by Minard, Tori
We didn’t talk much on the way to her coffee house. The thought that she would eventually find out what I’d done made me less talkative than I’d otherwise be. And Caroline kept looking over her shoulder. She was really worried that Trent would find out we’d been hanging out.
An ugly idea occurred to me. Maybe his controlling went beyond warnings and into physical violence. The thought made my heart hammer in my chest and my throat go so tight it started to hurt. It was strange for me to get so angry, considering I really didn’t know Caroline very well. While I hated the idea of any woman being subjected to violence, I didn’t normally get so worked up about it unless the woman was a true friend of mine.
“Will you be okay?” I said as we approached Avery’s Crossing’s tiny downtown. My voice was hard with the tension I felt.
“Okay? What do you mean?”
“If Trent finds out. Will you be safe?”
Her mouth opened but no sound came out. She closed it, then opened it again. “Of course I’ll be safe.”
“Good. I just wanted to be sure.”
She put a hand on my arm. The heat of her touch pierced right through the sleeve of my denim jacket. “He doesn’t hit me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
I wanted to put my hand on top of hers, but I didn’t. “I just don’t want to put you in danger. But I like you. I liked talking to you the other day.”
That was true, even though I’d initiated the conversation with revenge in mind. In fact, I’d enjoyed her company a little too much, but I could keep it together long enough to make things difficult for Trent.
Her face turned an adorable shade of pink. “I liked talking to you, too.”
Now we were making progress. I stifled a grin. “If you ever feel unsafe, you’ll let me know, right?”
“Um...sure. But he’s not like that. Really, he isn’t.”
“Okay.”
“We turn here.” She took a sharp right and I followed.
Avery’s Crossing had that all-American small town feeling, especially downtown. Old buildings from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a sprinkling of big shade trees and old-timey storefronts gave it a charm you usually only see in movies. I hadn’t made up my mind how I felt about it yet. Sometimes I just wanted to run back to Seattle and the hurry-hurry of a big city.
Things felt awfully slow here.
The coffee house was on the edge of the downtown core and from the minute I walked in, I could see it was another student hang-out. There seemed to be older people here, too, though. Maybe Caroline thought it was less likely we’d be seen in this place.
Finally, we had our drinks and snacks, and had claimed a table in a back corner where we could be incognito. Caroline leaned across the table with an earnest expression.
“Why did you think Trent would hit me?”
“I didn’t. It was just a random thought, that’s all.”
“Oh.” She had the longest blond eyelashes I’d ever seen. “Why does he hate you so much?”
Well. She didn’t waste any time, did she? I leaned back in my seat to cover my discomfort. “It’s a long story. Goes back to when my dad married his mom.”
“Yeah, you said that to Paige.”
I shrugged. “It’s the truth.” Part of it, anyway.
“So that’s all there is to it?”
“No, of course not. We have years of childhood fighting behind us.”
“Are you older or younger?”
“Younger by six months.” I gave a humorless laugh. “Our parents thought it was a good thing we were so close in age. They thought we’d be great buddies or something.”
Her eyes—chocolate brown and unusually dark for a blonde—softened in sympathy. “I’m sorry. That must have been hard.”
“You have no idea.”
“Couldn’t you have gone to live with your mom?”
“She died when I was five,” I said, with as little expression as I could manage.
“Oh, no.” She put her hand over her mouth. “I’m so sorry; I didn’t know.”
“Obviously.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t.” I waved off her concern with a shake of my head. “It happened a long time ago. I hardly remember her.” Except for that trip to the ice-cream parlor. For some reason, that one memory stood out after all these years.
“Still. I just assumed your parents got a divorce.”
“Don’t worry about it, Caroline. I don’t.” I forced another smile. “So tell me about your family. Are your parents still together?”
“Yes, they are.” She took a bite of the carrot cake on her plate.
“Any sisters or brothers?”
“I have one of each. Lily and Landon. They’re twins, ten years old.”
I smiled, more out of politeness than anything. “Your family sounds...nice.”
“They are. My mom is a high school teacher and my dad works for the Bonneville Power Administration. What does your dad do?”
I shrugged. “Who knows?”
“Really? You’re that out of touch with him?”
I truly didn’t want to talk about him. “It’s been a while. He owns a construction business in Billings.”
“Oh. Duh. I already know that. Because of Trent.”
The expression on her face was one of guilt. Was she worried about hurting my feelings? It seemed like every time I talked to her, she surprised me by being someone so different from the person I’d expected. Maybe she wasn’t the stuck up rich girl I’d seen the night of the party. She wasn’t a flaky party girl, either, and I wasn’t sure anymore about the prissy good girl. The fact was, I didn’t know what kind of girl she was, but I was starting to genuinely like her.
That wasn’t going to stop me from taking her away from Trent, though.
That asshole had been asking for a take-down from me for so many years I’d lost count and I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity as golden as this one.
“Hey,” I said, glancing around the room. “Want to get out of here? We could walk along the river bank. It’s only a block away from here, right?”
“That’s right. Sure, sounds good.”
