Hiders

by Meg Collett

  Choosing silence as well, he crossed to the furnace and added a few logs.

  “You don’t have to stay,” she said. He’d fiddled with the lever long enough for her to realize she was making him nervous. She’d missed some social cue in all of this.

  He flipped the lever to a new spot and stood. “I can sleep downstairs. I just didn’t know if you wanted—” He sucked in a long pull of air and started over. “I just didn’t know if you wanted to be alone. I get it, so I thought—well, it was just a thought.”

  She sat up straighter in the bed. “You don’t enjoy being alone.”

  Arie’s dark eyes shuttered behind some emotion he quickly tucked away. “I don’t prefer it.”

  “You’re a handsome guy. You could quite easily choose to never be alone.”

  If it weren’t for the darkness pushing against the scant lighting her lamp and the furnace provided, she could have confirmed she’d embarrassed him. Instead, she could only infer it from the shift of his feet and the way he pulled at his shirt collar as if it were suddenly too tight.

  She’d said the wrong thing.

  “Sorry,” she said into the silence between them.

  He rubbed the back of his neck, but he was grinning. “Are you going to offer me a seat or not?”

  She swept her legs up underneath her and smoothed down a section of the quilt. Her bed was the only seat in the room, and as she patted it, she said, “By all means.” Her voice didn’t waver with nerves, because it was Arie, and he was here with her when she had no one else. He’d been her desperate call, and he’d been the footsteps thumping downstairs, checking every dark corner for her. He was her someone. And she finally knew what it was to have that comfort, and it didn’t scare her.

  The bed dipped beneath his weight. She caught his quiet sigh as he eased the pressure off his leg, keeping it stretched out along the bed. He wiggled farther back. She scooted over even more to make room for his sizable body, and he rested back on his elbows.

  “Comfortable?”

  “Very.” He toed off his sneakers. Beneath them, one foot was bare, the other a smooth skin-toned plastic.

  The tingling hints of a headache bloomed behind her eyes. She reached across the bed, toward the side table, and tried not to gasp at the surge of wrenching pain in her back, but she managed to grab her glasses. She slid them on and instantly her eyes focused. The pressure in her head eased.

  “I didn’t know you wore glasses,” Arie said. “They’re cute on you.”

  “You’re lying.” She settled her head back down on her arm, too tired to hold it upright.

  “No, really.”

  His face was sincere enough, but she still didn’t believe him. Her glasses were too big for her face, but they had to be to hold the lenses that assisted her eyes in focusing on objects both near and far. It was already time to update the prescription again. Her vision had destabilized again in the last couple of months.

  “I’m not lying, Violet,” Arie said when she didn’t respond.

  “Okay.”

  He lifted his chin to look up at the ceiling. “What is it with women and compliments?”

  “It’s not about compliments,” she said, a bit harsher than she’d meant to. His attention snapped back to her. “I have retinitis pigmentosa.” She waved a hand at her face.

  “Oh,” Arie fumbled, caught off guard. He straightened a bit on the bed to turn more toward her. “What is that?”

  “It’s a degenerative disorder that disrupts the protein production my eyes. I have a rare form of it, which means my central vision is affected first then my color perception, and, eventually, my peripheral vision.”

  He frowned as he pieced it together.

  “I’m going blind,” she concluded for him so he wouldn’t have to say it. It made people uncomfortable. Not that she told people. Gregory knew because he handled her insurance, but that was it. It wasn’t as if it was a secret, just that she’d had no one to tell.

  “Shit,” he said in a near whisper. “Violet, I’m so sorry.”

  She kept her eyes away from his face, not wanting to see the pity there. Blindness was a nightmare for most, but it was a dawning reality for Violet. “But,” she said, forcing herself to sound brighter, “I’m glad you like the glasses.”

  “I’m an asshole.”

  “No.” She tapped his side with her foot from beneath the blankets. “You’re not.”

