by Lili Valente
I lift my hands to Danny’s chest, letting them rest there, feeling his muscles strong and solid beneath my palms. “Until that night at the hot spring… I didn’t think I remembered how to be happy.”
“I know.” He covers my hands with his, warming my cool fingers. “So maybe things have changed now. That’s okay, too. It’s okay to change your mind. I’m with you, no matter what you decide. I’m going to be fine either way, as long as I know we’re together.”
We stand in silence, but I can’t concentrate on anything except the feel of his heartbeat pulsing steadily beneath my fingertips.
Precious heart. Precious chest.
Can I put them in more danger? No matter how solid the plan or how much I need to see justice done? Does it take more strength to follow through with what I’ve started or to walk away?
Maybe Danny and I can be free without this. Maybe all I have to do is let go and give myself permission to be happy again.
Happy, while the man who looked you in the eyes and smiled while men raped you goes free, using this easy escape as a reason to believe he is above the law.
Untouchable.
Unstoppable.
And the next time he hurts someone, her blood will be on your hands as much as his.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Then we don’t do anything.” He takes my hand in his and squeezes tight. “We’ll let things stand for now. We’ve got three more days. Come Tuesday morning, if you’ve changed your mind, we can call things off with Rosa then. You don’t have to decide right now. Midnight decisions are never a good idea anyway.”
I glance sharply up at him, eyes widening. “You’re kidding me. It’s not midnight.”
“Not kidding.” He slips his phone from his pocket and hits the button, illuminating the screen showing that’s it’s nearly a quarter after twelve. “And I told Paola I’d help her lead the first zip line tour tomorrow since Henri pulled his shoulder. We should head back.”
“All right.” Holding on to his hand, we set a faster clip through the Centro and back to the car. We don’t talk much on the way back to the cabin or while getting ready for bed.
But when we’re beneath the covers, Danny turns to me and pulls me into his arms, whispering, “Whatever you decide, Sam. Really. There will never be any judgment from me, either way.”
And then he makes love to me with an honesty that makes me believe him. But even though it feels so right to be in his arms and I know he’s telling the truth, I keep thinking back to the things he said last summer when we were on the verge of falling apart, when he made it clear he rises or falls according to my lead.
Last year, I tumbled off the pedestal he’d put me on and dragged him down with me. He fell off the wagon and had been ready to break important promises he’d made to his family all because I’d failed to be the hero he’d thought I was.
I know it’s not right to expect myself to be strong and good for two people, but what’s right and what’s true are rarely the same thing.
Danny and I have already admitted that we aren’t whole without each other. Maybe we’ll always be that way. Maybe falling in love so young and making forever promises when we had no idea how long forever could be has crippled us as individuals. Alone, we probably aren’t what psychiatrists would consider stable, but together we are solid, unstoppable.
But it has almost always been my job to put on the brakes, to decide whether we should use our unstoppable energy for good or to call a time out when we’re getting close to doing something we shouldn’t. I wasn’t up to the job last year and I’m not sure I’m up to it now.
I only know that I love him, this man who wraps his arm around my waist and curls his strong body into mine with an intensity that makes it clear he’d shelter me from every hurt in the world if he could. He is our heart. I am our conscience. And if I don’t want to put both of us at risk again, I need to start doing my job.
I need to decide what’s more important—revenge or the safety of the man I love—and I have to decide quickly.
The clock is ticking and lives hang in the balance. Not just Todd’s life, or J.D.’s or Jeremy’s, but mine and Danny’s and the lives of the people who love us, who will suffer the aftershocks of the decisions we make.
Decisions that once made can never be unmade, no matter how many nights I lie in the dark, staring up at the ceiling, wondering if I should have done things differently.
Chapter Sixteen
Danny
“Nothing shows a man’s character
more than what he laughs at.”
-Goethe
* * *
I can tell the question of what to do with the SBE brothers is weighing on Sam in a way it wasn’t before, but I’m not going to try to talk to her about it again.
No matter how much I love her or hate the men who hurt her, my opinion doesn’t matter. This is her war. She has to make the final call and give the marching orders. And if she says we walk away, I’ll walk away, no matter how much I want to punish those assholes or how much they deserve it.
If Sam doesn’t think she’ll be able to live with herself after, I will take her hand, get on the plane to Thailand, and do my best to forget about the men who stole a year of our lives together, forget that they are still out there, living a life without scars or consequences.
I’m a different person than I was a year ago.
I still want to do the right thing, but more importantly, I want to do the right thing for Sam. Nothing is more important than that. I let her down once by being too focused on an ideal instead of the woman I love. I won’t make the same mistake again.
* * *
Saturday morning, I ease out of bed quietly, figuring at least Sam should be able to sleep in after the late night. I dress quickly and tuck my toothbrush into my bag so I can go straight from the mess hall to the visitor center after breakfast.
On my way out, I pause at the door, looking back at the bed.