We put away our dishes in the bussing station and left the coffee house. The sun outside was so bright it almost hurt my eyes after the dim lighting of the restaurant. I squinted into the glare. Everyone had told me it rained down here almost as much as it did in Seattle, but we were just on the cusp of the wet, still coming out of the dry time of the year, when the sky seemed perpetually blue. Rain was coming, though. There was no such thing as a dry winter in the Pacific Northwest.
We ambled down to the river, not saying much along the way. I can’t claim it was a comfortable silence. I think we were both too aware of each other...or maybe that was just me. I couldn’t think of much else besides the way her body moved, the swing of her curvy hips, the way her hair was made up of every imaginable shade of gold and amber.
What was she thinking about? I have no idea. She didn’t seem to be afraid of me, though, and that was a good thing. If she’d been afraid of me, it would make my plan a lot more difficult to carry out.
The river bank was mostly unimproved, although there was a narrow footpath we followed along the edge of the water. This was the Willamette, and the crossing for which the town was named was somewhere along here. According to my Internet research—I’d read a couple of Wikipedia articles before moving here—Avery’s Crossing was named after a local farmer, one of the original settlers of the town, who’d also operated a crude ferry right in this area.
Out of the corner of my left eye, as if on cue, a shadowy shape moved out across the water. It was flat, like a large raft, with a human figure on top. Unlike a raft, it moved perpendicular to the current. I moved my head to get a better look and it was gone.
“What is it?” Caroline said.
“Did you see it, too?”
“See what?”
I glanced at her.
She looked puzzled, but I wasn’t prepared to discuss my occult activities with her, or the fact that I sometimes saw things, shadows of the past. “Never mind. I just thought I saw a bird. A heron or something.”
“Yeah, we see them around here sometimes.”
Besides, the ferry ghost might have been a trick of the light or some other illusion. Even when you have the second sight, not everything you notice is really a spirit.
Caroline leaned her back against the trunk of an oak tree, turning her head to smile at me. “It’s beautiful here.”
“Yeah. It is.” I was thinking of the woman beside me, though, not the natural scenery.
She flushed, as if she knew what I was thinking. “I love the river.”
“I love rivers, too.” That was actually true.
“They make me think of all the places they pass through,” she said, staring at the water. “I like to imagine drifting along with the current, just seeing what comes next.”
“There was a ferry crossing near here,” I said.
“That must be why it’s called Avery’s Crossing.”
I sang a couple of lines from The Decemberists’ song “Avery.” It was just a random impulse, because the song title matched the name of the town. Caroline turned and stared at me with an open mouth. She was actually gaping at me, she was so surprised.
“You know The Decemberists?” she said.
“Their last album is one of my favorites. You like them?”
“The King Is Dead. I love every song on there. Most of my friends don’t even know who they are.”
I winked at her. “We have something in common.”
She stared at me for another moment and then pushed off from the oak’s trunk. “Yeah.”
It was taking every bit of my concentration to not reach for her hand. This walk we were taking together felt more like a date than just friends hanging out, and I wanted to touch her. But she wouldn’t welcome it. Not yet.
“So,” she said brightly. “How long have you been doing graphic design?”
“I’ve loved to draw all my life. I got into graphics in high school, started my business not long after I got my GED.”
“Ah.” She sent a sidelong glance my way, and I pretended not to notice.
Was this—the fact I hadn’t graduated but had to get my GED—the little detail that would turn her off? Make her avoid me for real? I couldn’t tell yet, since she was putting a good face on everything.
“I think it’s great you have such strong direction,” she said. “I wish I did. I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up.”
“You’ll figure it out.” Probably marry Trent and have a herd of beautiful blond kids who’d have the world handed to them on a platter.
She tripped over an exposed root and tumbled forward, toward the water. I jumped to catch her before she landed in the river. She barreled into me with surprising force, considering her slight frame, and her momentum carried us both down to the hard-packed ground.
“Oof,” I said as she landed on top of me.
She gazed down at me with wide, brown eyes, her breath coming in startled pants, hair tumbling around her face in a golden cloud. My arms slipped around her taut waist, holding her to me so I could feel every curve on her delectable body. My cock began to throb and ache.
Her full, Cupid’s-bow lips parted. She looked like she wanted to kiss me, which was exactly what I wanted, too. I lifted my head, bringing our faces closer together.
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry.” She scrambled to get off me.
I let her go. The bulge in my jeans was getting painful and I didn’t want her to see it, so I sat up and bent one leg at the knee to hide myself.
She was still so temptingly close. I lifted my hand to her face and brushed a tendril of hair from her eyes. She jerked backward.
“I-I’m sorry. I can’t.”
“Yeah.” I dropped my hand. “I shouldn’t have—sorry about that.”
“It’s okay.” She gave me a brilliant, fake smile as she clambered to her feet.
“Are you okay? You didn’t get hurt, did you?”
“I’m fine.”
My butt was feeling a little sore because I’d landed on a rock, but I wasn’t going to admit it to her. I brushed off my backside.
“I was afraid you were going to end up in the river,” I said.
