Out Of The Dark

by Arlene Gonzales

“I’m well, thank you. We’re just tired and would like to get to our room.”

  I look between him and Aiden. “Rooms…two separate rooms.”

  Aiden looks at me like he wants to say something, but doesn’t. “Yes, two separate rooms.”

  The bellman takes our bags and Aiden removes his arm from my shoulder. He holds his hand out for me and leads me down the hall.

  “Let me help you to your room.” It’s not a question but more of a plea. I don’t argue. “I don’t want you to be alone right now, Alexis.”

  And that’s just how I feel—alone, always alone, even when I’m not. That empty feeling never goes away. We go into my room. The bellman puts my bags down and Aiden tells him to take his bags to his room. Now it’s just us.

  I walk out to the balcony and stare at to the ocean. Crystal clear blue water, waves lapping onto the beach, white sand that looks like snow, looks so soft your feet will sink into it, it’s all so breathtaking. The warm breeze feels good, and I should be able to enjoy it, but then it hits me again. It’s like I’ve been punched in the stomach and I have to fight to get air in my lungs. Aiden is at my side and puts his arms around me, helping me back inside.

  “Here, sit down.”

  He pours me a glass of water and I take it from him. Then he sits next to me and tucks me against his side. I drink and put the glass down on the table in front of us.

  “Alexis, please talk to me, tell me what I can do to help you.”

  I look down at my hands, which are laced together. I keep fiddling with them. What will happen when I tell him? A lump forms in my throat. My mouth is dry and I feel lightheaded. I’m nervous and don’t know how to start, but the best way is just to be honest. I take a deep breath.

  “Three years ago I met a man. We were shopping at the mall—me and Shannon, my roommate and best friend in the world. We were sitting in the middle, just people watching. A man came up and smiled, then asked me my name. I was only twenty at the time, and though I had dated a couple of boys in high school it was nothing serious, so when it came to the opposite sex you could say I was naïve. I was mainly into my studies and grades so I could get into a good college. I was only seventeen when I completed high school. He was so charming and good looking. I could tell he was a couple of years older than me, but he was saying all the right things.

  “It seemed like we talked a really long time and he was just so sweet, or so it seemed. Shannon and I were hungry so he offered to buy us lunch. We ate there at the mall in a little pizza place. When it was time for us to leave he begged me for my number. I finally gave it to him, and he called me a couple of times. He’d always ask me to go out on a date, but I’d always tell him no. I just wanted to talk on the phone at first and get to know each other before I would let a date happen.”

  I watch Aiden to see his reaction so far. Concern is all I see on his face, which motives me to keep going. I take another drink of water, and start again.

  “Deep in the back of my mind, I always had a feeling there was something not quite right. I wish I had just listened to that voice, and to my family. Things would be so different now if I had. At first things were good. He met my family and my parents liked him, but my brother never did. He always told me that Frank gave him an uneasy feeling and he didn’t trust him.”

  “So his name is Frank?”

  “Yes, Frank Lee.” Just saying his name gives me chills.

  “How long was it till you agreed to go out with him on an actual date, Alexis?”

  “We spoke on the phone about three weeks before I finally said yes to going out with him. The first few dates were fine, everything seemed to be normal. He would let my father know where we were going, and what time he would have me back home. But even then I would sometimes see a hint of rage in his reaction of certain things.”

  “What do you mean rage, and what things would bring that on?”

  “One time we went out for a bite to eat, and we ran across a few friends of mine from college. They came over to say hi, when they left our table Frank asked me if I had slept with one of them. I thought the question was strange, but I shrugged it off.”

  I should have seen the tale tail signs of control then but like I said I was naïve.

  I tremble and Aiden pulls me closer. As I go on with my story, the tears start filling my eyes. “I was already nearing the end of my third year in college and my grades were good, really good. We saw each other only on weekends at first. I thought if we saw each other during the week I would start doing poorly in school because it wouldn’t leave me time for studying. I didn’t want my grades to suffer. But then he started just showing up on campus and coming over to the house without calling first. I was so blinded by his control that I thought I loved him. Then he started showing his darker side.”

  “What was he doing?”

  “He didn’t want me to go to study groups or hang out with my friends. He would always want it to be just me and him. I couldn’t even have girl time with Shannon. Frank would say that I needed to be with him more. He would ask who I had spoken with that day at school or if I had talked to anyone on the phone.”

  Again I look to see Aiden’s reaction. He seems to be hanging on my every word. What must he be thinking of me? I’m afraid he might not want anything to do with me after this.

  I tell myself that I’ve come this far, I might as well keep going.

  “Then he started to accuse me of cheating on him with some of the guys in my study groups. He even beat up one of my classmates. I was walking on campus during school hours with a friend of mine, Kyle. Frank must have been watching. Out of nowhere Frank just started beating him. He hurt him so badly that Kyle needed to be taken to the hospital. I felt so bad. Frank was arrested and then later released. He begged for my forgiveness and told me he just loved me so much that he was afraid of losing me.

