens her eyes.

  “Why are you awake?” she mutters.

  “Because I slept,” I tell her. She gets it immediately and grins at me.

  “That’s great babe. No scary dreams?”

  “Not a one.”

  She snuggles close to me, her gaze focusing beyond my body. “We’ve got another one.”

  “I know.” I’ve sensed the presence of the name on the nightstand since I opened my eyes, but I wanted to savor the peace and warmth of our bed for just a little while longer.

  “Have you looked?” Hayley asks.

  “Not yet.” Her naked heat presses against me, and I revel in it. Both of us drift along in that luscious, warm, half-asleep haze for several long moments. Hayley’s patience runs out first.

  “Okay, let’s look.” She stretches across my torso—I nip at her as she does, and am rewarded with a cute little squeak—and grabs at the paper. “Who have we got here? The winner is Candace Murphy of Poughkeepsie, New York. Candace Murphy, come on down!” She flops back onto the bed. “Your old stomping grounds, right? Honey?” She gets back up on an elbow and looks me in the face. “Norah? What’s wrong?”

  I can barely hear her. The sound of her voice has gone fuzzy, like she’s talking to me through wet gauze. I blink rapidly, squeeze my eyes shut, blink some more, trying to bring her into focus.

  “Norah. Norah.” She shakes me, and the fog suddenly lifts, as if it was never there, save for the acidic taste of bile in my mouth. “Are you all right? What the hell just happened?”

  “What—” I clear the fear from my throat and try again. “What was the name again?”

  She makes a show of reading carefully. “Candace Murphy in Poughkeepsie.” My expression is scaring her; I can tell by her expression. “Do you know her?”

  I nod slowly, not wanting to.

  “Who is she?” When I meet Hayley’s eyes, her voice softens to a frightened whisper. “Norah, who is Candace Murphy?”

  My voice is equally low as the reality hits me full force.

  “She’s my mother.”

  The End

  Triskelion

  By

  JD Glass

  There is a secret that no one knows, but everyone lives. There is more to us than the body, more to the mind, more to our emotions. There is above and below, and there is also without and within. And in the middle, there is something different. Therefore, things are never simply easy or hard, hot or cold, right or wrong. In that between place, there is a third state of being and it is in that state—the place that is neither completely one nor the other but shares the qualities of both—where we find balance.

  “Arigato,” I said into the mouthpiece, the sum total of the Japanese I’d absorbed in the last few months, and hung up the phone. I stared at it for a long second as it rested, charging in its cradle, before glancing up to see humor-filled eyes gazing back down at me.

  “Hey, Steph…you think this’ll work?” Bear asked me with a nervous grin.

  “It better,” I said fervently, not certain if I was hoping or praying. “If this doesn’t help, I don’t know what will.”

  Three years. It has been three years of working together and with them, learning each other and the personalities. Bear and I have been friends since high school, and we both were in Nina’s first band, so that part was easy. Fran, we thought we knew, but learned better, and over time, learned better again. Samantha had, in the beginning, been the newcomer, but again, three years later, that wasn’t the case anymore.

  It was also possible to see, after all this time, the toll everything has taken on mine and Bear’s buddy, our pal, the reason we still worked together in the first place—Nina.

  Yeah, sure, we observed that there was some tension for a while, but nothing that couldn’t be handled, something we even very occasionally teased Nina about. I mean, hey, it’s not every person that has two people in love with them and each other and everyone being oh-so-polite about the whole thing and, in Nina’s case, maybe even deliberately ignoring it.

  Until about two or so weeks ago. Something happened, something that took the smile from Nina’s eyes, and weighed Samantha’s shoulders down whenever she thought someone couldn’t see. Even Fran, who was spending a lot more time lately in the New York office, was affected.

  At first, Bear and I thought we knew what it was. It wasn’t a secret, at least not to us, since we knew Nina so well. Caught still between Sam and Fran, she was either unaware that she had options, or unable to get to that place to think about them. The way she and Fran looked at each other, or Fran and Sam…and now it was worse than ever.

  Bear and I had had it. If Nina couldn’t figure it out, we already had, and this time, we were in a position to help. Because really, she needed it, a little help, a little push in the right direction, and after all, when everything was said and done, well, me and Bear? We were Nina’s friends…and we had her back.

  ***

  “You’re kidding!” It was under her breath, but Samantha heard Nina’s exclamation anyway as she stepped through the door. Samantha hefted her instrument case from where she’d leaned it against the frame moments before, then followed and took in the sight before them. A small corridor, with another door for the bathroom on the right, ended several feet ahead. From there, the room opened to the right, the bed completing the corridor with its head set against the wall of the bathroom, a sofa perpendicular before it.

