“It’s my fault,” he says, taking my face between his two shivering hands. Pain is right on the surface of his face. “I was right here as you were. And he was. With the knife.” He shakes his head back and forth. His eyes, vacant.
“Dillon,” I try to reason with him.
“Tell me who he is!” he cries.
“No. Look at what you’ve done. You’re so reckless. You just burned down this shed. The kids are inside. Your mom.” I’m pointing at them. He looks up and sees his family on the porch peering out into the darkness as the shed falls onto itself. Fire and smoke bloom, overtaking the hell mouth.
It makes me smile for a moment. It’s really gone. But then I look to Dillon. The pain visible in the wrinkles on his forehead. The bruises on his face. The black eye. He’s running himself into the ground.
“You won’t be able to control yourself when you find out,” I say. Not in anger. Just in truth.
He pinches the little V that forms between his eyes. Shakes his head no. “I can’t live like this. Not knowing who. Worrying he’ll come back. Thinking about the years we lost.—No, were stolen from us. Seeing all the pain you’re in every day.”
“I know, Dillon. I’m going to make you a promise,” I say, as his eyebrows shoot up. “After my momma’s wake, I’m going to tell you who it was. I’ll tell you everything. But I can’t do it now. There’re things I need to take care of before then. Do you understand?”
“What are you going to do? Is it dangerous?”
“I can’t tell you,” I say, thinking of the evidence in my pocket. “It’s not dangerous.”
“Sadie!”
“No, Dillon. You won’t be able to help me if you know. Look what you’ve done,” I say, staring into the flames. I’ve got to get this tested. I’ve got to build up the evidence before he can get to me. It has to be a surprise attack. Dillon would try and give them to Donnie thinking that he could get them tested for us.
Dillon probably thinks that the panties just fell there inside the shed and were never found until now. But I remember. Donnie put them in his pocket after he raped me. He’d touched them with his hands drenched in my blood, probably his own semen, too. He kept them in the shed like a prize. Like a trophy. He probably thought no one would ever find them. But I have them now.
We’re sitting inside Dillon’s childhood home with the lights from the fire truck waving around through the window. Renae and Dot wouldn’t take no for an answer. They stuck a mug of hot tea in my hand and covered me in a blanket. Dillon stands. Then sits. Rubs his hands together and then stands again. He begins to pace.
“Luckily it didn’t spread to the grass or nothin’ else,” says Dot. “What happened, son?”
“I did it. I burned it down, Momma. That was where...” His breath hitches. He must have a lump there, too. He’s rubbing his throat. Puts his hands on his head.
“Where, what, son?” she asks, nervously.
“Sadie was...” He can’t finish his thought, pushes his fist into the palm of his hand. His chest looks tight. His white shirt is dotted black from the smoke outside. Dot looks at me puzzled. I realize I’m rubbing my teal scarf right above my scars so I stop. She must understand then what her one good son can’t verbalize, because she puts her head down and covers her eyes with her hand.
It’s where I was raped by your evil son! I want to scream. It takes her a while, but she gets up and sits next to me. She puts her hand on my back and covers her mouth with her other hand. Renae comes out from the hallway with the baby on her hip. There’s a new look on her face. Kind of like when you accidentally catch yourself in the mirror in a store and weren’t expecting it. That’s how she looks.
The door slams open.
I bristle, hold the cup tight like I wish it were a gun.
His boots stomp into the living room. When he sees me, there’s a realization in his eyes that shows he knows he’d better be careful. Is he caught? That’s what he wants to know. “What happened?” he asks, looking at Dillon. He looks like he’s on that ice again. The kind that’s too thin to hold him up any longer.
“When was the last time you were in that shed, Donnie?”
“Why?”
“‘Cause, whoever raped Sadie stashed ‘em in there all these years. They were stuck behind the feed in a crevice between the floor and the wall slats.”
“I don’t know what yer talkin’ about, boy,” Donnie bellows.
