Eye Contact

by Stacey Grice

  Her face was like nothing I’d ever seen, full of sympathy and regret but also lined with challenge and disdain.

  I spoke slowly and clearly, enunciating every syllable. “I want you to leave.”

  She exhaled, accepting that she had done all she could in that moment. Grabbing her purse, she stood, looking somberly at me. Her mouth opened to say something else, but I turned my head away, not wanting to hear any more. The words never left her lips, and she walked out of my house.

  I followed after her to lock the front door then rested my forehead against it. I wanted to calm down, needed to, but my face was on fire. My blood was racing through my body like it was on fire. I was officially in hell.

  So, I did the only thing I could think to do when faced with hell—I got down on my knees and began praying.

  Chapter 45

  Andie

  It’s amazing what you can learn about someone by merely spending a few minutes searching the internet. After an hour or so of prayer and reflection followed by a wave of rage so fierce I found myself back on my knees to clean up a shattered wine glass that had accidently gotten thrown across the room, I ended up back in front of my computer.

  With a few Google searches, I was soon staring directly at Vaughn Adam Bennett’s mug shot and criminal record. Multiple news articles surrounding the trial and sentencing were even more helpful at telling the story.

  Vaughn was painted as a troubled young man, a product of his environment—namely, the foster care system—never staying with one particular family for more than a year or so at a time until he hit early adolescence and was finally placed with a more permanent caregiver. He was out one night with a friend, one of his foster brothers from his youth. The two guys caught a basketball game and had a few drinks at a local sports bar in Jacksonville Beach. What seemed like a typical guys night out took a turn for the worst later that evening. Shortly after last call, Bennett, driving a 1999 Ford Ranger, struck a pedestrian in a residential block of Jacksonville Beach and fled the scene. The pedestrian, Scott Brumbraugh, later died at the hospital.

  Apparently, Vaughn turned himself in a short time later and was charged with involuntary manslaughter, felony hit and run, and leaving the scene of a crash with death. Although he confessed to driving under the influence, he couldn’t be charged with a DUI since they couldn’t confirm with a blood alcohol test. They originally tried to also charge him with obstruction of justice and hiding evidence, but those were both later dropped as well since Vaughn claimed he had been unaware he had struck anyone when it occurred. His foster brother, who had been in the car at the time of the incident, was later found in South Florida and was questioned but not charged with any crime.

  After a lengthy trial that didn’t take place until almost two years later, Vaughn was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter but guilty of a felony hit and run and of leaving the scene of an accident with death. He was sentenced to eight years in federal prison.

  After researching Florida statute 316.027, it seemed as though, perhaps with a better lawyer, he could’ve gotten away with only having to serve the four-year mandatory minimum sentence, but the victim happened to be the son of a city official. He came from a good family, was in college studying engineering, and was walking home from a bar, not driving drunk, his life stolen too early by a troubled young man who’d made a series of bad choices that night. The more I read and learned, the sadder I got—sad for the victim, but also sad for Vaughn. It was such a tragic event for everyone involved, and it didn’t make me have feelings of betrayal or anger toward him as Rowan would’ve probably preferred. Instead, it made me want to hold him. I wanted to talk about it all and understand. I wanted to know him even more and be closer to him. I loved him and felt pain for all he’d been through.

  As sad as I was about the entire thing, I was also hurt. Yes, we had only been dating for a few months, but I was completely in love with this man—a man I apparently didn’t even know. I wondered why he wouldn’t tell me something like this, but I also understood why he hadn’t. It wasn’t exactly an easy topic to bring up.

  Hey, just so you know, I once ran over a guy while driving drunk. I left him there to die and ended up spending eight years of my life behind bars. Just wanted to get that out there.

  It sounded ridiculous in my head, but I was still hurt. I would’ve liked to think we were closer than keeping secrets like that from each other, certainly secrets that significant.

  The only solution was that I needed to talk with him as soon as possible. We needed to get over this hurdle before I could even dream of introducing the news of my pregnancy.