  In the silence, something akin to understanding passed in the air between them. They both dealt with disabilities, and as if it solidified something for Arie, or perhaps just made him more comfortable around her, he reached down and massaged his thigh, his knuckles popping against the pressure he was putting behind the motion, as if the pain and soreness were bone deep.

  “You can take it off,” she said. “I don’t mind.”

  “I’m fine,” was all he said, the words clipped and distant. He didn’t sound fine. It was another gray area, this baring himself to her in the form of removing his leg. Another wall. She eased back from it with care. The moment slipped past and the tension eased.

  “Why haven’t you fixed that window downstairs?” he asked.

  If he could have his gray areas, then so could she. “Why do you go home alone at night?” she fired back.

  He considered his words for a long moment, long enough for Violet to tuck herself up beneath the covers and rest her cheek on her palm, her eyes on him in the dim lighting. He was a dark presence across the foot of her bed, his scent lingering in her nose. His knuckles occasionally cracked as he worked on his leg, matching the crackling fire.

  Her father, long ago, had planted heaps of vetiver along the bluffs on the northern part of the island. Vetiver was a grass, and its roots grew downward, deep into the earth, anchoring itself to the soil around it. It prevented erosion and helped hold the bluffs together. Her mother had used the grasses for oils until her father grew too ill to replant them, but every now and then, if Violet stood out on the bluffs, she thought she caught a whiff of vetiver in the air.

  She caught it now, coming off Arie. It must have been some scent in his cologne, but her heart stuttered a beat from the crippling sense of nostalgia. It was déjà vu mixed with a sense of belonging so strong that Violet had to steady her breathing.

  “I go home alone at night,” Arie said, startling her with the low cadence of his voice, “for reasons I think are very similar to why you leave that window broken downstairs.”

  She stilled at his words. Reluctantly, he met her eyes. There, in the blackness of his irises, she saw what had shuttered across his face minutes ago at her mention of him being alone. It was raw pain, as if he’d sliced a knife down his palm and shown her the sinew and bone beneath.

  But she had no such wound. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s so much to fix. I just haven’t—”

  “I know you’ve had problems with other trespassers. I see the old graffiti and the trails leading in from the bluffs. People come to your home to see the Ghost of Canaan.” She winced at his words, so close to her explanation of her disease. “You’ve known it was a risk to leave that window practically open. Deep down, you must be shocked what happened tonight hasn’t happened sooner.”

  She turned his words over in her mind, pulling them apart and piecing them back together, but no matter how she arranged them, she had no idea what he meant. She told herself the list of repairs the house needed. The decay around her was almost endless. That window was one item on a very long list. But rather than examine it or think through her initial blind anger at his words, she considered what he’d said about her window being similar to him going home alone at night. He’d implied she knew the perils of leaving the window broken, which meant he knew the horror he faced when he was by himself but purposefully chose to remain alone anyway. He forced himself to endure that agony every night. It clicked for her then.

  He was punishing himself and he thought she was doing the same.

  Seeing he
r dawning understanding, he gently said, “When you spoke about your parents the day after you were arrested, it sounded like you feel guilty.”

  Her tongue too dry, she said, “I couldn’t stop her. I was just a kid.”

  He watched her. They both knew that wasn’t what he’d meant. Her guilt wasn’t rooted in the fact that she hadn’t stopped her mother from leaving that night; it was that she hadn’t been in the car with them.

  Had she been punishing herself all this time? Inviting danger because she thought she deserved it? And Arie, did he deserve the horrors his nightmares brought him?

  “For you, it’s Iraq,” she murmured. “The explosion. You lost someone.” Not a question, because the answer was in his eyes, in the way he had to look away from her, and in how his fingers stilled against his thigh.

  “It’s time to fix the window, Violet.”

  It was her turn to look away.

  “What Gregory said today—”

  “It’s just a threat.”

  “It’s more than a threat if it’s already on the mayor’s desk.”

  Violet hid her face in the crook of her elbow, her glasses bending against her arm. “Fixing one window won’t do any good.”

