by Bry Ann
I got out of bed and threw on a jacket over my purple shirt, khakis and gold necklace. The benefit of having my hair in a bob was I just had to brush it. I have always had shorter hair, but before I left I cut it in a bob and I loved it. It suited me. The fact that literally had to spend less than two minutes on it was major perk. I checked my phone and was relieved to see Sam hadn’t called me yet. She was giving me as much space as she emotionally could handle. Love her. She always flipping gets it.
I left my hotel room and shut and locked the door behind me. I decided to get breakfast first, so I headed back to Ray’s. It was a ten-minute walk. For some reason that place made me feel less, I don’t know, alone and stupid. I headed down the road, pulling my jacket further up my arm. I didn’t even get five minutes out when I got the feeling I was being watched. Was I going crazy? I blamed it on paranoia. After everything Gunner had said, and not said yesterday, it was no wonder I was feeling a little bit on edge. However, the closer I got to Ray’s the more the feeling of someone’s eyes boring into me settled in my gut. My skin was prickled all over and I felt cold even though I had my jacket on and pulled tight around my waist.
I was relieved by the time I got to Ray’s, and the lady in her seventies was there to greet me again. I got eggs and a side of coffee. I was hoping to eat something a little lower carb after yesterday’s emotional eating festivities. The lady frowned at my boring order but told me she would be right out with it. I tried to read any stupid thing I could around me, but the feeling somebody was watching me still hadn’t gone away. I looked at the window and put both hands on the glass as I looked around even more carefully for any sign that I could be in some kind of danger.
I only pulled away from the glass when the waitress came out with my food. I thanked her and fiddled with my eggs for a bit before eventually pushing them to the side. I wasn’t hungry anymore. I pursed my lips frustrated that I didn’t want to eat and frustrated that I felt scared and alone. I hated that feeling. I’d felt it most of my life, and I had just gotten to the point with Sam, Alexa, Jazmine, Logan and yes Gunner too that I no longer felt that way. Now I was willingly putting myself back in that position for one dumb man. I let out a groan and motioned for the check.
“Shit,” I mumbled to myself.
The lady came and looked back and forth between me and the eggs, seemingly offended.
“You didn’t like the eggs?”
“No, no, no I loved them. I just…” I sighed. “I have a lot on my mind. I’m sorry. Thank you. Everything has been so lovely here.”
She seemed more comfortable with that answer.
“Okay well let me know if I can get you anything else. I’ll wrap those up for you.”
I wanted to tell her that wasn’t necessary, but I knew there would be no point. The stubborn old lady wouldn’t let all that food go to waste, so I just gave her a small smile and a nod. Then I went back to staring out the window and trying to shake out my hands to stop them from shaking.
I stared out the window blank faced for several minutes before feeling a hand on my shoulder. I jerked around so fast my hand knocked over what I had left of my coffee and sent it crashing to the floor. My jaw dropped, and I looked at the very confused face of my elderly waitress with the to go box.
“I’m so sorry!”
My heart was pounding in my chest. I felt horrible! I jumped out of my seat and went to pick up the pieces of plastic spread across the floor.
“It’s okay. You alright darlin’?” the elderly woman asked as she toweled off the counter.
Soon a few other older people were around me encouraging to sit back down and relax. I apologized profusely and left virtually a 50% tip. I skedaddled out of there as fast as I could. I’d become a complete mess since Gunner told me I was in danger and then shut me out. I stared at my phone. Why hadn’t Sam called me yet? I was starting to get worried.
I made my way down the cobblestone streets of the town. It really was a cute place. It almost looked like a place out of the ‘60’s or from the UK, with all its little shops and bookstores. I loved it. Every once in a while, I’d see someone offering rides on horse drawn carriages. I briefly let my mind slip into the thought of how cute that would be for a date, but I quickly brushed that aside.