  Chapter 46

  Vaughn

  I felt the vibration of my cell phone buzzing on the table before I heard anything. Immediate joy filled me in hopes that it would be Andie, and seeing her name on the screen was the visual equivalent of music to my ears.

  “Hey, babe. How are you feeling?”

  “Better. Still not a hundred percent, but definitely on the mend.” She sounded tired.

  “I miss you.”

  “I miss you too. I was actually hoping you were free tonight.”

  “It wouldn’t matter if I wasn’t,” I insisted. “I want to see you.”

  “Okay. Come over whenever, and bring something to eat, please. There’s nothing here but mustard and saltines.”

  “Sounds delicious.”

  “I haven’t been able to get to the store yet,” she offered apologetically.

  “What do you feel like eating? Is your stomach back to normal?”

  “Pretty much. Whatever you want is fine, just nothing too crazy or spicy,” she requested. “I’ll see you in a little bit.”

  Quickly wrapping up what I was working on, I gathered my stuff and stopped by a sandwich shop on the way over there to grab a few wraps and smoothies. I figured even if she was feeling better, her digestive system probably still needed to catch up.

  Just as I raised my fist to knock, the front door opened, Andie looking even more beautiful than I remembered. She said she had seen me pull up and grabbed the drink carrier out of my hands to help. Once I set everything down on the kitchen counter, I turned to bring her into a hug, and the sweet smell of her hair was nearly intoxicating. She returned the hug, but something felt different.

  “What’s up?” I questioned as I broke the embrace. “Is something wrong?”

  Waving me off, she sauntered past me to grab paper plates out of her kitchen cabinet. “No, nothing. I’m just starving.”

  We took our wraps to the couch and instead of sitting right next to me, she left an entire cushion of space between us, giving me pause. When my face revealed the question in my mind, she offered not wanting to get me sick as the reason. I couldn’t help but pick up on a bit of tension. There was definitely an air of awkward energy in the room, as if she were uncomfortable with me or something, but I didn’t push. Maybe she was still in some sort of post-sickness funk. So, we ate, the silence in the room stale and weird. She was the first one to strike up a conversation.

  “Thanks for bringing me food. This was perfect.”

  “No problem. I’m glad you’re feeling better. I was beginning to have Andie withdrawals.”

  “Sorry. That stomach bug was ruthless.” There was a hint of sadness in her expression—or was it guilt? Was she being completely truthful with me? I hated to even have those accusatory thoughts about her, but I had become pretty good at picking up on body language and deceitful behaviors through growing up in foster care. You never knew who you could trust.

  “Andie, is everything okay?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

  I knew it.

  “Okay. You can talk to me about anything,” I urged, feeling the wave of nervousness crawl into my body like a slow wave of fog, just as creepy, clouding my thoughts and judgment.

  “This is…well, I’m not sure how to even bring this up.”

&nbs
p; Scooting closer to her, I reached out to lay my hand atop her thigh. “Andie, it’s okay, whatever it is. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

  She hesitated for a brief moment, taking in a deep breath and bringing her eyes up to meet mine.

  “I know about your past.”

  I was overtaken with dread. She was never supposed to find out anything except from my own mouth.

  “I know about you going to jail.”

  My blood ran cold, and then it lit on fire like a match to a trail of gasoline. I took a long, slow, deep breath.

  “Prison, actually—jail would’ve been a cakewalk compared to where I was.”

  Her eyes were apologetic, sensing the anger in my tone.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  After exhaling harshly, frustrated and cornered, I made my admission. “I was going to,” I confessed in a grumble. “I’m so sorry I didn’t yet. I’m so sorry you found out from someone else.”

  “Can we talk about it?” she pleaded, already looking at me differently, pity and disdain clear in her eyes.

  “How did you find out? I need to know.”

  A moment passed as she carefully thought about how she would reveal her informant to me.

  “Richard told Rowan, Rowan told me.”

