Blackest Night

by Stephanie Hoffman McManus

  “That’s fucking stupid.”

  “What?” I sputtered

  “It’s fucking stupid that you think you could have changed anything. Those guys don’t get away with that shit because they’re morons. They’re clever and usually charming. Talk to any cop who’s seen this shit before. Look at cases. Those guys are good at hiding who they are.”

  “Yeah, well tell that to the rest of the world. They all seem to think I should have known. Hell, even I think it sometimes.” All the time.

  “None of what happened was your fault. Don’t take his blame. It’s not yours.”

  I stared out the window, wishing I was anywhere but in this truck, having this conversation with him.

  “Cassie, I mean it. Nobody should judge you for that. It’s fucked up to blame you.”

  “I’m used to it. Nora and Emily, they get everyone’s sympathy because they lived through the nightmare, and I know I didn’t experience the ordeal they did. I can’t even compare what I went through, and I’m sure I sound like ‘poor me’ right now, but sometimes, God, I just wish people could understand that it was a nightmare for me too. That I’m not the bad guy. He was. And he hurt me too. I know it’s not the same, but it still fucking ruined my life because–” I stopped myself, but I didn’t have to say it. He knew because I’d already let it slip.

  “Because you loved him.”

  My cheeks were wet again.

  God, could I do anything besides cry today?

  “Yes. I loved him. Who I thought he was anyway, but it was all a lie and I’m the idiot who fell for it. So, I guess if the world wants to hate me for not seeing what was in front of me, it doesn’t really matter. They can’t hate me more than I do,” I admitted softly, wiping at my tears in frustration.

  “That’s nothing for you to be ashamed of.”

  I didn’t believe him, and I wasn’t going to sit there, waiting for him to say more shit he didn’t even mean just because he felt sorry for me now. I climbed out of the truck and made my way toward the house. I’d figure out who to call and how to get home in there.

  “Cassie,” Nikolai hollered when I was almost to the door. He was standing out in the street, looking down at something on the ground. Whatever it was, it didn’t make him happy.

  “What?” I took a couple tentative steps toward him.

  “This is where you were parked, right?” He looked up at me, waiting for me to confirm that it was true. I nodded.

  “There’s fluid on the ground and it hasn’t rained in days,” he said, kneeling and rubbing the ground. He brought his finger up to his nose and whatever it was on his fingers only made his frown deepen. “It’s brake fluid, but there’s too much for a small leak.” He rose and made purposeful strides toward me.

  “What about a big leak?”

  “Your car shouldn’t have a leak that big, Cass.”

  “Oh. Then what does it mean?”

  “I don’t know yet. We’ll wait and see what the mechanic says.”

  We both went inside where Eli was waiting anxiously. He jumped up from the couch when he saw me. His big eyes were brimming with unshed tears and he flung himself at me.

  “Whoa.” I knelt and he wrapped his arms around my neck and wouldn’t let go. I winced when his head pressed against my cheek. I know airbags save lives, but damn, it hurt. I didn’t even want to know what the left half of my face looked like. I could feel it swelling more by the minute. “Hey,” I rubbed his back soothingly. “What’s the matter, Eli?”

  “Daddy said you were in a car accident,” his quivering voice was muffled in my neck.

  “It’s okay. It was just a little accident,” I tried to reassure him.

  “Mommy was in a car accident and she died. I thought you were going to die too.”

  I’d thought I didn’t have any tears left in me today. I was wrong. I held him to me and squeezed my eyes against the moisture pooling behind my lids. A few tears streaked from the corners of my eyes anyway.

  “It’s okay. I’m okay. Nobody got hurt. My car just got a little hurt, but look,” I gently pried him loose so he could look at me. “A few bruises, that’s it.”

  “Your whole face looks like you fell off a bike and scraped it on the ground,” he sniffled.

  “It feels a little bit like that too,” I admitted. “But it’ll heal, I promise.”

  He nodded and wiped his sleeve under his nose.