I rounded a corner with my bag slung over my shoulder when a large hand covered my mouth and pulled me towards a dark alley between two shops. I let out a shriek and tried to wiggle free, but whoever it was too strong. I was shaking from head to toe when I was suddenly slammed against a brick wall. I tried to shriek again as sweat poured down my forehead, but the hand clamped tighter around my mouth. A voice gently said “shhhh”. It was the gentle yet gruffness of the stranger’s tone that caused me to look up in panic.
Gunner.
His intense hazel gaze was boring into me. I stopped struggling and he gently released his hand from my mouth. Once again, he told me to be quiet. My heart was pounding, and my hands were shaking as I came down from the adrenaline high I still had coursing through my veins. Suddenly my anger turned to rage. I had so many questions. Like, seriously, what the hell? Gunner saw it in my face, because I saw him let out the faintest hint of a smirk. He still had me pinned against the wall. I snuck my hands out to the front of my body to push him away. I gave a shove against his large chest, but he didn’t budge. He just looked at me annoyed.
“What are you doing here? You said you weren’t here. You said…”
He cut me off with a swift flick of his hand.
“I know what I said.”
“Then what are you…”
“Not here,” he said cutting me off again.
“Then where?”
Gunner had been looking around, taking in his surrounding, but with those two words I got his full attention. I wasn’t fighting him. The reality is I’d follow him anywhere. I was just so happy to see him. It’s a sucky feeling, knowing you love someone so much you’d do anything for them. It’s terrifying. If Sam felt a third of what I feel for Gunner for Logan, then I get why she ran.
“Follow me. Just be quiet,” he warned.
“Am I being in serious danger?” I bit my lip. “What did I do wrong?”
Gunner turned back around to face me. He put a hand on my cheek. It wasn’t gentle, it was guilt.
“You did nothing, and I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. Okay? Just trust me.”
“Something could have happened yesterday when you were busy being angry and avoiding me!”
His posture stiffened.
“Don’t be naive Dana. I headed back to Missouri as soon as I found out you were here. You shouldn’t have come. I called Sam that way I knew you were okay until I got there. I told Sam to talk to you for a bit. She was confused and a little freaked out, but it's Sam... she didn’t ask questions. Well, sort of,” he grumbled. “I was back here in less than ninety minutes. You were at the Holiday Inn. I tracked it. So, see, I’m an ass but not a dick. I didn’t ignore the fact you were in danger. Now let’s move. I wasn’t kidding about the being quiet thing.”
I stared at Gunner in shock. He came back for me. He watched over me. I mean it was kind of creepy, kind of romantic. He said he was done though. He said he regretted becoming my friend. Oh my gosh I was so freaking confused!
A rough jerk of my hand reminded me Gunner was waiting on me. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me forward. I didn’t know where we were going, but Gunner was here in the flesh, so I felt safe. I felt my phone buzz in my pocket as Gunner pulled me through the town.
“That’s probably Sam. I need to take it, or she will talk to Logan. If that happens I’m screwed,” I mumbled.
“We are almost there. You can call her from the room.”
“Room?”
“Yeah,” he said looking at me like it was obvious where we were going. It wasn’t.
Finally, we arrived at small house. Well it was more like a cabin. It was a little way outside of town. Gunner jerked me inside, taking a look around before shu
tting and locking the door behind him. I smiled when he put a chair in front of it as well.
“Makes it easier to hear if someone breaks in,” he mumbled.
So that’s where Sam learned this trick, from Gunner. It was hard for me to remember sometimes that Sam knew Gunner before I did. Although they were never friends, and they never stayed in touch… until me.
I walked around taking in the small wooden cabin. It had a beautiful fireplace, a cozy leather couch and there were no TV’s or modern technology in site.
“Where are we?” I asked wide eyed searching Gunner’s stoic expression.
“My house. My childhood home,” his jaw was clenched tight as he said this.
I furrowed my brows. I suddenly hurt for him in a way I was all too familiar with. I remembered Gunner telling me what happened here. I remembered vividly the day I figured out why Gunner had become who he was; a criminal, a drug dealer, a thug, a murderer if he had to be. It was also the day I knew I loved him.
