Hide and Seek Her

by H. B. Stumbo

  I swallowed the lump that had made its way back to my throat and fast forwarded through the communication with the other nurses I paused it again at the end and sat back in my chair as a shudder ran through me.

  I closed my eyes tightly as I tried to remember anything, but my mind had locked my memory of that night up so solid that I couldn’t remember anything past Jackson hitting me. Instead of the night at the hospital my mind shifted back to the night at the club and a flash of something crossed my mind. I was being loaded into the ambulance, Kim and Riley were there but Vance was gone. Where did he go? I remember wondering that, I remembered wanting to feel his hands on me, hell I think I remember reaching for him, but he wasn’t there. Where did he go? Why did he disappear? Why was I thinking of this now?

  I slammed my hand onto the table and moaned. I wanted to remember the night at the hospital, not the night at the club. Why couldn’t I remember anything? I wanted to cry, to hole up in a corner and sob.

  There were too many lost hours in my mind that I couldn’t get back and I wanted to so badly for the last year. I wanted to remember what happened almost as much as I wanted to forget Jackson Greene. It was a Catch-22. I couldn’t have one without the other.

  I looked back at the computer and pressed play again. There was only two seconds left of the video, two seconds that I hoped would trigger something, anything. In those two seconds the man who lingered too long turned to leave and as he turned a small, and I mean very small portion of his face was visible. The hood of his sweatshirt covered his eyes but his right cheek and his lips were visible, and that was enough for me. That was all I needed because I’d recognize that face anywhere.

  I was wrong. There was a time I thought the world had stopped before. It was at Vance’s Fourth of July Celebration when our eyes met each other, I could have sworn everything stopped, it felt like it had at least, but I was wrong. Right now, everything was suspended in space. The video was not playing because there was nothing left to play. It ended on a frame that gave away a portion of a man’s face. I don’t think I was breathing, I know I wasn’t because I started feeling dizzy.

  A shot of his eyes wouldn’t have given him away any more than a shot of his perfect lips would. I didn’t need to see any more of his face to know who I was looking at. The way he was holding me should have given him away because it was the way he still held me.

  I sank down to the floor and wrapped my arms around my body. The man who saved me, the man whom I wanted to thank thousands of times but never could, the man who I owed my very life to was the man who wanted me to trust him with ever fiber in my being, and was the very man who I thought would never let me down or lie to me about anything.

  I allowed one last look at the computer screen before a sob escaped my lips and confirmed both my biggest mystery and biggest fear. The man who I owed my life to was Vance Wait.

  Chapter 25

  I sat in the car for a few moments while I let my thoughts process. I glanced at the large house that now felt like a prison, everything that I thought I knew about Vance, everything that I wanted to be true and pure was tarnished with lies. The house that I loved, the house that appealed to me in more ways that just that of an interior designer’s dream now looked ugly. I hated it, I hated everything it stood for. I hated the man inside of it, at least I wanted to hate him.

  They say it takes loving something to hate something; right now I knew that to be true, and right now I no longer loved Vance, it was the latter of the two.

  Part of it made sense now. The way he looked at me when I first came to the house like he knew me, like he was shocked to see me there in the flesh. He knew then, he knew all along. I wondered if he had asked specifically for me, I wondered if he had been following me, waiting in the shadows and hiding. I wondered why he never said a word about it, did he feel like he owed it to me to form a relationship with me because he felt bad for what I had been through? Did he feel bad for leaving me at the hospital without so much as a name or a reason? Did he feel like he wanted to prove to me that there were good people in this world? Whatever the reason was I didn’t want to know, I just wanted to hurt him like he hurt me. I wanted to break him because I was broken beyond repair.

  My thoughts drifted to how he always became tense when he thought of something bad happening to me, or how he mentioned that the first time he saw me I looked broken. I was broken, I was broken in the worst way then because the first time he saw me was when he found me bloody on a floor. Yes, he saved me, he pulled me from Jackson’s grip but in saving me he also lied to me. Vance had known all along. He knew what I went through, he was the reason it stopped yet he never once let me in on that bit of information. Why didn’t he just let me die? Why did he have to save me and seek me out, why did he have to form a relationship with me?

  I exited the car and was aware that all emotion had been sucked from my body. I could no longer feel. I wasn’t sad, I wasn’t mad, I was numb. I was the girl I was before Vance came along. I was the recluse, the hermit who had been broken beyond repair. The man responsible for putting me back together was now responsible for taking me apart.

  I walked into the house and was met by his gaze. He was standing at the island in the kitchen chopping something and his back was towards me. The screen door slammed behind me and he turned around and sat the knife down. He wiped his hands off on a towel and a smile spread across his face when I came into view. The smile disappeared when he saw my face. In one swift moment he sprinted over to me.

  “Charlotte?” He reached me and wrapped his arms around me and for one brief second I let him. I reveled in the warmth that radiated through me as he touched me; even the hatred I had formed for him couldn’t kill the flames. I knew those flames would always be there, maybe not raging like they had in the past, but the embers would remain. I let him hold me and I let the feeling course through me for a few seconds because I knew this would be the last time I would feel this way.

