by Lia Lee
“I hope so,” Anna said. “I’m tired of being scared. I’ve been scared since my dad got a hold of Lizabeth’s phone. I don’t even know if Lizabeth and her parents will be okay.”
“He won’t find us here. I think your friend will be all right, too.” I was saying it to make her feel better, but I didn’t know that for a fact. I didn’t know what kind of a person Anna’s dad was. I wanted to know what she was hiding, why she wouldn’t even talk to her dad. I wanted to know what she was scared of and why she was on the run. But Anna was already terrified and wasn’t coping well. I didn’t want to make matters worse by asking her what was going on. It wasn’t any of my business, and unless she wanted to tell me, I wasn’t going to ask. Whenever I wanted to pry, I reminded myself how I would feel if she asked why I was running if she knew I was hiding out. I didn’t want her to know the ugly side of my life, and I was sure she didn’t want me to know hers.
I doubted her reason from running was a bad one like mine was, but anything was possible.
Later that afternoon, Anna came out of the bathroom. She looked irritated and upset.
“Could we make a run to Dillon?” she asked.
I frowned. I didn’t want to head out unless it was necessary. We were making a lot more trips to Dillon than I usually did by myself, and it made me feel like we were showing our faces too often.
“Do you really need to go?”
“I do, yeah. I’m sorry.” She hesitated. “I got the wrong tampons.”
I didn’t even know something like that was possible. Being a woman sounded like a pain in the ass to me if I looked at what Anna was going through to have her period. And it happened every month. But I wasn’t going to argue with her. If she needed something, then I would help her get it.
“I guess we can,” I said. “If it’s really urgent.”
“I’m so embarrassed,” she said, looking down. She knotted her fingers together. “I know it’s an effort to go into town.”
It was an effort to go into town, and if we were hiding out, I wanted to stay away from town as much as possible. Something about Anna seemed off as if she wasn’t telling me something. She seemed evasive and distant, and it made me wonder if she was hiding something. The last couple of days she was so different than she had been since she arrived. She had been open about everything, but now she was closed off. Maybe it was because she had found out her dad was on her trail. Either way, I didn’t like how she was, now. I had loved it when she was so open and honest with me.
“We’ll leave as soon as you’re ready,” I said.
“Thank you,” she mumbled and started getting ready to go, putting on her jacket and her boots.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. I didn’t even try to say that I understood because I didn’t understand at all.
We drove to Dillon in silence. I kept an eye on the weather. The clouds had accumulated again, and I wanted to be back at the cabin before it started snowing. Anna looked out of the window, deep in thought. I wanted to ask her if she was okay, but I was starting to sound like a broken record, and I felt like she would only tell me she was “fine” anyway. It was what she had been telling me lately, even though I could see plainly that she was anything but fine. This thing with her dad was eating away at her, and something else was bothering her that I couldn’t pinpoint. It made me uncomfortable.
We stopped at the store, and Anna said she would be back. She headed into the shop without me before I could protest. Usually, we went in together. I waited in the truck for her to finish up. I wasn’t going to run after her if she was so set on shutting me out. Her behavior was so different.
When she came back, Anna had a paper bag with her. She hugged it to her chest when she came in.
“Did you get what you needed?” I asked.
She nodded.
I took a deep breath, unsure how to word what I was feeling.
“Is there a reason you’re being so secretive?” I asked. “When we came here for tampons before you were fine about it. Now it seems you’re set on hiding it from me.”
Anna shook her head and looked down, not making eye contact.
“I’m shy about it,” she said. “It’s weird having my period here where it’s a mission just to get what I need.”
I nodded. I would allow her explanation, but it didn’t mean that I believed her. Maybe she was telling the truth. Maybe my past with the mafia, my inability to trust any of the people I had been working with, including Frankie, the Big Man who had taken me under his wing, made me suspicious of everyone.
But I hadn’t been suspicious of Anna when she had arrived. It was only recently that she had started acting so strangely, making me think something else was up, that she was hiding things from me and refusing to tell me the truth.
I didn’t confront her about it. I dropped the subject and pulled back into the road to start on the long drive back to the cabin. I wasn’t sure what to think anymore. I wasn’t sure how to handle the way Anna was being. I felt like Anna was hiding things from me, which wasn’t very easy in a cabin so small and with our lives so intertwined. But the novelty of our relationship—if that was what we could call it—and the romance of being stranded in the cabin together was wearing off. Real life was staring to catch up with us, and it was starting to get strained. I didn’t like that Anna was hiding things from me.
The moment I thought it, I reprimanded myself for being such a hypocrite. I was upset that Anna was hiding things, that she wouldn’t tell me what was going on, but I had been doing the same to her since the moment I had met her. She knew nothing of my past, of why I was in the cabin and why I stayed here for so long. I had lied to her about my parents, for God’s sake. But being on the run myself had made me suspicious about Anna’s background and her reasons, and try as I may, I couldn’t help but put myself first when it came to safety.
It was, after all, why I was here. Because I was looking out for number one, and I had to do what I needed to do to stay safe and to survive.