  “Now that you see Cassie’s going to be just fine,” Nikolai addressed Eli gently, “can you get your homework out and start working on it. I got your backpack.” He held the bag out to Eli, who reluctantly took it and then shuffled over to the dining room table.

  “Spence, I’ll talk to you later,” Nikolai said to Nora’s husband, and then he gave a nod and let himself out as Nikolai turned to me. “Come on, let’s get the first aid kit so we can clean you up.”

  I let him lead me into the bathroom, where he retrieved a small medical kit from the cabinet and started pulling out gauze pads and antiseptics. That’s when I got my first real look at myself in the mirror.

  Eli was right. It did look liked I’d wiped out and skidded face first. I winced at the gruesome sight. The entire left side was swollen, and I could see bruises forming beneath the abrasions.

  “It’s not too bad,” Nikolai reassured me, touching his fingers to the right side of my jaw to turn my face. “Your nose doesn’t look broken at least.”

  I gently touched my nose. “No, I don’t think I hit it, but the entire left side of my face feels broken.”

  “Just bruised and scraped up.” He poured something onto a gauze pad and brushed it over my injuries. I hissed at the slight sting. Once it was cleaned up, he applied an antiseptic salve. “There you go. It’ll be sore, and probably look worse tomorrow, but your face will heal up just fine. How’s your head feel?”

  “A little woozy,” I told him honestly, “but my headache is going away.”

  He nodded. “Sounds normal. If your headache doesn’t go away, or you feel nauseous or dizzy at all, you should go to the doc and get checked for a concussion.”

  “I think I’m okay,” I told him.

  “How about your back and neck?” he asked as he tidied up and returned the first aid kit to the cabinet.

  “A little stiff, maybe.”

  “You should try to get into a chiropractor this week, so if you did mess anything up it’ll go on the insurance.”

  “Okay. I’ll call tomorrow. Right now, I just want to crawl into bed.” And maybe cry myself to sleep over this shit day, and then wake up and have it all have been just a bad dream.

  “Is there someone who can come pick you up?”

  “I can probably call Nora or Emily and see if they can pick me up when they’re done with work, but my grandmother doesn’t drive.” I followed him out of the bathroom and into the kitchen. He went to the fridge and pulled out a soda which he cracked and handed to me. “You’re still a bit shaky. The sugar will help.”

  “Oh,” I hadn’t even noticed my hands still trembled slightly. I accepted the 7Up and took a long sip. “Thank you.”

  “Eli and I can give you a ride once he finishes his homework.”

  “I’m all done,” Eli poked his head into the kitchen at the moment, waving a piece of paper at his dad.

  “Let me see that.” His dad playfully snatched the paper from his hands and glanced it over. “Hey bud, what’s seven plus seven?”

  Eli’s eyes rolled toward the ceiling as he tried to come up with the answer. “Fourteen?” His face scrunched up as if he wasn’t quite sure.

  “Mmhmm, so how come on here you wrote fifteen?”

  “Oops,” Eli grinned.

  “Yeah, fix that one and then double check nine plus nine for me too. The rest are right. You did a good job. You’ve got your doubles down.”

  Eli took the paper back and hurriedly fixed the two problems, before presenting it once more to his dad with a beaming expression. “Now, I’m all done. Can Cassie and
I play Battleship since we didn’t get to finish our last game?”

  “I don’t think so, kiddo. We need to get Cassie home, so she can rest and feel better.”

  “Oh,” Eli said dejectedly.

  “How about one game before I go?” I suggested. “And you and I should team up against your dad.”

  His face lit up again. “Can we, Dad?”

  “One game, but be prepared, I’m not going to take it easy on you guys.”

  “We’re going to sink all your ships!” Eli grabbed my hand and tugged me over to the table.

  “That’s right, you’re going down,” I taunted.

  “Is that so?” Nikolai smirked at me. “I think it will be you, sweetheart, who goes down.”

  I raised my brow at him, because the way he said it, made me think he was talking about something else. He winked and then started setting up his pieces. He remained strangely playful and teasing with me throughout the game until Eli and I sunk his last ship. I didn’t know if it was for Eli’s benefit, or if he was just messing with me.