  One, two, three…seconds up.

  I pushed him away from me and he stumbled backwards as a look of fear crossed his face, “I trusted you.” I breathed out before the tears started pouring down my face.

  He made a step towards me but I pushed him back again. He looked confused and upset and his fingers were moving quickly. I knew it bothered him when he couldn’t touch me or be near me, he had revealed just last night how terrifying it was to him to not be with me, I imagined this was killing him but he had already severed part of me.

  He took another step towards me and this time I shouted, “NO! You don’t get to touch me!”

  He raked a hand through his hair, “Charlotte what the fuck is going on?”

  I shook my head quickly as more tears fell, “I trusted you, I gave you everything…I told you everything.”

  He still wasn’t grasping what I was getting at but a panic had set into the corners of his perfect face.

  “You knew. All this time, you knew.”

  Vance’s face paled instantly and he looked like he had seen a ghost. The truth was he had seen one, I was his ghost and he was looking at me for months.

  “That night…it was you; you were the one who saved me. You stopped him and you saved me. You’re the reason I’m alive. It was you.” Tears were spilling down my face.

  face contorted into a mixture of shame and grief. “Charlotte, I have a reason if you’ll just let me explain.”

  I shook my head fiercely. I didn’t want to hear his garble about trust or some lame ass excuse as to why he didn’t tell me. I didn’t want to know anything; I just wanted to wound him so he could feel like me.

  “Baby please…just listen.”

  I shook my head again and sank to the floor. “You even acted like you had no idea what I had been through, you knew exactly what happened to me, and you never let on…you never even acted like you knew anything but you probably know more about that night than me.” I choked on my words and my mind raced through all of our conversations, all the ways he looked at
me and all of the things he said. He knew all along and he probably knew more than anyone else.

  “Charlotte…please, listen to me. I didn’t want to scare you away. What would you have said if I told you I was the reason you were alive, I was the one that stopped Jackson? What would you have thought?”

  He sank to the floor beside me but kept his distance and I continued to cry. “I don’t know, I don’t know what I would have said or done, but Vance you should have told me, anything you said would have been better than finding out through a hospital’s security footage.”

  He scooted closer to me but never tried to touch me. He looked just as broken as I was feeling, his head was hanging low and his eyes had lost the depth that they normally had. He was starting to break. Good. Maybe now he would feel the same way I did.

  We sat there for several minutes and neither of us spoke. I was shaking as the tears continued to roll down my face. Every memory this house held rolled through me. Our first conversation, our first kiss, everything surrounded me and overwhelmed me because it was all based on a lie.

  “Why didn’t you just let me die?” I shouted at him and shook harder. “Then I wouldn’t have to feel this way now, and then I wouldn’t have to go through this. You knew who I was so you asked Rick to send me, didn’t you?”

  Vance looked shocked at my outburst and he started shouting, too. “NO. Charlotte all I knew was your first name, I had no idea you were the same Charlotte until I saw your face the day you showed up here.”

  I shook my head again, “I don’t believe you. Why did you want me so badly? Is it because you felt bad for me, you thought you owed me something for what I had been through?”

  “NO DAMNIT,” he yelled and slammed his hand against the floor.

  “All the times you told me you were no good for me or told me you weren’t as perfect as I thought and that you didn’t want to hurt me, it was because you knew what I had been through and you were the reason I was alive. Did you honestly think I would never find out?”

  Vance tilted his head upwards toward the ceiling and his shoulders fell. “Do you want to know the reason or not, Charlotte? I can tell you the whole fucking story right now!”

  I shook my head because right now the only thing I wanted was the silent safety of my house and the comfort of my bed. I wanted out of here, I wanted to rid my mind and my soul of everything that was Vance Wait and this house currently held too many memories for me. I wanted to run again. I was drowning, I was suffocating, I needed out.

  I rose to my feet and Vance mirrored me. “NO!” I screamed at him and he backed away from me again, terror and pain spread across his features.

  “You don’t get me, you don’t get to ever touch me again and you don’t get to explain anything. There is no reason good enough for you to have kept all of this from me.”

  Vance didn’t move, instead he sank back to the floor and stared up at me as I yelled between the tears that continued to fall.

  “I think I loved you Vance.”

  I watched as more pain crossed his face; it looked like he had just been shot in the chest. Good, I wanted him to feel what I was feeling.

  “I loved you and I came to terms with that yesterday. Yesterday. One day ago. Now though…now I want to hate you. I want to run away and never see you again. I really thought there was good in the world; I really thought you were good. I don’t know what any of this was for you. I don’t know if you even felt anything other than the fact that you thought you owed me something for what Jackson did to me.”

  He stared at me and never spoke; more tears streamed down my face as he sat slumped over on the deep wooden floor.

  “I’ll never forgive you. I’ll never want you. I can’t stand you.” I clenched my teeth as I spoke. I knew this was killing him, I was twisting the knife in his heart but it was killing me too and I didn’t have time to sit around and try to figure out why.