  “I had never been through anything like that before, and I thought it was my fault so I very stupidly forgave him. A pattern started forming. This went on for the next year and my grades started slipping, but I managed to still graduate. I knew it was time for me to end things when he hit me. My parents did not want me anywhere near him. Then he started to threaten me and my family, always calling at all hours of the day and night, driving by the house. He and my brother got into a shouting match, which quickly escalated into a fist fight, and ended with the police being called. He was arrested again, but before they took him away he yelled out that he would never let me go and that he would never let anyone get in the way of us being together.”

  I start to cry, and the sobs I’ve been trying to hold down are making me choke. I can no longer keep them at bay. “Because of me, Aiden, my parents were killed and so was my only brother. They are all dead because of me.” I’m breathing so fast I start to feel dizzy. My head hurts and my chest is so tight it’s as if there is a pile of bricks on me, making it hard to take in the air to keep going. I can literally feel my heart breaking again. It makes me angry; I want to lash out at everything and anything.

  “Why are they dead and not me? It doesn’t make sense. It should be me and not them. It’s not fair. How do I live with that, Aiden?”

  I don’t know if it’s a question or a statement, but Aiden just holds me, sitting with his right arm around my shoulder and his left hand on top of my mine in my lap. He runs his right hand from my shoulder to my elbow.

  “Drink some water, Alexis. Take a deep breath. It’s going to be okay. I am here for you.”

  I look at him and shake my head. “I don’t know if it will ever be okay. I miss them so much.”

  “Maybe you should try and get some rest. When you wake up you can finish telling me, but please do not ask me to leave. I will not leave you like this.”

  “No, I need to get this out now. I may not have the strength to do this again. I had just graduated from college and we hadn’t heard from him or anything about him. My parents had a boat, so we decided that a weekend getaway was what we all needed, just my pa
rents, my brother, and me. It was a Friday afternoon when my dad came home. We were all ready to leave and the day was perfect: sunny, bright, and warm. We had dinner on the boat that night, then we were all just enjoying the fresh breeze. The stars were so bright and the moon was so big it seemed to light up the sky.

  “Things were going well. My mom had just poured two glasses of wine for myself and herself. She got my dad and brother two bottles of beer and came over to sit between me and Erik. We didn’t hear him come up on us or maybe we would have stood a chance. He had a gun and pointed it at us. My brother was at my side in an instant, but Frank made me come stand in front of him. At first I said no, but he told me he would kill my mom if I didn’t do as he said.

  “He held the gun to my head and told Erik to tie my parents’ hands and get them into the cabin below or he would shoot me. My mom and I were both crying. I was so scared, I kept asking him to please not hurt my family. He told me I should have never left him and that he wouldn’t let me go. When Erik came back, he tried to get the upper hand and they struggled for the gun. Frank pistol-whipped him across the head and knocked him out. Then he dragged him down to the cabin where my parents were.”

  “Why didn’t you try to leave his boat when he was down there with them?” Aiden asks.

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking straight. Everything was happening so fast. I was afraid of what he would do to them if I left. Little did I realize he was going to kill them anyway. I never thought in a million years that I would lose my family that night, or in such an ugly way. You think you have your whole life ahead of you. You always think that you’ll have tomorrow.

  “I started to scream at the top of my lungs. We weren’t far from land and there were other boats in the area, so I was hoping someone would hear or see what was going on. Then I smelled the smoke and heard Erik yell for me to run, but my feet were planted to the deck. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make them move. I heard my dad scream my mother’s name, I could hear my mother crying, and my brother yelling over and over, ‘Run, Alexis, run!’ My ears were ringing, and I couldn’t breathe. My world was tumbling down, and I couldn’t stop it.

  “There were three loud pops that I will never forget. I still hear them at night in my sleep. I don’t know how much time passed; everything seem to move in slow motion then. I ran down to the cabin and saw my mother, father, and brother lying on the floor. Erik was still moving. I—um, I ran to him and held him in my arms.” I shift in my seat, finding the words hard to get out.

  I rub my hands up and down the length from my shoulders to my elbows. “I told him that I loved him, and begged him not leave me, that I couldn’t live without him. I needed him to fight to stay alive. He looked up at me and the look he had in his eyes…Oh god, Aiden, that is a look I will never, ever forget. It was fear, pain, regret, but most of all it was the love he had for me, my big brother. It was as if he was telling me he was sorry for not being able to protect me.

  “He said the words we always told each other whenever one of us would go somewhere, or just because we felt them. ‘I love you all the way around the world and back again, Lexie.’

  “Then he was gone. My brother was dead. I held on to him tight, I was screaming, crying, saying over, and over again, ‘Please, Erik, I love you, don’t leave me, I need you. Please, Erik.’ I looked at my mom and dad, and I yelled at them to wake up, that I didn’t want them to leave me.”

  “Alexis, I am so sorry you had to go through such a horrific tragedy.” Aiden looks at me now in shock, covering his mouth with the tips of his fingers. “Baby, I wish there was something I could do to change things. Tell me how I can help.”

  “I was yelling, ‘Kill me too, kill me too! I don’t want to live without them. I hate you, Frank, I hate you! I will never be with you and you can’t ever make me love you!’