Dillon paces again. He’s not going to tell Donnie what he found. Is he accusing him? Trying to catch him?
“Look, Sadie’s told me as much as she knows. As far as I can tell, the guy’s skipped town,” Donnie says.
“What about the fingerprints at the Spark’s house?” Dillon asks.
“Came back with nothin’,” Donnie says.
“Sadie, do you know what happened to the... To what I found?”
“I didn’t see them again. You must have dropped them in the fire,” I say. I hate lying to him.
Why is he hiding this from Donnie? I think he knows. I think he’s just waiting for the proof. Denial is a hard state of mind, a tall thick wall to break down. But it has to come down to reveal the truth walled in behind it.
I get up, tossing the blanket on the couch and make my way toward the restroom. I remember where it is. After I wash my hands and open the door, Renae is standing in the hallway. The baby is asleep on her shoulder. She’s wearing a long beige robe. “I need ta talk to you, Sadie,” she says, in a dark whisper. But then the harsh boots begin to stomp toward the hallway and she retreats into a bedroom across from me into the shadows.
I bristle again and try to stand my ground as he ushers me back into the dark bathroom. “What did you tell him?” he asks. His bear paw around my wrist feels like worms crawling under my skin. He closes the door. We are alone in the bathroom. Another closed space. I start to make some guttural sound I don’t recognize.
“Don’t scream. I ain’t gonna hurt you.” I can’t breathe. I’m stuck to the ground. He’s not going to do anything. He’s not going to do anything.
“I didn’t tell him. He figured it out,” I say, unforgiving and swift.
“What does he know?” he asks as he comes closer. I think he’s leaning down, smelling my hair but it’s completely dark and I can’t see. I’m helpless in this moment. I don’t know what he’s doing, so near me in the dark.
As I press my back into the wall, I can only hear his breathing—the sound reminds me of a deep pummeling rhythm. I can only smell his scent, the very one that I’d never liked, that reminds me of pain, of a knife blade pinching. I can only feel the vibrations of his body being far, far too close to me. I feel the bile rise in my throat, but the fear keeps everything down.
“He doesn’t know anything. He found the panties. But he threw them down and they probably burned up,” I say, quickly. Get this over with. “Let go of me right now or I swear to God...,” I say, like a little dog trying to bark deep.
He lets go of my wrist. But I know by his scent, by his vibrations that he’s too close, pinning me with his proximity. I move to the left toward the door handle and run straight into his arm. He’s pinning me in place with his arms like a cage. Our breaths are loud; they echo together in the stiff air like ghosts.
“Why did you keep them?” I taunt.
“When I touch ‘em, I feel you again. Smell you,” he says, taking a deep breath of me.
“You’re disgusting.”
“Nothin’ you do will ever break tha link we have, Sadie,” he says into my ear. I press that side of my face into the wall. I didn’t know his face was so close to mine. “You might keep me away, but you won’t break it,” he whispers into my other ear. I push his chest away from me. It feels like guilt. Like bodies under the dirt.
“Maybe not,” I challenge, “unless you are dead,” I snap. Pulling open the door like a saving grace, I run back out to the living room. Dillon is standing next to the window. He’s looking out to where the shed must still be smol
dering. I run out the front door leaving it wide open. I have to run, I need to get somewhere safe.
I find a path that we used to take from his house. I know where I’m going to go. The cave. The one that Dillon used to take me to that had the remains of some animal in it. That’s where I’m headed. I’m pushing through the branches. Listening to my breaths. Seeing them puff out of me under the lamp light of the moon. I turn and run toward the cliff. The cave is just right under the lip of it. I find it covered by overgrowth. I don’t care. I just want to be safe. Alone.
I rip away the foliage. Duck under the lip and cast myself onto the ground. I roll into a fetal ball. I’m rocking back and forth. Break his link with me. I’ll break more than his link with me. I’m going to expose him and when he comes after me, I’m going to kill him. I will do what I have to do to survive. If that’s the only way to be free.