Sam is curled on her side with one arm tucked under her pillow, her lighter hair making the smattering of freckles on her nose stand out more than they did before. With the freckles and her face soft with sleep, she looks so much younger. She could be fourteen, thirteen, that same girl in the fluffy black dress and combat boots who cared enough about the new kid to step in and speak up when I was about to get my ass kicked.
She’s always been a good person. I’m not surprised that she’s reached a crossroads with her own conscience now that the time to act is so close. I just hope she understands that I meant what I said last night. I’m not going to judge her, either way. If she wants to walk, I’ll walk. And if she needs vengeance, I’ll help her take it. I would take it for her if she would let me, but she’s always been one to fight her own battles, even when she was a little girl standing up to bullies twice her size.
My heart turns over, my chest aching with love so fierce it feels like it might tear me apart.
I’m tempted to cross to the bed and kiss her awake, just to hear her say goodbye, but instead I shut the door and start toward the mess hall. She needs rest if she’s going to look all the hard questions in the face and find answers and I have to get food in my belly and my tired ass ready for work.
As I cross the hard-packed ground, the air around me is filling with the sounds of the compound coming to life. But gently, the people and animals and the sounds of both starting their days in harmony with each other. This is a special place, so unspoiled that I can’t help wishing Sam and I were here just to enjoy the peace.
This is a place where Nature rules and though she isn’t always kind, she at least gives you a fighting chance. Nature doesn’t believe in inequality. The weaker animals have superior numbers and adaptations to protect them, and the stronger animals have to fight to survive every bit as much as the creatures they prey upon. There’s harmony in that and in the way these people have carved out an existence from the jungle without disturbing the natural or
der.
It’s easy to find your center here, and by the time I’ve had coffee and eggs with rice, I’m looking forward to a day outside in the sun, enjoying the simple things.
But I should have known better than to drop my guard.
It’s a small world, especially this corner of it, and no red-blooded American frat boy can resist the call of an Extreme Zip Line. Still, when I jump out of Paola’s jeep at the visitor center to find the entire Sigma Beta Epsilon frat sprawled across the benches outside the office and spilling down the front steps, I can’t believe my shit luck.
But there they are—J.D., Jeremy, and Todd, who is already hitting on a pretty, way-too-young-for-him blond girl in a black tank top. He’s wearing a faded orange tee shirt and that smug look that makes me want to punch him in the mouth a few hundred times.
My gut screams for me to get out of here, but I can’t. If I play sick, Paola won’t be able to get anyone else here in time to help her lead the tour.
Besides, Todd has already spotted me.
As I climb the steps behind Paola to grab the manifest and make sure the waivers have all been signed, I can feel his eyes on me. There’s no question now. He recognizes me—either from the pool or the pictures on Sam’s phone. If it’s the first, I can play it off and say that I have friends at the resort who let me come use the pool on my days off.
But if it’s the second…
I force a smile for Paola as she makes a joke about the amount of testosterone on the tour today—aside from the girl Todd is flirting with, who’s here with her parents and younger brother, there are only two other women—but inside I’m making plans.
There are fifteen different zip lines and the platforms in the middle of the tour are over two hundred feet in the air. We’re strapped in at all times—either to a platform or the zip line—but if someone were to accidentally become detached, stumble, and take a fall off one of those bigger platforms, it would be deadly. It’s happened before at other zip lines. That’s why everyone on these tours is required to sign a waiver acknowledging that they won’t hold the company responsible if they’re seriously injured or even killed.
If Todd recognizes me as Sam’s boyfriend, it will no longer be a matter of what she wants. The decision will be out of her hands. I’ll have to take care of him today.
Todd is a monster, but he’s not an idiot. He’ll realize it’s no coincidence that the boyfriend of the woman he raped is in a tiny vacation town in Costa Rica the exact same week that he is. He’ll suspect something and he’s not the type to consider all the options before he acts. He’ll take steps to neutralize the threat to his safety and if I’m not careful, I could be the one taking a fall.
I’m going to have to keep a close eye on him, all while pretending to be fine and keeping a bunch of hungover frat boys from getting hurt in the process.
The thought obliterates the last of my Zen.
The beer fumes rising off the group are so potent I’m pretty sure it’s a violation of my sobriety to breathe the air around them for too long. It makes me feel sorry for the six people on the tour who weren’t up all night chugging beer.
As Paola and I gather the group of twenty-five together at the trailhead and she starts briefing them on the safety procedures, I notice the family of four and the two German women are careful to stay at the far edge of the press of stinking bodies. I’m disgusted on their behalf.
The privileged, American, twenty-something male is an embarrassment to our country. I exempt myself from the group by virtue of the fact that I’ve lived in Croatia since I was thirteen, and though my sister married into money she used to finish raising me, I started my life in the gutter. And the marks of the gutter never truly leave you.
A part of me is still that feral little shit who learned to scare the bullies away by hitting harder than any of the other runts. He will always be with me, like my damaged molars, a result of childhood tooth decay fucking up my adult teeth. Before Caitlin took over as my surrogate mother, worked her ass off to afford trips to the dentist, and forced my ungrateful ass to brush, no one cared if I went to bed dirty with teeth that hadn’t been cleaned in a week.