  “Richard?” I gasped, confused as to how in the world that tool knew anything about me.

  “He worked for the state attorney’s office right out of law school. Apparently he worked with the prosecutor on your case. He recognized you the night of their engagement party.”

  “That’s just perfect,” I scoffed. I had known he looked familiar to me that night. That arrogant douche was the last mouth I ever wanted my name coming out of. I was sure he had painted a picture of me being a heartless villain. If only he and the rest of the court system knew the real truth.

  “Please don’t get angry,” she insisted. “He was only looking out for his fiancée’s best friend.”

  “Looking out for you? Because I’m such a monster, right?” I couldn’t help feeling defensive.

  “Please don’t get upset. I just want to understand.” Her eyes were pleading and sincere. “I had the same reaction to Rowan. She wanted to warn me and make me not want to be with you but I immediately defended you, refusing to pass judgment until I knew the whole story. So, tell me…please? I want to know.”

  “Do you want me to tell you what you want to hear or do you want to know what really happened?”

  “I want to know the truth.”

  I got up off the couch, my nerves racing through my body so quickly I could no longer sit still. I paced, wringing my hands together, trying to form the jumbled thoughts into coherent sentences that would make sense to her. I needed to explain, and I needed her to see me for who I truly was.

  “My foster brother was back in town,” I began, pacing back and forth. “He was the closest thing to a real brother I ever had. We were pretty close, together from the age of about eleven or twelve until we turned eighteen and had to leave Ms. Hattie’s, and we kept in touch through the years. His name is Matt.”

  “He was with you that night?” she asked, already knowing the answer but trying to make me feel comfortable enough to continue the story. That night was engraved in my memory, fresh like it had just happened instead of being thirteen years in the past. He had just showed up unannounced at my place, a shit-hole duplex in the San Marco area that I was renting at the time.

  “Vaughn Bennett! You sexy sonofabitch,” he yelled as soon as I opened the front door, his arms open for a hug.

  “Matt…what are you doing here?” I questioned, shocked that he’d showed up out of the blue. It had been over a year since I’d last seen him, hearing that he had ventured down to South Florida for a no-doubt shady ‘business opportunity’.

  “Just blazing through town for a hot minute. Figured I’d hit you up, catch a drink or somethin’. You gonna let me in or what?”

  “Yeah, of course.” I widened the door and stepped back for him to enter. It was strange to see him there, in my apartment.

  “Yo, this place is a dump,” he declared with a chuckle. His eyes were shifty and hyper, making me wonder how many drinks or hits of something else he may have already had.

  “It’s nothing special, but it’s home, for now.”

  “It’s crazy, being back here, man. You seen Ms. Hattie lately?”

  “Not in a while. She’s still in the same house though. You should stop by. I’m sure she’d love to see you.”

  “Nah. That’s a’ight. She always liked you better than me, bruh. I don’t have enough time for a stop and chat, no way.”

  “He seemed a little different that night. Something was off, but he’s my brother. When your brother comes into town wanting to hang out, you make time.” Andie sat listening intently as I recalled the story, her face stoic. “He wanted to go catch a basketball game so we took my truck and went to Allstars, a sports bar out at Jax Beach.”

  “I know it,” she threw in.

  “We sat there for hours until the game was over, of course ending up with both of us having had way too much to drink.”

  “Bro, I’m ready to bounce.”

  “Okay. I’m gonna have to call us a cab. There’s no way I can drive right now.”

  “I got it. I got it,” he insisted. “I feel fine to get us back to the crib.”

  “Dude, you are not fine. My house is a good thirty-minute drive from here. Let’s just split a cab.”

  “Man, don’t be a little bitch. Just ’cuz you can’t handle a few pitchers of beer doesn’t mean I’m too turnt to get us home. Gimme the keys. I gotchu.”

  “Maybe it was because I didn’t want to start an argument with him right there in the bar. Maybe I was too drunk to realize how bad he was. I don’t know, but I gave him my keys.”