When we arrived at the cabin, Anna walked inside without a word and locked herself in the bathroom. I hadn’t lived with a woman before. Was this what it was like? Would it be like this every month? I pushed the thought of something long-term out of my mind. As soon as Anna knew what was happening with her dad, she would leave, and I would never see her again. I was sure of it.
I pulled my thoughts back to the topic at hand. I had no idea if this behavior was normal and if her hormones were fucking with her. I had heard that it was a rollercoaster for women, but I didn’t have personal experience.
After the longest time, Anna emerged from the bathroom.
“Is everything all right?” I asked. “You were in there for a long time.” I kicked myself for making it sound like I had been timing her.
“Yeah, everything is all right,” Anna said, and it was a refreshing change from “fine.” I wasn’t sure I believed her, though. She still seemed distant and switched off.
Anna put the kettle on. “Coffee?” she offered, and I accepted. I watched as she prepared two cups and waited for the water to boil. I studied her attitude, her mood, and tried to figure out what was going on with her. Maybe I was only being paranoid, and this was normal. Maybe I was reading too much into everything.
But I had been around people who had hidden agendas for a long time, and I liked to think I could spot suspicious behavior when it smacked me in the face.
And Anna was behaving very different than what I had gotten to know about her.
When the coffee was ready, Anna brought my cup to the couch. We drank in silence for a short while before Anna put her cup on the coffee table.
“I’m going to lie down for a while,” she said. “I don’t feel very well.”
She stood up and walked to the bedroom, closing the door. It was something she wouldn’t have done before, but she was feeling sick. Maybe it was that. Maybe it was mood swings and hormones and all the other lovely things that came with a woman’s cycle. I fi
nished my cup of coffee alone, the crackle of the fire the only sound in the cabin and stood up to rinse out the cups. When I picked up Anna’s cup, I realized she had barely touched it at all. The mug was almost full, and the coffee had gone cold.
I walked to the sink and poured the coffee down the drain and washed the cups. Whatever was up with her, I hoped it would be over, soon.
Chapter 19
Anna
I woke up from a restless, dreamless sleep. I felt disoriented, and for a moment I wasn’t sure where I was. Something was wrong, something nagged at the back of my mind, but I couldn’t put my finger on it straight away. When I turned my head to the side, I noticed Luke had already gotten up. I spread out my arms and lay across the entire double bed.
As if the information had only been lagging until I was awake, it slapped me in the face. I was pregnant. I had taken the test yesterday, and it had been positive. I suddenly felt worse. That explained everything. It explained how bloated I had been feeling, how sore my nipples were, how tired I had been all the time. When my period had been late, I had asked Luke to drive me to Dillon with the excuse that I had bought the wrong tampons. I hadn’t been able to talk to him about what I had found out. I had no idea what to do. I was worried about how Luke would react, and I was worried about my future which looked like a big black hole, now.
Luke was a great guy, and when everything was set out, it worked like clockwork. But not everything was planned. Having a baby hadn’t been a part of the picture, and I was scared Luke would be angry with me for some reason. I couldn’t cope with that right now. My emotions were already all over the place. I wish I had someone I could talk to. It was in times like these that I wished I had known my mom, that I still had her around to speak to. I had a photo of her, and she had the same dark hair and dark eyes I had. I had imagined what kind of person she would be like for a long time, but now I wished it had all been true. I wished I’d had the opportunity to meet her.
Now, I didn’t have anyone I could talk to. Lizabeth was in a different place in her life, and I doubted she would be able to give objective advice. Besides, she was a hundred miles away, and I needed to see my best friend face to face for this. I needed someone to be able to guide me, talk me through it, to tell me what I should do. I had no idea which way to turn. When I tried to think about keeping the baby, I thought about Luke and where our relationship might go. Our romance had been born out of tragedy and suspense. I wasn’t sure that what we had would hold up in real life at all, and if I was going to have a baby, I needed to.
Another alternative was to raise the child by myself. I knew I was independent, and I would probably be able to pull something like that off, but every child started off with two parents as a rule. There was a reason for that. The child needed both his mom and his dad. If Luke and I didn’t stay together, it would very strongly affect the future of my unborn child.
The more I thought about it, the more my head started hurting and I felt depressed. I had no idea what to do. I felt lonely and lost with no one to turn to.
Finally, I climbed out of bed and changed into warmer clothes. When I walked into the living room, Luke was looking out of the window again.
“Is everything fine out there?” I asked. “Did the lion come back?”
Luke shook his head. “It looks like everything is all right, now. The mountain lion hasn’t come back, yet. Let’s hope it stays that way.”
I nodded and walked to the couch where I pulled up my legs and tucked my feet underneath me. We were silent for a while. Luke had been catching onto my mood, commenting about how I was acting and how distant I was. I knew I was behaving different toward him, but I was struggling to sort out my emotions. Not only was I on an emotional rollercoaster ride because I had just found out I was pregnant, but my emotions were also all over the place. Of course, it was a symptom of early pregnancy, but I hated it. I was usually a stable person and now everything was haywire. Luke was suspicious, but I could chalk it up to being on my period. Even though it wasn’t true, many of the early symptoms of pregnancy were the same as the symptoms of having a period, and I doubted Luke would know any better. He was a man who lived in the mountains, isolated from almost everything, including women. How much could he really know?