  Nina put her guitar case down at the other end of the sofa, and walked past the standing mirror to peer out the window. “At least it’s not a bad view,” she observed. “Not that we’ll probably get to see much of it otherwise.” She turned and gave Samantha a bright smile. T
oo bright, Samantha considered, forced. What they had discovered in Fran’s apartment, not two weeks ago, the shock of it—

  Fran bumped up behind her, tumbling Samantha’s thoughts. “So…I’m either next door or…oh. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Samantha grinned as she turned, then glanced down at the key Fran held. “Uh…not next door—the same door.”

  Nina stepped across the space and examined the key Fran gave her. “The place must have—”

  “Double booked,” Fran finished as Nina handed it back.

  “All right, we’ll just pile our stuff here and work the rest out. It’s only for a few nights, anyway,” Samantha said into the awkward silence as the porter arrived and wheeled the rest of the luggage into the room.

  “Yeah, I’ll just take the sofa—not that I’ll probably be here much, anyway,” Fran added with a cheer that matched the smile Nina had given Samantha earlier. “It’s a full schedule, and Ren’s here. I’m sure we’ll spend time catching up.”

  This time it was Samantha’s turn to force good humor. “Hey! That’s right,” she agreed heartily. She hated the way her voice sounded. She busied herself with rummaging through her travel bag, hands buried between shifting layers of silk, cotton, and leather, unsure, unaware, and uncaring of what moved where. “It’s been, what? Three, four years?”

  “Five,” Fran answered quietly, her eyes focused on the items she removed from her own case. “We haven’t seen each other in five years.”

  “Long time,” Samantha commented in a noncommittal fashion, but mentally she winced. She really should have known better, she chastised herself. Five years ago meant Samantha had been, albeit briefly, in New York. Thatwas when she’d “officially” met Ren, which meant Samantha’s arrival and Ren’s departure were probably—

  A drawer slammed abruptly, shocking both Samantha and Fran. Eyes drawn by the sound, they stared at Nina as she straightened. “I’m going to the venue,” she announced, guitar case already in one hand as she swung her jacket over her shoulder with the other, then strode past them to the door.

  Samantha didn’t have to ask if something was wrong. As tightly reigned as Nina kept herself, the discord she felt was a haze that surrounded her, and the connect that existed between them carried it as well, despite what Samantha knew were Nina’s best attempts to prevent that. What had caused it, some of it she thought she knew, but the rest, however, she could only guess. While she did have some good ideas, ideas they would remain until Nina was ready to tell her. Samantha would never force her for the answer.

  “We’ve got sound check in three hours. Hang a bit, and I’ll go with you,” Samantha offered to Nina’s back.

  “’S’all right,” Nina answered, her hand on the door latch. “This”—she waved about to indicate the room but kept her gaze focused directly ahead—“got messed up. Gonna check if our sound setup’s okay. Three hours is notenough time if something’s missing.” She swung the door open and stepped through.

  “But—” The door closed with a click of finality on Samantha’s protest. She shook her head and stared down at her bag again. This time she noticed that she’d severely mixed up her clothing. “Fuck,” she muttered softly.

  “Is she angry with me?” Fran asked in a low tone as she removed the contents of her luggage and claimed a spot in the closet.

  “No.” Samantha breathed the word out as she carefully untangled her things, then pushed behind her ear a stray dark lock that had fallen across her sight. Samantha just as carefully worded her answer. “She’s a little nervous, which is pre-show normal…mad at herself, probably…and at life, definitely. I know for a fact that, crazy as it sounds, she’s still hurting. But mad at you or with you? No.”

  There was a slight rustle as Fran shook her head. “I don’t…”

  Samantha could hear the breath Fran took as the full meaning hit her.

  “Sam…Sammer?”

  The warm weight of Fran’s palm came to rest on Samantha’s shoulder, and Samantha smiled gently at the sound of her old nickname.

  “What do you mean, she’s still hurting? Hurting over what?”

  “Are you telling me you really don’t know?” Samantha countered as she folded the final item and placed it in her drawer. She closed it methodically, before she finally turned her gaze on her friend, the friend she loved as much as she loved Nina. She found Fran’s eyes golden on hers and as warm as the hand that rested on her shoulder.

  She covered Fran’s hand with her own and searched the gaze that held hers. She watched as the earnest concern on Fran’s face shifted, became a flash of hurt and dismay as understanding dawned.

