by Sam Mariano
“Oh!” She’s delighted, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. “Tell me everything. Tell me all about him. What’s his name?”
There’s no reason I shouldn’t, and no reason to feel uneasy, but there’s something about her enthusiasm that bothers me. It feels familiar and foreign at the same time. It reminds me of my mother when we went dress shopping, trying to lure me into girl talk.
I realize I’ve been quiet for too long when she asks another question, since I don’t seem to be answering that one.
“How’d you meet him?” she asks.
Her smile has weakened at this point and I’m quiet for even longer, so it becomes awkward.
She forces another smile and starts fiddling with her phone on the table.
The sight of her phone clears my mind for a moment, because I can’t believe I’m just thinking of this.
She has a phone.
I can’t call Liam from mine because they can check it, but no one would ever think to check Bethany’s.
Noticing my stare, she lifts the phone, flips it over. “Like it? I just upgraded to this new one yesterday, so I’m still learning all the new features.”
I drag my gaze from the phone to look at her. “Can I use your phone?”
Her excitement spikes again. “Yeah, of course!” She pushes it across the table, but I’m still looking at her face, because something feels wrong. She’s too excited. Why is she this excited? I’m making her feel uncomfortable and not answering her questions. There’s something in her eyes, something that isn’t excitement, and I don’t know exactly what it is. Is she nervous?
A chill settles over me and I sink against the back cushion of the booth.
Her smile falters and all that’s left for a split second is the nervousness. She recovers the smile quickly, but it’s too late.
I don’t trust her anymore.
My gaze moves away from her and out the pane of glass in the window. There are too many cars and I would never be able to finger the person or people following me anyway, but I can’t help looking.
I look back at Bethany, and she’s still waiting for me to take her goddamn phone.
“Is everything okay?” she asks.
Her smile looks fake to me now. Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but since my house is being watched, maybe I’m not.
“Fine,” I say half-heartedly.
She glances pointedly at her phone. “I need to go to the bathroom anyway, I’ll give you a little privacy.”
She winks and scoots out of the booth. Once I’m satisfied she’s not lingering, I pick up her phone and swipe it open. I touch the phone icon, but instead of making a call, I check her call log. Empty. That’s not too weird, given she just told me she upgraded to this phone yesterday, but then I swipe over to contacts and that’s empty, too.
Like her cart at the grocery store.
I go back to the numbers and my eyes dance across the ones that comprise Liam’s memorized phone number.
I can’t call him, because whether it’s paranoia or it isn’t, my instincts are telling me this is a trap.
I dial numbers anyway, but they’re mine. In my purse, my own cell phone rings and I ignore the call. I just want her phone number.
I check over my shoulder again, then I call the number on my cell and wait impatiently until it goes to voice mail. I don’t know how long she’ll be in the bathroom, and I don’t want to get caught checking up on her.
“Hi, you’ve reached Bethany’s phone! I can’t answer right now, but leave a message or shoot me a text and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Have a nice day!” I hang up before it starts recording, then I go into the call log in her phone and erase the calls I just made so it’s empty again.
Placing the phone back on the table, I stare at it.
What if I’m being crazy? What if Bethany just has a new phone and hasn’t transferred her old stuff over, and she’s just nervous and excited because we’re old friends but I’m weird now? What if I’m squandering the only chance I’ll get to reach out to Liam without anyone knowing I did?
But what if I’m not?
When Bethany comes back, she asks how my call went. I tell her I remembered after she walked away he wasn’t on lunch yet. I’m tempted to fill her up with all the answers she wants, but all of them lies. I want to, just to waste everyone’s time, but if I do that and she is in league with Pietro or Paul or whoever the fuck is doing this, then they’ll know I suspect something.
“You weren’t planning to meet him for lunch, were you? I hope I didn’t ruin your plans.”
I smile benignly and shake my head. “Nope.”
“Well, when does he go on lunch? You can always try again after, all this water goes straight to my bladder,” she says on a laugh.
I offer another bland smile but her continued interest in my use of her phone is alarming. And wouldn’t a normal person with no vested interest wonder why I need to use her phone, why I can’t use my own?
I wish I could just leave, but that would probably look suspicious, too. I don’t want to alert these assholes that I’m onto them.
The most alarming thought is that if Liam wouldn’t have told me they were watching my house, I wouldn’t be.
I would’ve taken this opportunity to tell someone about Liam. To reach out to him. Just like someone wanted me to.
Annabelle
I make the ziti.
I’m angry so I don’t want to, but I don’t want to tip anyone off. At least I feel like I have the upper hand if I know something they don’t.
The whole night passes uneventfully. Part of me wants to signal Liam somehow so I can warn him that they’re going to frankly unprecedented lengths to catch him, but signaling him would increase their chances of doing just that, so I don’t.
It’s the most depressing thought I’ve had lately, but I think the best thing I can do for him is leave him alone. It’s the last thing I want to do, but since nothing good can come of it and even stolen moments risk him getting hurt or killed, it is the best thing.
He can’t protect me, but maybe I can protect him. Liam would’ve never gotten tangled up in this mess to begin with if not for my sojourn to the apple tree.