“Sadie,” I hear Dillon calling me. I don’t want to talk to him. “Sadie!” He sounds frantic. I remember him sounding like this before. It’s like a flashback. Everything is a flashback tonight. I can’t believe I let Donnie get so close to me again. He touched me. He was savoring me in that bathroom. He’s never going to let me go.
“Sadie, darlin’. Please!” I don’t want to scare him. He’s been through enough.
“Dillon,” I say, but not loud enough. “Dillon!” I shout and stick my head out of the cave. He’s past me on the trail and he turns around. I go back into the cave and sit down. I hear him walking toward me. I keep my head down. My heart beats through my chest. What am I going to say?
“Sadie, don’t do this to me again,” he says, hastily sitting down in front of me. Grasping my face between his long thin fingers. “The last time you ran off...,” he starts.
“I know, Dillon. I’m sorry.”
“You asked me to tell you,” he says. “In the restaurant.”
“Tell me. It’s okay,” I say, as he puts his legs on either side of me.
“After I touched you, you ran. But I didn’t go after you at first. I was really pissed off at myself because I’d always promised to treat you right. I spoiled it. I felt so guilty. I didn’t even realize until I did it. I was euphoric after kissing you. And you were letting me look at your panties,” he says, with a slight grit to his teeth. He’s remembering them bloody just as I am. I can feel them pushing up against my hip through the pocket in my jeans. “I just reached down and swatted the mosquitoes. It didn’t feel wrong until I saw the look on your face.”
“I remember. I felt like we’d gone too far. I felt guilty.”
“I couldn’t see where you ran to. But I had this knot in my throat. Like I knew something was off. I can’t explain it. When I kept calling you, I was sure you’d come out. Smack me on the chest and pout. I could say I was sorry and then you probably wouldn’t have let me kiss you again for a long time,” he says, with a slight giggle. “I would take that scenario in a minute if I could.”
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” I say. “How there’s this whole other life we could have lived if I hadn’t been raped.”
“That’s exactly how I see it, Sadie. Like the life I wanted with you was robbed from us.”
“I know. But we can make it right. I’m here now. I’m not going to leave you again. I can’t.” He looks down, rubs his chin.
“I went to the shed. I thought I’d heard something in there. But it was locked so I left. I went down to the creek, but you weren’t there. I checked this cave even. I was looking for it right now. But I couldn’t find it,” he says. “When I came back, the shed door was wide open. That’s what I was thinking about today. You said ‘the shed’ up on the mountain. I just couldn’t bring myself to believe that it was my shed. The one me and Donnie built with our dad,” he says, shaking his head.
“When I found you, baby,” he says, and puts his fist up to his mouth. He takes my face again in his hands, lightly, lovingly. “You were,” he stops to take a breath. “You were floating face down, bumped up against a log. I ran into the water. Pulled you out. You were so cold.” His eyes change. They look vacant. Numb. “You were dead.”
“What did you do?”
“I did CPR. I learned it at school the year before. I worked on you for probably three minutes before you took a breath. I died a thousand deaths in those three minutes.”
“Three minutes,” I say. I had no idea.
“And then your daddy whipping you. All the blood in the house. I didn’t see all the blood out in the dark. You were covered, I was covered in it.”
“Where did you go when Momma made you leave?”
“I slept on your front porch,” he says. “I couldn’t leave you. Your momma found me out there in the morning. Told me you were okay, to go get cleaned up. She hugged me while I cried. It wasn’t the manliest thing I ever did,” he says, with one of those laughs used to mask the sound of tears stuck in the throat.
“I’m sorry, Dillon,” I say, running my fingers along his wet cheek. I guess I hadn’t realized how much pain Dillon experienced over this. The guilt he feels is just like mine. “Please, don’t feel guilty. You saved my life.”
“I wasn’t quick enough. If I’d ‘a ran after you right away.”
“You can’t think that way. It happened. There’s nothing that’s going to change it. There’s no reason to go back to that day over and over. The past will never change, Dillon.”