  “Please…” he whispered as I headed towards the door. “Please just listen…”

  “NO,” I shouted as I exited the house for the last time and descended the staircase quicker than Cinderella could have dreamed. I climbed into my car and allowed one last look at the house that changed the course that my life had been on. I really thought it had changed it for the better until now. Renovations and remodels really do bring out the worst and the best in people and apparently you can’t have one without the other. I never wanted to see this place again.

  “Goodbye Vance.” I whispered as more tears fell but this time the pain I felt wasn’t from anger, it was from the fact that I left my heart inside those walls with the man who was breaking on the floor. It was his and it had always been with him since the beginning and I wasn’t ever going to get it back. It was his the night he saved me; I loved that stranger for saving me which in turn meant I loved Vance.

  I was never going back again. I was okay with not having a heart, it could stay with him.

  Chapter 26

  Vance - The End of the Beginning

  “Vance. Vance please answer me.”

  The silence that followed the begging was haunting, almost as haunting as being alone in this room.

  “Vance please. This is getting ridiculous.”

  It had been one week since Charlotte shut the door on my face and most likely the door on our life forever and I hadn’t made much of my self-worth since then. Riley’s voice from outside of our bedroom door, excuse me, now my bedroom door was persistent as he continued to slam his hand into the wood.

  “Would you at least communicate with me today?”

  I could sense the irritation in his voice, and if he started in about the fact that there was nothing to eat again I might just have to choke him out.

  I didn’t want to leave this room. Not because I was depressed or felt as though my heart had been battered beyond repair (although both of things were also true), but because the sheets still smelled like her, her pillow still smelled like her shampoo, and she had left her tank top and shorts hanging over the chair by the window. It looked like she had woken up, gone downstairs and left the bed unmade. Like at any second she would be back and she would pick things up then. Maybe if I thought that hard enough, I could convince myself it were true. Maybe if I pretended that it would give me enough courage to get up and face the day. I shook my head, I knew that would never work and Charlotte was never coming back. Her clothes lying on the chair were like the flowers you get at a funeral; a reminder. Her scent would eventually leave the sheets; I knew that because each day they smelled less and less of her. She was the ghost that would haunt me until I could be one, too.

  Her words haunted me as I played them over in my head. She had said I would never get to touch her again and she would never want me. She said she wanted to hate me, she had loved me and that was the only thing that gave me a little hope. Even thought it was past tense, she had loved me, she had felt the same way I felt for her. She had wounded me though, I would never have my hands on her again and I would never get her back. The thought tormented me and I felt myself ache all over.

  “VANCE, GOD DAMNIT!!!” Riley’s shouting shook me from my wallowing and I pounced out of bed, unable to deal with him anymore. I’d dealt with him and taken care of him for the last twenty-five years; it was time for him to figure out life on his own.

  I pulled the door open with too much force and it creaked loudly against the hinges as it slammed into my wall. Riley jumped but his face fell when he saw me. I don’t think he had ever seen me look like this, I was able to keep a straight face around Riley, I always reminded myself to be strong for him, but my strength had evaporate along with my heart. Even when Emily died, even then I never cried in front of Riley, never even looked effected in front of him, but judging by the look on his face I looked effected now, and it scared him.

  Riley scared was like a bullet to my heart, it triggered an instinct in me, a protective instinct. Now though it triggered nothing, my heart had stopped beating a week ago.

  �
��Vance…” his voice trailed off as he gave me the once over and I sighed.

  “What, Riley?” My tone was angry, clipped and brief and he winced against it. This was probably the only time I didn’t feel bad about it in my whole life.

  He looked down as his nervousness settled over him. To a stranger Riley was the epitome of a boy who would never grow up. Even to look at him, he looked much younger than he actually was. His boyish features would probably never leave him and his good willed and carefree attitude only acted as attributes to his youthful nature. To me though, Riley was an unsure adolescent still skimming through life on his tip toes. He could be a son of a bitch though, a real bear’s ass when he wanted to be, but he was nervous around me. I imagined he would have been like this with our Dad had he ever had the chance to grow up with him. I wasn’t just a brother and a best friend to him; I was the one he answered to, even now when he should be answering to himself.

  “Well?” I asked in that same tone again.

  Riley shrugged his shoulders and the redness dissolved from his cheeks. “What’s wrong with you?”

  I leaned against the door frame and pinched the bridge of my nose. Riley had girlfriends in high school, Riley had a girlfriend when I told him we were moving back to Locke’s Point, Riley had to deal with the breakup because she refused a long distance relationship when she found out we were moving.

  He wasn’t dumb, he knew what being wounded felt like, but I really think that Riley believed I was the bionic man. Until now, he truly thought I was unable to be hurt in any way, shape or form. How I wish that were true.

  “Do you have to ask me? You really can’t figure it out?”

  Riley kicked at the floor boards in the house and looked down, “I can assume what I think it is but I’ve never seen you like this.”

  I nodded, it was just as I had assumed. No one had ever seen me like this; I hadn’t even recognized myself when I glanced at my reflection yesterday.