Another day passes, then two. The only thing that changes is we’re that much closer to my mother’s stupid anniversary party. The pretty dress hangs in my closet, never to be seen by the man I want. The man I’ll never see again.
I lapse into sadness and stay in bed for a couple of days. Paul doesn’t come home, so there’s nothing to interrupt me.
I’m out of bed by the time he finally does, but not terribly energized. He looks tired, too.
I didn’t make dinner. I’m not hungry and I didn’t know he’d be here, and honestly, it’s not like knowing would’ve changed things.
He sighs irritably and tosses his keys across the counter. I glance in his direction, but remain curled up in the cozy chair with my blanket wrapped around me.
Raking an aggravated look at me as he walks past, he says, “You could turn up the goddamn heat, you know.”
I don’t respond. It’s nothing new, but it infuriates him.
“I’m fucking talking to you,” he barks.
Dimly aware that this isn’t going in a great direction, I glance at him, but I don’t have the energy to care, and if I did, I wouldn’t waste it on that.
When I don’t respond, he tries again to start something. “You wanna make some dinner?”
“There’s a frozen pizza in the freezer,” I inform him.
“I don’t want a frozen fucking pizza.”
“Well, we don’t have anything else.”
I mean, we do, if I felt like making shit from scratch, but that’s not going to happen.
“Then go to the goddamn grocery store,” he snaps, glaring at me. “That’s your job, isn’t it? We don’t have food? Go buy it.”
“That requires money.” And leaving the house.
He turns red and storms over, grabbing my blanke
t.
I hold onto it, because fuck him.
He mutters and swears at me as he tries to pull it away, and I hold on until I’m afraid the fabric’s going to tear. By the time he wrestles it away from me, I’ve fallen from the chair into the floor. He whips the blanket across the room and it falls over the arm of the couch. From my hands and knees I push myself up, but he grabs me, spinning me and backing me up aggressively, then shoving me. I land on the couch, so it’s not a hard landing, but I’m not sure what’s coming.
It’s weird, because his eyes don’t look right. He doesn’t look enraged when he attacks me, strangled with impotent anger and lashing out. Even the shove felt a little half-hearted.
“What?” he says, as if egging me on.
I don’t take the bait. I don’t feel like fighting tonight. I just duck to the side and stand, then go to walk past him so I can get the frozen pizza out.
He stops me, grabbing me again, shoving me against the counter. It does hurt when my hip slams against the edge of the counter, but I don’t show it. He grabs a chunk of my hair and yanks, and it hurts my heart instead of my head. Liam in the woods with his hand fisted in my hair right before he kisses me flashes across my mind.
Ouch.
A slap across the face pulls me out of my Liam memory, but it’s not as hard as I expect it to be.
“What are you gonna do, huh?” he asks. “You gonna call your fucking boyfriend?”
I meet his eyes then, his half-hearted, not all that angry eyes, and it clicks—he wants me to.
My gaze jerks to the front windows. I don’t know if I expect to see shadowy figures, poised to take him down when he shows, but I don’t.
“Huh?” he says again, jerking my chin so I’m looking at him again. “You think I’m afraid of him?”
I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m placid as I meet his gaze. “I think all of you are.”
Something jumps in his eyes, and that’s not anger either. My mind races to string together the pieces, to keep up.
The rage he mustered seems to drain right out of him. He stays close, holding onto my arm, but there’s no force now.
“What?” he says, in case he misunderstood.
“Why do you want me to call him?”
He tries to say, “I don’t want you to call him…” but I shake my head, fed up.
“Bullshit. What the hell is going on?”
He drops my arm now and backs up, his pretense of anger evaporated. He sighs, dropping his head into his hands and swearing.
“Why do you have to be so goddamn difficult?” he finally mutters.
I follow him down on the couch and wait.
Finally he looks up, after a few more dramatic sighs, and says, “You need to tell me where you met this guy. For real.”
“Nope. Next.”
“Annabelle… I’m serious.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m pretty sure he’s using you,” he states.
My stomach drops but my face remains impassive. It’s a stupid thing to say and I’m angry at him for even saying it, but I want to hear his reasoning.
“If you’re not going to say anything…” Paul trails off.
“Why would you even think that?”
“Quite a few reasons. Things are going on, things you don’t know about.”
I instantly shoot back, “What things?”
“I can’t tell you that.” He shakes his head very slightly. “Things. Bad things. Things that shouldn’t be happening. It seems like someone’s…” He evades again, shaking his head. His gaze flits up, toward the ceiling, then abruptly falls. “Just trust me on this, okay? Bad shit. Bad for us. I think that guy has something to do with it.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about or if it’s possible Liam does have anything to do with it, and I’m aggravated by the vagueness. “Well, if you can’t tell me anything, why should I tell you anything?”
“How did you even happen across this guy? He approached you, I assume?”
I stand, shaking my head. “If you can’t tell me—”
He stands too, grabbing my arm and jerking me back, but this time not in a forced show of aggression. Desperation seeps out of him.
“How did he fucking find you?”
I get chills again, trying to break his grasp, but his words are actually starting to get to me.