“The past will never change,” he says. It seems like a light bulb moment for him.
“All we have is the future,” I say. “Just give me time to sort this out. But you can’t fly off the handle like that again. I need you to be calm if you’re going to help me. Okay?”
“I’ve never been that angry in my life, Sadie. It’s like the past caught up with me and exploded inside my body.” Inside my body. That reminds me.
“Do you want a baby, Dillon?”
“What?”
“I just have this weird feeling like I’m going to have one. I haven’t taken a test or anything. It’s only been a few days but I feel like my body is shared with someone.”
He blinks a few times, leans forward and kisses me then. It’s that kiss where he’s asking for something again, and I want to give it to him. That’s when I remember the verse in the Song of Songs.
I pull away from him and say,
“My dove in the clefts of the rock,
in the hiding places on the mountainside,
show me your face,
let me hear your voice;
for your voice is sweet,
and your face is lovely.”
I don’t wipe his tears. I let them fall down on me like love—absorb them into my skin, into my soul. “Promise you’ll never leave me,” he says, his voice and face so earnest, so true.
“Never,” I say, and he pulls me toward him by my hips as I wrap my arms around him and kiss him, slowly, purposefully to show him I mean it. Here in the spot where we used to giggle and play rock, paper, scissors, Dillon and I are going to make love for the second time.
We stand up and undress each other. There’s an intensity between us as we do. His eyes never leave mine. We have a shared past. A shared future. It’s chilly out as he lays our clothes on the rocks. But I’m so connected to him that I feel heat coming up through my pores. He sits down and eases me into his lap so that I’m resting on his thighs and open to him.
He readies me with is hands, the tips of his fingers, his mouth until I’m begging him for more. He fills me up, slowly, deliberately, as I offer him my bare neck to tease with his warm lips. With every movement, he fills my spirit with a radiant heat.
“Look at me, baby. Please,” he says, tilting my chin down to his gaze. My lips tremble as he looks right into the deepest part of me, the most wounded part, and loves me anyway.
He holds my back with both hands so that our chests are pressed together. I’m looking into his blue eyes as the light from the moon flickers around inside our cave. He kisses me, our tongues dancing, whispers sweet nothin
gs in my ear, and rocks with me slowly until I know I’m going over the edge with him. My body is shared with someone. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Chapter Twenty-Four—The Overlook
As we walk along the old path, my hand entwined in his, we are careful to avoid the smoldering shed that neither of us wants to deal with right now. I’m thinking about what we’ve just done. Who does a thing like that? But for us, it was so easy. It’s like we are in our own world, just he and I. A world where rosebuds bloom into beautiful flowers, not withering and dying like in my dream. The outside world is where sheds burn down, where shadows come to life and hurt people. Inside our room, in the cave, we are an unattainable force of nature.
I wish it could just be the two of us. That it could be simple. That there could be no secrets between the two of us. That’s my goal: to be free and able to have the life with Dillon that we both deserve.
Once again, we’ve used no protection. It’s nearer to when my period’s due, so it’s likely that we could have a baby. I want to smack myself on the forehead. What am I doing? Bringing another life into this tragic situation. It’s definitely not the smartest move I’ve ever made. But, that makes me resentful because Dillon and I should be parents. We should have all of those things just like normal people.
Donnie has taken so much from me. Not this, too. I will have babies to fill up that house. I don’t want to wait. I want it all—now. I won’t let Donnie take another thing from me.
As my mind travels back to the cave, blood pumps through my veins like medicine for the faint of heart. I can still feel him. Everywhere he’s touched is tingling. When we share ourselves with each other like that, there’s nothing that can disturb the peace we feel in our hearts. It’s perfect. Untainted.
Thinking of hearts has me remembering the little one embedded into the white pile of sheets on the floor in our room. How odd it is that both brothers made me bleed. But the experiences cannot be more different. I’m in possession of evidence of the first. This could be just the thing I need to catch him so we can be free.
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