“What?” I asked annoyed as Gunner looked around the spot by the hiking trail we agreed to meet at. Gunner was always super careful where we met so he didn’t put me in any kind of danger.
“Nothing.”
He came to sit next to me and we both sat at the edge of the rock. I put my elbows on my knees.
“Do you have parents?” he finally asked me.
“Do you?” I retorted defensively.
“I did.”
Those words sunk in like a rock. My whole demeanor softened.
“What happened?”
“Doesn’t matter. Do you?”
“You’re thinking about them aren’t you. That’s why you are being so weird. You’re more withdrawn than usual.”
There was a really long pregnant pause and then Gunner looked at me with the most conflicted expression I’d ever seen on another human being’s face.
“Yep.”
I shifted around to face him. I put my hand on his arm and he stiffened. We didn’t really touch each other at this point in our friendship. It was after this we got comfortable with each other physically, not in a sexual way or anything, just as friends.
“I don’t talk about it,” he finally said.
“Well you don’t friend people who aren’t thugs either so let’s just call this a fluke.”
He scoffed, and I saw his lips twitch like he wanted to smile. I squeezed his arm reassuringly and then put my hand back in my lap. Gunner looked over the rocks and I saw in his eyes that he went somewhere else. I looked at the tattoos on his arm. They all had to mean something, but he had yet to talk about them.
“They were murdered. I was older, seventeen to be exact. I was dating this girl at the time, Iris…” my eyebrows shot up and he laughed. “I wasn’t a piece of shit back then Dana. I dated. I was for all intents and purposes a fairly normal kid. Anyway, Iris was super smart, educated, overall, I just had a ton of respect for her. She worked hard and did her thing without expecting anything from anyone. I knew Iris’s parents were pieces of crap but never thought much of it until…” he looked over at me to see if I was still listening. I was. My eyes were already threatening tears. He gave me a grateful look and continued.
“Um…” he looked down like he was ready to cry and didn’t want to. I knew the feeling well. That lump in your throat. The overwhelming pain.
“It’s okay,” I said gently putting my hand on his shoulder and then letting it go as he looked down at his feet. “My therapist always says it’s not what we say it’s what we don’t say that gets us. You can do it.”
He looked at me and nodded bravely when he saw the determination in my gaze.
“Until I came home from a date with Iris on my arm and found my mom bound and gagged to a chair and my dad on the floor with his throat slit.”
My breath hitched.
“Gunner,” I gasped. “I’m so…” he put his hand up. He had to finish so I went quiet.
“I pulled Iris behind me. She was terrified. The men were older with lots of piercings. No tattoos. I remember that. Basically, long story short they told me Iris’s drug addicted father, her mother left when she was a kid, told these guys me and her were dating. They offered up my parents as some sort of punishment or warning for not having the money from her last drug purchase. Iris fell to the floor and as I was trying to pick her up the man stabbed my mom in the head. I couldn’t even say goodbye. Nothing. She was gone by the time I turned around, and by the time I was able to turn away from my mom Iris was gone too. I didn’t see her again until years later when she got bought in for not being able to pay her own drug payments. Apparently, the pain was too much, and she took the same path as her dad. I have no judgement. She became a druggie. I became a drug dealer. Neither of us really recovered.”
I shook my head trying eagerly to get that memory out of my head. By the look on Gunner’s face I knew his mind had gone to the same place. We were both quiet forever. Literally for so long. There were no words for what happened in this house, and that weighed on each of us heavily. Of course, it weighed on him more. I mean he was there! It was his parents. Still, it made me wonder why we were here. Why would he ever come back here? After several long minutes of silence, I pulled off my jacket and decided to speak.
“You left me,” I said quietly.
There was so much else to say, but I couldn’t say anything else. Not with all the different ways my heart was broken. Gunner sighed and turned around.
“I had to Dana. For you…”
“Don’t pull the for you bullshit! You ran. We kissed, you got scared and you ran.”
“You were taken Dana! Do you not remember? You were taken and your best friend, basically sister, was severely tortured and raped. I found her on the floor. Naked in her own blood! It could have easily been you! It would have been if Sam hadn’t covered for your stupid ass.”