  “Wait a minute,” she interrupted. “I thought…the police report and trial articles all said you were driving.”

  I took a long breath, raking my fingers through my hair, desperately in need of a haircut. I sat pondering whether to lie to her and tell her a story that would coincide with whatever information she had already gotten from the internet, or to tell her the truth. What had really happened that night was far from what she had read or heard. When I finally glanced back up and met her gaze, I knew I couldn’t lie to her. I loved this woman and she deserved all of me, including my truth.

  “I know what the articles said, but that’s not what happened.”

  Her eyes grew wide and she instinctively brought her left hand up to cover her slightly opened mouth.

  “Matt was the one at the wheel that night, driving my truck. We weren’t but ten or twelve blocks away from the bar when he hit something. I didn’t see it, but I’ll never forget the sound of the thud.”

  “Oh shit!” Matt barked.

  “What?” I yelled, turning around to see something in the road. “What was…did you just…holy shit, I think you just hit a guy. Stop the truck.”

  As the vehicle slowly stopped, I pulled the door handle to let myself out despite Matt’s protests.

  “Oh my God.”

  “Vaughn, c’mon, man. We gotta get outta here,” Matt pleaded behind me.

  “We can’t just leave. You just hit a guy with my truck.” I bent down to see that he was still breathing but was bleeding pretty badly from a cut on the side of his head. “Are you okay?” I asked, only to hear faint moaning. “We’re gonna call an ambulance. You’re gonna be okay.”

  I stood up, looking around to see nothing but empty streets faintly lit by one lone street lamp at the corner. No one was around to help us. No one was around to have even seen what happened.

  “Vaughn, we gotta go,” Matt urged beside me, pulling my arm back toward the truck. “I can’t get another DUI, man. I can’t go down for this.”

  “ANOTHER DUI?” I screamed.

  “Dude, keep your voice down.”

  I looked him straight in the eyes, this man I considered a brother, and I
saw fear like I’d never seen before.

  “I’m on probation, Vaughn. I take this hit and I’m gettin’ locked away for a long time.”

  “Snatching the keys out of his hand, I marched away from the man we had just run over, leaving him bleeding in the street, and I got behind the steering wheel. Feeling more sober than I had ever been in my life, I drove us back to my house.”

  “Oh my goodness, Vaughn.” Her eyes shone with both pity and disappointment behind a sheen of shock. “Why didn’t you just tell the truth?”

  “By the grace of God, we got back to my place safely. I wanted to call the police right then but Matt was crazed, ranting and yelling about family and loyalty, saying I was the only one he had left in this shitty world. The whole way home, he’d told me all about how he was living north of Miami and had gotten into some business with some bad people. He had gone to jail for drug possession and stealing cars. I felt bad. I felt a loyalty to him, feeling like he was just about all I had left in this world as well.”

  “So you told them you were driving the whole time?”

  “Yeah. The next day, I woke up late in the afternoon to find Matt gone. No note, no message—nothing. I tried calling the only number I had for him but it wasn’t even in service anymore.”

  “So what did you do? The things I read said you confessed.”

  “I didn’t know what to do. I was scared, young, and stupid. I called the police a few hours later and reported that I had been driving home from the beach earlier that morning and thought I may have hit something.”

  As I told her the story, my heart raced, just as it had that night. I remembered the panic I’d felt and that feeling of being all alone out on a deserted island with no one to ask for advice or talk to at all. It was a lonely feeling.

  “I said I thought it was a dog.” A tear finally breached the edge of my eyelid and slid down my face. “I knew it wasn’t a dog and I lied anyway.” The desperation of that night was still so real in the forefront of my mind, only now it was blanketed by shame. There I was, finally, for the first time in my life, not alone. I had found a girl who saw me and loved me, but she didn’t even know me. “Two days later, when two uniformed police officers came to arrest me…that was when I learned the guy Matt hit had died at the hospital.”