  “But if you can fix the structural issues they cited on the eminent domain seizure, then they won’t have a leg to stand on when the mayor looks over the motion.”

  Violet raised her head and blinked at Arie, at his horrible one-leg joke. The corner of his mouth hooked up just the slightest. “Surprising,” she said, mimicking his words. “Very surprising.”

  “I can be dark and mysterious too.”

  “You’re just trying to make me laugh.”

  “No.” His barely there smile disappeared. “I want to help you. I want Hale and Cade to help you. We can save your house.”

  The fire sparked and snapped, the furnace’s glass window sooty because she hadn’t cleaned it out this spring. She’d neglected many chores of late. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing; she’d taken on more hours at Maggie’s and often helped with the cemetery. She simply wasn’t home as much as she used to be, when handling the house’s daily maintenance had been her entire life.

  “If it’s the money you’re worried about—”

  Her eyes slid back to Arie’s. “I have the money.”

  “Oh. I thought . . .”

  “My mother taught me to always keep a little bit tucked away for a rainy day.”

  Arie stopped rubbing his leg and reclined across the bed. “She sounds like a smart woman.”

  “She would have liked you.”

  He chuckled. “I highly doubt that.”

  Violet unfolded a leg beneath the blankets and poked his side. He caught her foot and held it. After a second, he stroked his thumb along her arch, his touch muffled through the quilt, but she still fought down a shudder.

  “Will you let us help?”

  Leaving the words hanging carelessly in the air, he kept his attention on her as he rubbed her foot. The touch and his focus addled her thoughts. His smell swirled through her nose and she wanted to keep drawing the warm, slightly smoky air into her lungs and savor his scent, to pick it apart from all the rest and hold it close. Or maybe she just wanted to stay in this moment forever, safe and not alone, tucked deep in her house with a bright fire and him in her bed.

  She sighed. It was just wishful thinking. It was time to be realistic. To stop hiding.

  “Fine. But this will replace your tasks. You don’t—”

  He was already shaking his head. “Not happening. I’m finishing the list. That’s for my leg. The stuff with Hale and Cade is my job.”

  “You’re being preposterous.”

  He yawned. “Sticks and stones, Violet.”

  “Do you need a blanket?”

  “No. Do you need more room?”

  “I’m fine. Here.” She handed him a pillow.

  “Thanks.” He took it and got comfortable across the foot of the bed, his long, wide body still taking up a mind-boggling amount of space.

  In the quiet they’d settled into, Violet asked, “Do you mind if I leave the lights on?”

  Surprising her, he said softly, “I would prefer it.”

  Violet was teetering into the place where she was half asleep. She almost thought Arie was speaking in her dream when he softly asked, “Does it scare you?”

  She stirred herself back awake. “What?”

  “Going blind.”

  She opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling. “It used to be really bad when I was younger. I didn’t leave the house for almost a year because the fear was so bad. The more I thought about it, the worse my anxiety became. So I stopped thinking about it. It’s just a fact for me.”

  “Don’t you think it’s not fair?”

  She didn’t, but the tone of his voice suggested he did. “Do you think that about your leg?”

  He didn’t answer, and she wanted to tell him that thinking in terms of fair and unfair could eat at a person’s soul. But she stayed silent because it was something he would have to learn on his own.

  She knew that all too well.

  * * *

  The next morning, Arie arranged Cade and Hale’s visit with a swiftness that took Violet aback. The Cooper brothers were set to arrive in a few minutes, and she’d just sat down with her tea and avocado toast. Her hair was a bird’s nest atop her head, but she’d managed to put on some pants and boots and a sweater that brushed her knees. She could do nothing about her limp or the way she had to gingerly move around due to her bruised back.

  She’d woken this morning to a warm bed and the impression of Arie’s body in the sheets. Her heart ached at the small taste of companionship. It wasn’t enough; she needed more with a desperation that terrified her. This taste of friendship with Stevie, Kyra, and Arie was making her crave more and more. It was dangerous.