It never occurred to me what that must have been like for Gunner. Him and Logan were the only ones to see her before she went to the hospital and it fucked Logan up bad. I can’t imagine how Gunner felt finding her. Gunner and her weren’t super close, but they were partners and he respected her. He wasn’t totally heartless, that had to have been hard for him to see her in that condition.
“I’m sorry. That was insensitive,” I finally said. “But you know you ran Gunner. You didn’t say a word. Six years of friendship and you just left.”
He paused, not looking at me. After a long silence he turned back around.
“What do you want me to say?” he snapped.
“The truth. I want the truth.”
“There’s no truth I can tell you without implications Dana. Now is not the time for them.”
I rolled my eyes and grabbed my jacket abruptly.
“I’m going to bed!” I yelled as I headed for the bedroom. Gunner grabbed my arm.
“Where the fuck do you think you are going?”
“To bed.”
“Not in there. That’s my room. You are on the couch.”
“Like hell I am. That’s like gentleman 101.”
“I’m no fucking gentlemen!”
“Well don’t I know it. Look, I’m sleeping on the bed. Although, I could use a snuggle buddy. This has been a shitty day so feel free to join me.”
With an angry stomp of my foot I whirled around and slammed the door behind me. Once the door was closed I removed my shirt and took off my shoes. I was about to unbutton my pants when the door came flying open. I immediately covered myself and grabbed my shirt throwing it back on.
“What the hell Gunner! Get out!”
“I don’t snuggle. This is my room.”
Finally, tired of fighting my chin hit my chest.
“Fine, take the freaking room. It’s not worth fighting. I'm tired of fighting over. I don’t even know what we are fighting about anymore.”
I brushed past him. When I hit the doorway, Gunner grabbed my arm. I looked up to face him.
“Dana,” he said simply, giving me a weird pained exp
ression.
“Go to bed. It’s fine,” I paused. “I need to borrow a shirt though.”
“A shirt?”
“Yeah, I don’t have pajamas or the privacy of a room anymore.”
He grunted and threw a shirt at me. He hated talking to me about anything pertaining to nudity or sex. Gunner loved sex and naked women, that’s a known fact, but for some reason he wanted nothing to do with that subject when I was around.
After I left his room I changed in the restroom and crawled onto the couch. There was a small knitted blanket on the floor that I threw over me. I wasn’t cold, but blankets made me feel protected. I think blankets do that for everyone. I knew for sure I was in danger now. Gunner was here. In his own way he was protecting me. From what? I didn’t know. That would have to wait until morning. For now, I needed rest.
Dana-15 years old:
I sat on the edge of my bed with the knife I kept hidden under my mattress in my left hand. I slowly ran the blade along the underside of my arm and numbly watched the blood drip down. I probably didn’t even need to hide the knife anymore. If nobody noticed the cuts on my arms and legs they sure as heck weren’t going to notice a knife on my bedside table. Or maybe my family did notice my cuts, but just didn’t care. Regardless, in both cases they wouldn’t care about me keeping a knife in my room.
I guess it was not fair to say nobody noticed because I know Logan did. The problem was he’d been gone the better part of two years. My parents and his agent had him working so much he didn’t know which way was up. He loves his job, but I could see the toll his workload was taking on him, even if he wouldn’t admit it.
I knew my brother noticed my cuts, because unlike my parents I saw him eyeing me nervously whenever I wore anything close to a short sleeve shirt or shorts. I made it a point to cover up when he was home now after I started realizing he saw the cuts, but it didn’t really matter. He knew why I was covered up all the time. He just didn’t say anything to me. He was not home enough to truly talk to me about it, and my brother was not great about talking about serious issues head on. Every time he was home though, I would hear him begging my parents to get me help. Anytime I went to bed I liked to crack my door open. I could always hear his firm, worried voice begging them to help me. He told them about my cutting, about me crying myself to sleep for years, my anxiety and every time they said they’d help me...