  “Dad, since we won, I think that means you need to buy me and Cassie pizza for dinner!”

  Nikolai narrowed his eyes in playful scrutiny on his son. “Were you hustling me, kid? Was this your plan all along?”

  “Nooo,” Eli giggled. “But we won, so we should get a prize. I like pizza and I know Cassie likes pizza.” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper and leaned in closer to his dad, “Last time she ate almost the whole thing.”

  “Hey! I did not!”

  He giggled again.

  “Okay, I did,” I confessed. “But it’s because I have an extra stomach that’s just for pizza.”

  “You do?” His eyebrows shot up.

  “It’s true.”

  Nikolai chuckled. “Then I suppose we can stop for pizza on the way to take Cassie home.”

  Ten

  Cassie

  Nikolai took us to my favorite pizza joint, and even though people grimaced at my face—which still hurt and was probably looking worse by the minute—I couldn’t be bothered by them.

  We were having a good time and Nikolai was being nice, if I dare say it. He reminded me more of the Nikolai from the rehearsal dinner. The one that was funny and charming and convinced me to go back to his room. In the months since then, I’d wondered if my drunk brain had imagined that Nikolai.

  We stuffed our bellies with pizza and breadsticks until none of us could stomach another bite.

  Well, almost none of us.

  “Can we get ice cream before we take Cassie home? Pleeease?” Eli tugged on his dad’s arm as we walked out to the truck.

  “I thought you were full. You said your tummy was going to explode if you ate anymore pizza.”

  “Yeah, my first tummy, but I have two tummies just like Cassie, and my second tummy is just for ice cream. It’s empty, see.” He rubbed one side of his belly and made a sad pouty face. Nikolai shot me a dirty look while I bit back a giggle. I mouthed, “Sorry,” even though I wasn’t really.

  “Fine. We’ll stop for ice cream, but when we get home you better take your bath and get ready for bed with zero complaints.”

  Eli jerked his head up and down, “I will, I will, I will. I promise, Dad. I’ll go to bed soooo good.”

  We stopped for ice cream, and Eli was the only one who ordered, but that didn’t stop Nikolai or I from stealing his spoon for the occasional bite. His dad was forced to finish it off when Eli threw in the spoon and rubbed his belly, admitting defeat. “Now, even my ice cream belly is full.”

  They drove me home and I found that I was almost as disappointed as Eli that the night was over. What had started out a terrible day, had ended up being . . . not completely terrible.

  I still wore a slight smile as I climbed out of the truck and closed the door behind me. Of course, I forgot about what the rest of my face looked like as I headed inside.

  “Goodness, Cassie, what happened to you?” Grandmama shrilled the moment she saw me. She bustled over and immediately started fussing, near hysterical when I told her about the accident. She was crying and kissing my face—the good side—and thanking Jesus that I was alright. Then she scolded me for not calling her, and insisted I call my parents right then.

  They were slightly calmer than Grandmama. I started out talking to my mother and she relayed everything I was saying to my father, until eventually he got tired of asking questions through my mother, and took the phone from her so he could get the details directly from me. Once both my parents were reassured that I was fine, I promised to call them as soon as I heard from the mechanic. Dad thought it weird, just like Nikolai, that my car seemed to have sprung a major leak out of nowhere.

  As I was hanging up the phone, a camera flash went off in my face. I blinked, caught off guard.

  “Grandmama, what are you doing?”

  She was holding up her phone, the one she barely knew how to operate. She was snapping picture after picture of my face.

  “I want to send these to your mother.”

  “Grandmama, stop.” I held up my hand and she relented.

  “Does it hurt too bad? Do you want me to make you some tea?”

  Grandmama and her tea. Got arthritis? She had a tea for that. Stomach ache? Tea for that. Migraine? Tea for that. Inflammation? Tea for that. Insomnia? Tea for that too. Whatever ailed you, Grandmama could fix it with a cup of tea.

  “Sure, Grandmama,” I let out a weary breath. “A cup of tea would be great.”