  “You don’t mean because I…I mean…she was—Sam, you know why…why I did that!” Fran exclaimed, her shock palpable. “I was—” She broke off and shook her head again, then took another deep breath as she weighed her next words. She let it out slowly into the heavy silence between them. “Done is done, Sam,” she said with quiet firmness as she glanced up again to meet Samantha’s eyes. “It was—”

  “The wrong thing to do,” Samantha interrupted as she moved closer. “I told you then, I’ll tell you now,” she said as she gently caught Fran’s cheek in her hand and cradled it in her palm. The familiar and welcome feel of it brought the automatic rush and flow of the connect between them and combined with the new knowledge gained over the last few weeks; it made Samantha’s eyes smart and her heart clench within her chest. “You should have never done it, or you should have fixed it,” she told Fran quietly. “But either way?” Samantha paused to catch her breath, to speak past the fist that grabbed her heart. “You shouldn’t have left Spain the way you did, you…” She took another breath before she continued. “We could have worked it out, it would have been okay…we should have—” She broke off as the fist in her chest climbed to her throat even as she choked it down. “You shouldn’t”—it broke her voice anyway—“you shouldn’t have left us.”

  ***

  All the way through the corridor and into the elevator, through the controlled fall to the lobby and her passage across it, until she found the concierge and got the first available taxi to the venue, Nina kept her mind stoically blank and her back rigidly straight. It was only after she was safely ensconced in the black vinyl seats—guitar safely tucked, the door firmly closed behind her, and her destination confirmed to the driver—that she let her shoulders sag. Nina rested her head back against the seat and closed her eyes beneath her sunglasses, ignoring the sights of the city she rode through. It figures, she thought, frustration the emotion that topped the rest, it just fucking figures. The cab hailed for her just so happened to be a carbon-copy of one she’d ridden in a few years ago with Fran.

  The memory played through her mind. It was a different coast, a different day, the same day she’d gotten into some stupid physical altercation with someone at the bar she worked in then and Nina had taken a solid blow to her face, complete with bloody nose. Her boss sent her home early, and on the ride back to Fran’s place she…they’d—

  Nina opened her eyes and leaned forward. It was a mistake to let her mind travel there, to remember how she and Fran had touched and loved, how on that same day, that day now almost four years gone, she’d spoken to Samantha for the first time in a long time. And it had spelled the beginning of the end for her and Fran.

  The picture in her mind hurt. It made her ache in ways she hadn’t in a long time. It had been fast, a whirlwind of the unexpected—to meet up with Samantha again, to have that cause her breakup with Fran, and then, before she had time to adjust to Fran’s removal or Sam’s renewal, to have left the continent for her first tour with her first band.

  The cityscape flew by unnoticed as her mind played its relentless movie. The tour, the dissolution of that band, and the lack of communication from home—from either Sam or Fran—then the insane, unexpected, and ultimately confusing reunion in Madrid, Spain. During the months they literally lived together, they were friends, good friends, even best friends, u
ntil thatnight, that first time between them.

  Nina’s shoulders involuntarily twitched and she shifted uncomfortably, her skin too warm, the jacket too heavy on her shoulders. She removed it, knowing it wasn’t only the mercurial San Francisco weather responsible for her discomfort.

  The memory—correction, memories—were more than merely mental reflection: they carried emotional and visceral reality, a reality that felt more vividly three-dimensional than the cab she rode in.

  “You’re the only one I’ve ever let touch me, love,” Nina said to her that night, her last night before the first tour.

  “No, baby, no,” Fran corrected, and Nina could still feel the kisses Fran gave her in between the words even as she said them, a warm trail along her neck, then a fiery branding that tracked across her jawline. Nina again felt Fran’s thumb draw along her chin. “I’m your first.”

  And it was true: Fran had been her first, her for-real-and-true first, and Nina had known from the start that Samantha would be the last, but— Dammit! She slapped her palm on the edge of the door. Her eyes, normally light blue with a surrounding silver ring, were the same muddy grey they’d been for the last two weeks. They stared unseeing at the streets streaming past the streaked and scratched glass. None of that matters now.

  The thought was a forlorn one as Nina let her body rest against the door, done fighting with herself for the moment. She’d not been truly alone since she and Samantha went to Fran’s apartment to find some paperwork Fran asked for while stuck in the hospital—“Just some routine tests,” Fran told them on the phone. “My doc’s being overly cautious…”

  Among the documents they searched, they found an unexpected surprise, a secret that Fran had held for a few years. But before either one of them could truly ask her about it, the diagnosis came, shocking them all.

  I’m scared, Nina admitted to herself. I don’t want to lose her—not again, and not like that—it’s too soon. It was a good starting point, that admission, it opened the doors for other reflections and thoughts. But still, her mind skirted around the edges of deeper truth, wading in a step at a time.