While the two of us were stranded here in the cabin, both of us running, I could pretend the pregnancy wasn’t real. But what happened when I needed to leave? What was I going to do? I didn’t know if I was going to keep the baby, and if I was would I be hiding it from him forever. I didn’t know if I was even going to keep in contact with Luke. I would have liked to, but realistically, I didn’t know if it was possible.
I didn’t even know if I would leave the cabin as my father’s prisoner or as a free woman. I felt lost and confused and scared to talk to Luke about it. I was terrified he would be upset with me and turn his back on me instead of being there for me the way he had been all this time. Even though I was hiding something from him now, I wasn’t ready to risk going through all this alone. Luke had been so attentive and so caring, helping me get through the trauma of running from my dad and being stuck in a snowstorm with him. If he found out about the baby and he was upset, he might shun me, and I couldn’t cope with that. It was easier not to tell him, to keep giving him excuses than to lose him.
“How are you feeling today?” Luke asked, walking to the couch and sitting down next to me.
I shrugged. “I’m feeling all right. A little under the weather, but I think it might be because I’m not used to this weather.”
It was a silly excuse, but Luke nodded slowly.
“I guess that could play a role in how you feel,” he said.
Luke tried to make a little more conversation, but I was short with him. I didn’t feel like making conversation. I didn’t feel like answering his questions truthfully, and I didn’t feel like lying to him, either. I knew I was wrong about how I acted. I should have come out and told him exactly what was going on. But I couldn’t help it, not now. I felt like shit, and I was so stressed out I could barely eat. My stomach was nauseous consistently, and that only made me crabbier. I knew it wasn’t fair to Luke. On top of everything that was happening in my personal life, my dad could arrive at our front door any minute. I didn’t know how he would find me, but I knew he didn’t stop until he got what he wanted. I didn’t only fear for what he would do to me when he found me, what my future would entail if he dragged me back home. I also feared for Luke.
If my father found out I had been living with the stranger all this time, having a romantic affair with him, he would kill Luke. And I wasn’t talking about the metaphor, either. I was terrified he would end Luke purely because he had been with me. My dad was very controlling, extremely possessive, and he had access to all the bells and whistles of the underground world. Luke would be no match for him no matter how much he wanted to protect me.
I wondered if I should have told Luke about who my dad was and what he was risking by giving me a place to stay. I had been keeping it a secret from him from the start, but I wasn’t sure I could come clean about it, now. Again, I was worried I would push Luke away and he would be angry with me. The only thing worse than everything I was going through right now, was having to go through all of this without Luke. I had started to rely on him, to lean on his strength when I had none. If I lost him now, not only would I be heartbroken, but I didn’t know if I would be able to pull through.
“Don’t you want to tell me what’s wrong?” Luke asked, and I realized he had been watching me while I had been trying to rationalize everything in my mind.
“It’s just my period,” I said. “My cramps are really bad.” How long would I be able to keep riding this excuse? I felt bad about lying to Luke.
“Here, let me get you something,” Luke said and stood up. He walked to the bedroom and reappeared a while later with Tylenol and a heating pad. I was surprised. It turned out he knew a little more about periods than I had thought.
“Thank you
so much,” I said, and I really meant it. Luke surprised me with his gallantry every time. Every time I thought he had reached the limit of how kind he could be to me, he surpassed it. I felt terrible about lying to him when he was this good to me, but I was still terrified of the alternative.
“I’m going to lie back down,” I said after I took the Tylenol. Luke nodded without saying anything. I didn’t know what he was thinking, and I was a little nervous to ask. I had the feeling that I had been a disappointment to him because I had been struggling with my own things so much.
“Let me know if you need anything else,” he said.
“I will,” I said. I walked to the bedroom and lay down on the bed with the heating pad on my lower stomach in case Luke came in. I didn’t have cramps, but the heating pad made me feel better for some reason. Maybe it was the warmth.
I couldn’t believe I was pregnant. How was this possible? Luke had shown me the condoms we had used. I didn’t understand how I could have fallen pregnant after only having sex once or twice. I had to be the unluckiest girl in the world.
I thought about the wine we’d had the night before and guilt shot through my chest. How much wine had I had? Three glasses? Four? I shouldn’t have been drinking while I was pregnant, but I hadn’t known, then. I wondered if it hurt the baby. If I had, it was more guilt to add on top of everything else. Guilt about lying to Luke, guilt about keeping the pregnancy a secret, guilt about drinking wine. Perfect.
It all became too much to bear and tears rolled down my cheeks. I wished I had someone to talk to about this, to unload what was bothering me even if I didn’t get any advice in return. I felt like I was completely and utterly alone in this, and I hated it.
Chapter 20
Luke
By Sunday, Anna wasn’t better. She was worse if anything. She barely spoke to me and spent a lot of time in bed sleeping or standing in front of the window looking out. I wasn’t sure if it was her period bothering her or the worry about her dad. I couldn’t figure it out.