  “Okay, I have this green tea blend with ginger and turmeric and a bit of this and that, it’ll fix you right up and make you feel better.”

  I was sure it would, because Grandmama’s teas usually worked just how she said they would. I was also sure that it wouldn’t taste very good. Medicinal teas rarely did. “Extra honey please,” I requested.

  “I know just how you like it. Go have a seat in the living room and I’ll bring it to you in there.”

  Grandmama continued to fuss over me until I finally convinced her it was okay to go to bed. After that, I dumped my third cup of tea—the first one was good, the second tolerable, but by the third cup she forced on me, I couldn’t stand it—and headed upstairs to my room.

  I changed and readied for bed, and then crawled beneath the covers, letting out a deep sigh when I sank into the mattress. I was so exhausted I wanted to cry tears of joy that I was finally in my bed.

  I lay there, going over the day in my head, dreading having to figure out the rental car situation with the insurance company, and the entire headache of dealing with them. Shit, I didn’t even know how I was getting to work tomorrow.

  Before I could stress it any further, Nora called. She’d gotten home and found out from Spencer about my accident.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “If you saw my face you might not think so, but I promise, aside from being a little sore, I’m okay.”

  “Take tomorrow off and rest, and let me know if you need anything.”

  I wanted to argue and say I could still come in, but truthfully, I was grateful. After hanging up with her, I stared at the little message icon on my phone. After tonight, I felt a little bolder. Bold enough to open it and start a new text to Nikolai.

  If I ask you a question, will you be honest with me?

  After pressing send, I stared at the screen until it blacked out. I’d almost given up on a reply when it finally vibrated.

  Go to bed Cassie.

  I just want to know what your problem with me is. Why do you hate me?

  Several minutes passed and I could see that he’d read the message, but he didn’t reply.

  Why couldn’t he just answer me? Why did he have to be so damn aggravating? Maybe, if he told me what his real issue was, I could accept it. Or, I don’t know, fix it.

  Further emboldened, and slightly annoyed at this point, I pressed the little call button beside his name and let it ring.

  “I said, go to bed, Cassie,” he answered gr
uffly.

  “I just want to know. Then I will.”

  I heard his sigh through the phone. “I don’t hate you.”

  “But you don’t like me.” It wasn’t a question and I hoped he wouldn’t lie to me and try to deny it.

  “You don’t like me either,” he pointed out.

  “But you didn’t like me first,” I shot back and then laid my head against the pillow. “You said you didn’t judge me because of him, but if not, I don’t understand what I’ve done.”

  “Are we really having this conversation at ten o’clock at night? I have to be up in a few hours.”

  “Answer me and we can both go to bed.”

  He heaved an irritated breath into the phone. “You don’t think it has anything to do with you spitting in my coffee, serving me cold coffee, putting grounds in my coffee, or calling me every manner of name you could think of, some I’d never even heard before.”

  I huffed, “But I did all that after you were a jerk. You couldn’t stand me from the second you got off, or maybe before then. I don’t know, but if you despised me from the beginning, I don’t even understand why you slept with me. You were nice at the rehearsal dinner.”

  “Or maybe you were drunk and just thought I was being nice.”

  “I wasn’t that drunk.” I’d been buzzed at best. “So why were you nice then, and then such an asshole after?”

  “Why do you think I was nice, Cassie? I wanted to get laid.”

  Ouch. “So that’s it? You didn’t care who it was, even if it was someone you couldn’t stand?”

  Silence.

  “Fine, but you still haven’t told me why you didn’t like me from the beginning. I didn’t even know you then?”

  “Cassie, I’m sorry I was a dick. Can we just leave it at that?”

  “For fuck’s sake, just tell me what the hell is wrong with me,” I half shouted at him, sitting up again.

  “There’s nothing wrong with you. That night just should have never happened. It was a mistake and I knew it was before we ever went back to my room. You’re too close. You weren’t someone I could hook up with and then never have to see again. There were consequences. Like you spitting in my coffee, or putting grounds in it.”