  “Why, Aiden, why didn’t I listen to my father when he told me not to rush things? Why didn’t I listen to Erik when he told me that he had an uneasy feeling about Frank? Why was I so stupid to ever go out with him? My life was perfect before I met him.

  “I’ve always been raised to forgive people, but I will never forgive Frank Lee. There are so many things I never got a chance to experience with my mom or my dad. My dad won’t be able to walk me down the aisle when I get married, my mom, who should help me pick out a wedding dress, will never be able to do that. She won’t be able to lie to me and say there has never been a more beautiful bride. I’ll never get to be an aunt to one of Erik’s children. There are so many things I will never get to do. I will never see the look in my father’s eyes when I tell him that he is going to be a grandpa.

  “I hope and pray that they are able to forgive me for letting this happen to them. That they don’t hate me because of this, because I hate myself enough for all of us already.”

  “No, amore mio, do not talk like that. Your family did not and does not hate you.” While hugging me, he says in a soothing voice, “Your brother yelled at you to run because he loved you, because he did not want you to die. He died protecting you, so now you have to live your life in honor of him. You have to follow your dreams and fulfill them in order to honor him. I’m sure that your parents would not want you to blame yourself, and I’m sure that they have never blamed you either.”

  He lets go of me and stands, then begins pacing around in small circles. The whole time he never takes his eyes off of me. He speaks with such conviction, as if he is willing me to believe them.

  “Live your life to the fullest now, Alexis, show them how much you love them all by living each day with your whole heart.”

  As I watch him, there is a whirlwind of thoughts going through my head all at once. Memories of better times with my family, of the events leading up to that tragic night. Of the funeral and the lowering of the three caskets. The days of the trial and how Frank never showed any remorse.

  The thought that maybe if I moved twenty-eight hundred miles across the country, I could have a chance of starting over.

  The words that Shannon said to me on our last day in Seattle, how it would be a new start, a new city, new place to live, a new job.

  I look down again. Between the sobs, I say, “Did Erik know how much I loved him, how much I still love him, how much I will always love him?”

  Chapter 8

  “I never got the chance to tell him that he did everything he could to protect me. I didn’t get the chance to tell him how much I loved him again, that he was the best big brother I could have ever asked for. I was holding him as tight as I could. I didn’t want to let him go, but then Frank came up behind me and pulled me by my arm. I was kicking and screaming. He threw me down into his waiting boat and jumped in. He started the boat and we were on our way, but we didn’t get far. The coast guard and the Seattle police were all around us and they took him into custody.”

  Aiden pulls me back into his arms even tighter. “I am glad he did not get away with you, or else I would have never met you. How did the police get to you so fast?”

  “They told me my dad managed to contact them on the radio while they were down there before Frank shot them.” I look into Aiden’s eyes. “Because of me, my parents and my brother are dead. I should have died too with them that night.”

  “No, Alexis, don’t say that; you couldn’t have known what he was really like. It was not your fault.”

  “I could have left him early in the relationship. I should have listened to my brother. He never trusted him. My father never hurt anyone. He was one of the kindest men you’d ever meet, always willing to help out anybody and everybody. My mother was also a good-hearted person, always wanting to see the best in people and always believing that a person given the chance could shine. How do I live with what happened to them? How am I supposed to get over the fact that I got my whole family killed?”

  “Alexis, what happened with Frank? I imagine he is going to be put away for the rest of his life, right?”

  “Yes. I testified against him
in the trial, and they sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.”

  “I’m glad he will be in that place forever, but I need to know what got you so scared. You were shaking so badly when you came on the flight. Please tell me what got you that way.”

  “Because even though he is in prison, he still managed to find me. I moved as far away from Seattle as I could. I didn’t tell anyone where I was moving to except for Shannon and her family, but he still found me. Before the car came for me at the office, I received a letter with no return address. It said I would never be able to get away from him and that he would never let me go. You might not want to have anything to do with me now. I don’t want to put your life at risk, Aiden. It is simply not safe being with me.”

  Shaking his head from side to side, he says in a forceful voice, “I am not leaving you. Alexis, do not worry about that right now. We are really far away right now, so we’re safe.”

  I cry into his chest. He holds me and rubs my back and my shoulders. “Breathe, baby, breathe. Try to calm down.”

  That’s the last thing I remember before I wake up. I must have cried myself to sleep. Am I going to spend the rest of my nights falling asleep in tears? Will I never heal?

  When I turn around, Aiden is lying behind me on my bed in my room. We’re both still fully clothed. I try not to move too quickly so I won’t wake him up. He’s still here even after everything I just told him. Maybe he does care for me. Maybe he really is a good guy and not just trying to get me in bed. Can I let myself care for this man? Who am I kidding? I already do care for him.

  I study his face and beautiful features. His white button-down is rolled up at the sleeves and his strong forearms show. The sound of the waves rolling up onto the beach is calming, and I have a perfect view from my suite. The moon is so bright I see the sparkle of it shining off the water, and it reminds me of that awful night again. Tears start to fill my eyes once more. I cry silently so I won’t wake him up. My tears roll down my cheeks and fall onto my pillow. How did we get here? I don’t remember Aiden carrying me to the bed, and I suddenly feel so tired thinking about the day’s events.