She flicked a glance at me, then looked away. “Thank you for catching me.”
“No problem.”
“Well...um...I should probably get back to my dorm. I need to get ready for my afternoon class.”
“Okay. I’ll walk you back.”
She ran her fingers through her curls. “You don’t need to do that. I’ll be fine on my own.”
“I want to. I’d like to make sure you get there all right.”
Her lips flattened into a straight line. “Max,” she said in a strange tone that seemed to hold both pity and regret. “I can’t. Honestly. It’s better if I go by myself.”
Damn it. I didn’t want or need her pity. Anyone’s pity. Words refused to come as I watched her turn around and climb back up the embankment toward the street. Christ. She felt sorry for me.
***
It was a handgun. A pistol of some kind. I didn’t know much about guns, but I saw them on TV. It seemed huge and felt surprisingly heavy in my hands, the dark gray metal cold.
My brothers were in the hallway outside my bedroom, playing. I could hear their voices, Trent’s high and childish and Carter’s even higher, with a baby’s lisp. Carter’s little feet made rhythmic thumping sounds as he ran back and forth down the hall. I didn’t know what game they were playing but I wished they’d shut up. They were so loud and I couldn’t concentrate.
I turned the gun over in my hands, looking at it from different angles. Not down the barrel, though. Even I knew better than that.
Except it didn’t have any bullets in it. Didn’t that make it safe?
So I could look down that barrel if I wanted to, only I didn’t want to. It was just a tube made out of metal. What was there to see?
A noise made me look over at my door. Carter stood in the doorway of my room, giggling at something. He did that a lot. Half the time I didn’t know what he was laughing at or why it was supposed to be funny. I frowned at him, annoyed. Wasn’t it enough for them to make noise in the hallway?
“What are you doing?” I snapped.
Carter just laughed.
“Go away. I’m busy right now.”
He looked back over his shoulder at something I couldn’t see, something in the upstairs hallway. Trent, maybe. Whatever it was made him laugh even harder. I glared at him, willing him to go away and quit bothering me. Couldn’t he see I was busy with something off limits for little kids like him?
I lifted the gun, experimentally pointing at the blank nighttime darkness of my window, my finger hovering over the trigger. No way did I want to fire this thing, even if it wasn’t loaded. But I could point it and imagine what it would be like to face down the bad guys.
Bam, I thought. Got ya.
Carter darted into my room, laughing hysterically. I swung my upper body around to glare at him and order him out. My hand tightened on the gun.
The explosion almost deafened me. Carter pinwheeled backward and tumbled to the floor, his chest nothing but a red ruin. He made no sound. Just fell to the floor.
I stared at him, my mind blank and uncomprehending. Then I looked at the gun. My ears rang with the blast of its firing. It was the only sound I could hear. I had fired the gun.
Carter! I threw the weapon onto my bed and ran to my brother. He lay on his back. His eyes were open and staring.
My hands started to shake. I gathered him up and lifted him into my lap. His little head lolled to the side, his whole body limp and unresponsive. Blood gushed from the wound, the terrible wound. It flowed all over my shirt, my jeans, the carpet.
No. No. No!
“Carter,” I said. “Carter.”
***
Brad and Marie’s farm lay on the western edge of town. It was pretty small, with a little apple orchard and some cow pasture. They kept chickens and goats and grew a market garden, which they were planning to expand so they could get into CSA—community supported agriculture. That’s where people basically subscribe to receive a weekly allotment of vegetables, herbs, fruit, eggs and whatever else a farm produces.
I drove up the long, rutted dirt road that led to their vintage nineteen-thirties farmhouse and parked in the shade of a huge old tree still covered in feathery-looking golden leaves. A long drift of the same leaves lay at the foot of the tree. Brad’s beat-up relic of a pick-up truck was parked over by the barn and Marie’s sedan sat next to the house. They were home, then.
She came to the door as I walked up the front steps. Her graying brown hair was tied back in a ponytail and she had a kitchen towel slung over one shoulder. She pushed the screen door open with a grin.
“Max!” She held out her arms.
I moved into the hug gladly. “Marie.” She felt tiny in my embrace.
“How have you been? You should come by more often.”
“I’ve been busy. Work and school, you know.”
“That’s no excuse. Get your butt in here and tell me all about it.”
I followed her into the little house, which looked like it hadn’t been upgraded or changed since at least the sixties. Maybe not even then. The kitchen was still almost original and smelled, deliciously, of cinnamon.
“You’re in luck,” she said. “I just happened to bake an apple pie today. I’m practicing for Thanksgiving.”
“No wonder it smells so good in here.”
She opened her ancient fridge and pulled out two cans of soda, handing one to me. “Brad is in the barn, but he should be back soon. So tell me about school. How is it, after being gone so long?”
“It’s not like high school, so I’m doing fine with it.” I sat down at the diner-style kitchen table. “Lots of classwork.”
“I’ll bet. Have you found yourself a girlfriend yet?”
“No.” I tried to hide my flaming face by lifting my soda can and taking a long swallow.