  Arie had already gone outside with his tool belt slung around his hips and a notepad from his truck. She imagined the list he was making and how quickly it would fill up. Instantly, the toast in her mouth tasted of ash and the tea turned her stomach oily.

  Without looking at the graffiti-tagged walls in the entry, she trudged outside, pulling on a pair of dark sunglasses as she walked. As if on cue, she caught the first sounds of a truck rumbling up the drive, and Arie came around the corner of the house, tucking the notebook in his belt.

  “Morning. Feeling okay?”

  She licked her dry lips. “Fine. Thank you.”

  “We’re just going to look, Violet,” he said, coming up to stand next to her as the truck came into view, the dark hood glinting in the sun. “Nothing’s happening today.”

  “Okay.”

  The truck trundled to a stop and the engine cut off with a hiss. Four doors opened.

  From the front seats, Cade and Hale emerged. But from the back two doors, Stevie sprung out, chattering on about the disgraceful quality of gluten-free donuts, and Kyra eased down with Hale’s assistance.

  As he helped her down and Stevie kept pressing her point to Kyra, as if she needed to fight for gluten’s right to life, Cade came over to them with a nod to Violet. “Morning,” he said to them both. “It’s good to see you again, Violet.”

  She was too sick to speak.

  “Brought the whole crew, huh.”

  Cade had the good grace to grimace at Arie’s comment. “I made the mistake of mentioning it to Stevie. She really wanted to see Violet—”

  “Did I hear my name?” Stevie practically skidded to a stop next to Cade, her arm looping around his waist. She wore Wellies and tight jeans, and her curvy body was tucked into a puffy vest that made her hair full of static. “Hey, Violet! Cool sweater! Where did you get it? Is it vintage? Probably your mom’s? I like those boots. Do you shop anywhere in town? You find all the coolest stuff.”

  Kyra and Hale came up then, and when Stevie stopped to catch a breath, Kyra said, “Sorry. She drank two espressos.”

  “Technically,” Stevie said, lift
ing a finger in the air, similar to a teacher calling her class to attention, “you should have noticed that. Consider this your parental training. What if I’d been a little toddler snorting jellybeans? You weren’t even paying attention!”

  “Parental training?” Hale rolled his eyes at Stevie. “And what makes you qualified to do that? Caring for all those dust bunnies under your bed?”

  “Hey! I cleaned the house . . . yesterday.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Violet shot Arie a glance. No one was mentioning last night, meaning he hadn’t told anyone the true reason they were out here. He must have understood, because he just smiled at her and turned to rally the troops.

  “Stevie, you can defend your cleaning schedule later. Right now, we have to get to work. Violet, do you want to explain?” He turned to her and everyone’s attention shifted with his. She wanted to fold herself neatly away.

  Last night came to mind, as did Arie and his analogy of her window and him being alone. How she was punishing herself, or he thought she was. If she let herself dwell on it too long, she might agree. The best way to prove she was fine with boarding up that window was to just do it.

  She kept her gaze on the sky over everyone’s shoulders as she said, “The mayor is looking at condemning my house. Arie thinks if we can fix a few of the issues cited in the motion, it will help stop the seizure when we go to court.”

  Stevie held up her hand.

  “Yes, Stevie?” Arie said.

  “How can they just take your home? I mean, come on, that’s fucked up. Am I right, or am I right?”

  “If I may,” Cade started, straightening the collar of his button-up.

  “Oh, baby, it gets me so hot when you act all proper.” Stevie pressed herself against his side.

  Cade blushed, but his arm encircled her shoulders and he smiled slyly, as if he knew exactly how hot she got when he acted like that.

  Kyra sent Violet a pained look. “It really is this gross all the time.”

  “Can we stay on topic?” Arie practically shouted. “What were you about to say, Cade?”

  “In eminent domain seizures, it falls on the condemner to prove public usage. If Teller Morgan Group proposed the condemnation, then they probably have a really good case in place for the state to use against Violet if she fights this in court. Not to mention state governments tend to bring in third-party developers to handle the burden of construction.”