My inner hood rat is awake and watchful now. Even as I smile and introduce myself, seeming to scan the entire group in front of me, my focus is on Todd, waiting for him to confirm that he’s a threat. I remember the violent lessons of my early childhood well. Destroy or be destroyed, throw the first punch or wish you had when you end up in the hospital pissing blood because the guy who got the jump on you damaged your kidneys.
Those lessons had begun to fade from my conscious mind, but the past year has brought them all back to the surface, where they’re going to stay. I won’t make the mistake of believing in the end of hard times or happily ever after again.
No matter how much I wish the world were a safe place for good people, it isn’t.
It isn’t enough to do your best, love your fellow man, and try to do no harm. Sometimes you have to be ready to fight back, and fight dirty because the one thing you can be sure of is that the bad guys never play fair.
“Any questions?” Paola asks in her strange little accent that has half the frat boys smirking at each other beneath their ball caps.
Paola is petite, with long dark hair she wears pulled back in a ponytail, big brown eyes, and a perpetually friendly expression on her makeup-free face. She’s more cute than sexy, but I guess the accent is enough to get the SBE brothers going.
Great, another thing to add to my list: keep an eye on Paola.
She’s wiry and a lot tougher than she looks, but she shouldn’t have to defend herself from sexual harassment while she’s at work. If these booze-soaked losers step over the line, I’ll make sure they know to take a step back.
“All right, if there are no questions, then let’s get started! It’s going to be a beautiful day.” Paola grins and turns to lead the way up the trail to the first zip line platform.
I hang back, waiting for the rest of the tour to fall in behind her before I follow up from the rear. On his way by, Todd smiles and nods his head in my direction. “What’s up, man? You always let the lady do the talking?”
I grin and stretch lazily, forcing myself to act like I don’t want to smash his head against the nearest rock until it explodes. “She’s better at it than I am,” I drawl. “Especially this early in the morning. If I were on vacation, I’d still be asleep, dude.”
He laughs. “Yeah, I had to drag half these assholes out of bed this morning. Some people have to be forced into a good time.”
I tell myself he’s not talking about Sam and what he bullied the rest of his friends into doing to her. I tell myself I can’t lose control three fucking steps into the hike. I tell myself that if I break now I will have tipped my hand and Todd will have the advantage from here on out.
In the five seconds it takes to form my reply, I tell myself a lot of smart things, but it still takes all the self-control I possess to force another smile and say, “I hear ya. But it’s great out here. Your friends are going to have a blast.”
“No doubt, man,” he says, his eyes narrowing on my face for a second before he turns and starts up the trail.
I notice that he’s managed to fall in right behind the girl he was talking to when I drove up—the girl who is here with her family and probably no more than sixteen years old. I wonder if that was the reason for our conversation. Maybe he was just stalling to get closer to the girl.
Or maybe he intended every word to be a double-edged sword shoved straight into my gut.
I don’t know, but the brief interaction puts me even more on edge.
Chapter Seventeen
Danny
All the way up to the first platform, I’m replaying every word and fighting the wave of sickness that sends my breakfast gurgling back up my throat.
I can’t believe I spoke to him. I can’t believe I smiled at the man who raped my girlfriend.
The jungle blurs and in my mind I see h
is hands on her, keep imagining that smug smile on his face while he filmed his friends taking turns. It’s all I can do not to rush him, tackle him to the ground, and beat him until he’s nothing but a bloody stain on the forest floor.
It shouldn’t have to be this way. I shouldn’t have to hide my rage and hate. I should be able to throw my knowledge of what he’s done in his face and challenge him to a fight to the death. Right here, right now.
Civilization has gone too far. Yes, we should feed the hungry and heal the sick. Yes, we should have equal rights and equal pay and an end to discrimination for the color of your skin or who you choose to love. But we should bring back the duel. I should be able to call Todd out and fight him with swords or guns or fists.
I should be able to kill him for what he’s done.
It is my right as someone who loves the person he nearly destroyed.
We coast down the first zip line and press higher into the mountains. The sun is shining brightly, but a cool breeze stirs the canopy, keeping the humidity at bay. It’s the nicest day since I arrived in Costa Rica, but I might as well be in hell.
As I follow the three men who attacked Sam deeper into the jungle, I slowly start to lose my shit. I try to smile and joke with the other guys as I strap them in and pretend this is just another tour, like the hundreds of others I’ve led for my company in Croatia and others across Europe, but inside I’m dying. I can feel my temperature spiking and my stomach churning like I just chugged a bottle full of acid instead of vitamin water.
The stress of keeping everything I’m feeling locked inside is making me physically ill. Sweat pours down my face and my hands shake as I double check the shorter German woman’s harness, which she said felt loose on the last ride. She smiles and thanks me after, but shoots me a look that makes it clear I look as shitty as I feel.