Liam didn’t come out of nowhere, and he isn’t the one who approached me, but what is Raj doing that he’s so worried about me finding out about? That warranted having me followed home, to make sure… what had Liam said? That I didn’t report back to Pietro?
What would I report back to Pietro for?
“What kind of stuff is going wrong?” I ask again.
Frustration etched plainly on his face, he swears again, but this time it smells of surrender. “I can’t… Some stuff was stolen.”
“Stuff?”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not just that either, it’s… that guy doesn’t fight like a normal guy. He doesn’t fight like a civilian,” he says pointedly.
My eyes roll of their own volition. “I wouldn’t call him throwing you off the bed and stepping on your throat a fight, Paul.”
His face reddens. “Not that night. Before that, before I knew who he was. The night at the bar.”
Now I frown. I don’t mean to, I probably shouldn’t have, but I don’t know what he’s talking about and I’m caught unawares. He immediately registers that and starts nodding in a knowing way that makes me immediately regret the slip.
“He didn’t tell you. You don’t know.”
“What?” I snap, defensive.
“Remember when I came home with the black eye? He was at the bar that night. When I went outside to leave, he picked a fight with me.”
I smirk and though I want to remark on how Liam sure didn’t look like he’d been in a fight, I hold my tongue.
My smirk doesn’t bother him though and he says, “Tell me something, Annabelle. If the guy’s into you, what was he doing following me?”
I quickly try to reconcile the timeline in my mind, but I lose days a lot and I’m not immediately sure when that happened. Doesn’t slow my reply though.
“Hm, I don’t know, do you think it might have something to do with the fact that I have an abusive partner? He probably wanted to punch you in the face for hurting me.”
It pisses Paul off and I have no idea if that’s true, but it does sound nice in my head.
“Wake the fuck up, Annabelle,” he practically spits. “He doesn’t give a fuck about you. He’s using you to get to us.”
The junkyard comes to mind again and though my mind almost never sides with Paul, doubt creeps in. Is it even remotely possible Paul’s right? Frankly, if Liam did want to use me to hurt Paul or my stepfather, I’d probably let him. That would bring me joy, too. But the idea of him fooling me into it certainly rubs the wrong way.
“What do you think he stole?” I ask.
“That’s not the point.” He’s getting worked up, for real this time. Apprehension grips me but I ignore it. “Don’t you fucking get it, Annabelle? He’s using you. He doesn’t care about you! You don’t mean shit to him.”
Ooookay, that’s what this is.
He wants to hurt me. He needs me to be hurt by this reveal.
He’s hurt by my interest in a man, finally—but not him. Why would it be him? But he would never consider that, obviously. I’m the asshole, I should love him; off with my head.
I even consider letting him think he’s got me. Oh no, my lover is using me! Woe is fucking me. Not like I’ve ever been used by a dickhead or two before.
In the end, I can’t. It goes against my nature to let him get one over on me, even if it’s just pretend.
Smiling faintly, I say, “So?”
His eyes about bulge out of his head. “What the fuck do you mean, so? He’s manipulating you. You’re a fucking pawn to him, a means to an end—”
I interrupt. “Well
, it sounds like you’ve got it all figured out, so I don’t know what you need me for. Who cares what his name is or how I met him or anything else? You seem to know all about what he’s capable of and what his motivations are. Me? I’m just a clueless little pawn.”
He’s pissed now, for real, so he grabs me and shoves me against the wall. “Did you know? Huh? D’you know he’s pulling some shit on your own goddamn husband? Your own goddamn family? Are you in on it?”
He’s not even making sense, but there’s no point trying to reason with him. Pain radiates through my elbow as he slams me against the wall again and it hits at just the right angle. He turns me until I’m belly-up against the wall and he crowds me, pushing his body against my back.
“You think that’s cute, huh? You think you’re making a fool out of me?”
I smile but he can’t see it so I laugh.
“What’s fucking funny?” he booms.
“That you imagine I actually think about you when I’m with him,” I taunt.
A low growl emanates from his throat and a lump of fear forms in mine, but fuck it. Hopelessness rears its ugly head, reminding me I’ll probably never even see Liam again, and what am I even doing all of this for?
At least I get a moment of pleasure at the sinking feeling I must’ve given Paul before his hands are suddenly bouncing my head off the wall, causing my vision to waver.
I push back, but I’m trying to get my vision oriented and it makes me vulnerable. He pushes me and I fall to my knees, only catching myself on one arm. Little white clouds of nothing have me all foggy, but I know the mechanics, so I rely on muscle memory to get back to my feet.
May have worked, if Paul wasn’t there to push me back down.
I’m still in pajama pants, and they’re easy for him to pull down.
“No,” I snap, grabbing them, pulling until they rip. Goddammit. I kick at him and he sits on my legs, creeping up my body, yanking his belt off. I’m not sure if he plans to fuck me or whip me with the belt, and I’m not even sure which outcome I prefer.
Well, none.
Gripped by an idea, I retreat.
“Paul, please.”
He likes that. Fucker likes me begging.
“Oh, yeah, you’re a big, bad bitch now, huh?” he taunts, tossing his belt aside with relish.