It took him a moment to process the question and come up with an answer. “Yeah.”
Not exactly a brilliant response, but he was too off-balance to think. Was she really making him dinner? Vance couldn’t figure out if he was way more hungover than he’d realized, if his insane amount of alcohol consumption over the last few weeks had permanently damaged something, or if he was still asleep on his couch. This being reality seemed like the least likely option to actually be true.
“Vance,” Natalie said, suddenly five feet away from him—which for Natalie was equivalent to being toe to toe. “Why don’t you go sit down on the couch? You still look really worn out.”
Nodding instead of speaking, he watched her walk back to the stove for several long seconds before doing as she asked. Maybe being away from her would help him figure out what was going on.
It didn’t.
Vance wasn’t sure how long he sat there staring at the floor, but apparently it was long enough to boil linguine and sauté shrimp. It seemed like only a few minutes before Natalie approached with two bowls of steaming pasta, but it must have been longer.
“I need to feed Gypsy, but go ahead and start eating. I’ll just be a few minutes,” Natalie said. Her voice was far more relaxed than usual, but she still skirted around him at a distance.
He nodded again and stared at the food. It looked delicious, sparking his long dormant appetite enough to make him reach for the bowl. The warmth of it burned his palms slightly, but he felt it was the least he deserved. It kind of felt good, actually. In fact, it was the only thing he had really felt since Stephanie died. The only thing he’d bothered to notice, anyway. He had only eaten the sandwich earlier to please Natalie. He hadn’t even tasted it. Spearing a piece of shrimp and the accompanying noodles, Vance lifted it to his mouth as real hunger finally hit him. He sighed as garlic and butter washed over his taste buds.
“Does it taste okay?” Natalie’s quiet voice asked from across the room.
Looking up, Vance realized she was sitting in her armchair, the farthest spot she could manage from him while still being in the same room. “It’s delicious,” he managed to say. “I didn’t know you could cook.” He really knew very little about her on a personal level.
“My mother taught me when I was young.” Her brow creased and she looked down at her food. Knowing full well how little she enjoyed talking about her family, Vance was surprised when she continued. “Cooking is one of the few good memories I have of her…of my childhood in general. It was easy to please her in that one thing, at least.”
“But not in others?”
Natalie shook her head. A small shred of desire to take up his role as therapist tried to waken, but Vance quashed it immediately. Not only was it not the right time or place, she wasn’t his patient anymore. He thought about that simple fact, surprised how much it hurt. They would become real friends now—that was what Natalie had said—but that scared Vance more than he wanted to admit.
Trying to find something else to think about, Natalie’s earlier mention of her neighbor reminded him that he had a letter for her in his pocket from the man. He didn’t reach to retrieve it right away. “Earlier, you mentioned Howard, that you didn’t trust him. Why not? I mean, why trust him less than anyone else?”
Shrugging, Natalie pulled her knees in closer to her chest. “Just a weird vibe, I guess.” She took another bite of her pasta and chewed slowly, giving herself time to decide whether or not to keep talking. “Everybody gets someone else’s mail now and again. It happens all the time. Most people just stick it back in the outgoing mail slot and move on. Howard’s the only one who goes out of his way to return my misplaced mail personally.” She shrugged again. “It seems to happen way more with him, several times a week. I tried calling the post office to complain, but it keeps happening.”
It wasn’t the strangest thing a person could do, Vance had to admit, but given that Natalie made it pretty obvious how little she wanted to interact with people, it did seem odd that he kept trying to force the issue with her. Then there was the oddly casual way he talked about her, like he knew her when he didn’t.
Setting his bowl down, Vance took the envelope Howard had given him out of his back pocket and set it on the coffee table. “He gave me that to give to you when he let me in downstairs.”
Natalie’s head cocked to one side. “Howard let you in? Why?”
“He remembered me from the night the police came for that drunk guy.” Vance tried to think back to that night and place Howard somewhere in the scene where he would have caught sight of him. He hadn’t been paying very close attention to who had come out of their apartments to watch the show, but he couldn’t seem to remember spotting Howard anywhere.
Natalie seemed equally bothered by the news that Howard had even been involved, but she kept her thoughts to herself. Bowl empty, she set it on an end table near her chair and tentatively reached forward for the letter. Vance hadn’t bothered to look at the letter at all, but when Natalie dropped the envelope like it had burned her only a second after picking it up he reached forward and snatched it off the table in concern.
The sender’s information was completely blank, giving no hint of who had sent the letter. The information for the recipient was even more confusing.
Clara Townsend c/o Natalie Price.
Clearly, there was no one currently visiting or living with Natalie, so why would someone send mail to this Clara woman at Natalie’s address? It seemed like a strange mistake to have made, and a faulty address wouldn’t have made Natalie spring back from the letter like it had bitten her.
“Who is Clara Townsend?” he asked, suspecting this woman wasn’t a stranger to her. Natalie didn’t answer, and when he looked up he was startled to find her hugging her knees and rocking back and forth in her chair. His first instinct was to rush over to her, but he forced himself to stay still and try to reach her with words alone. “Natalie, do you know who this woman is?”
Vance wasn’t really sure what he expected her to say, but the answer she gave wasn’t even in the ballpark.
“She’s me,” Natalie moaned as she covered her face with her hands.
His head was still foggy, but Vance didn’t think he’d have understood even if he hadn’t been hungover and sleep deprived. “What? How can you be her? That doesn’t make sense.”
Natalie started rocking more forcefully. Her breathing was breaking down into a dangerously erratic pace. “I changed…my name. Protect myself. I didn’t think…he couldn’t…he found me anyway.”
“Who found you?” Vance demanded.
Natalie curled in on herself, burying her head beneath both arms. Her mumbled answer was barely audible, but it sent a chill through Vance all the same. “My father.”
She wouldn’t respond to anything after that. For nearly half an hour, Vance sat on a couch across from Natalie, desperate to help her but completely unable to do anything. It wasn’t until Gypsy wandered in from the kitchen and began licking her bare feet that Natalie stirred from her trauma-induced ball of fear. It still took her quite a few minutes before she was steady enough to untangle herself and reach down for Gypsy. She pulled her into a protective cocoon of arms and legs and huddled with her there for another ten minutes before Vance braved speaking.
“How do you know the letter is from your father?”
The silence stretched on to the point that Vance thought he would wait all night before she was able to speak of it again. Eventually, her voice slipped out from beneath the curtain of hair hiding her face. “It’s his handwriting. Only the people I grew up with know that name. After his call, I knew he was looking for me, but I didn’t think he knew where I lived.”
“He hasn’t tried to contact you at work since that first call?”
Natalie peeked up at him through her hair. “I don’t know.” Vance frowned in confusion, prompting her to explain. “I blocked his number and told security to never let him into the building. They said they’d let m
e know if he tried, and I haven’t heard anything, but I have no idea whether or not he’s tried to call.” Braving the room a little more, she lifted her head and stared at him, Gypsy clutched against her chest. “How did he find my address?”
Vance wished he knew. No doubt Natalie had done everything she could to keep her information private. There were still ways to find out, he assumed, but it wouldn’t have been easy. “Natalie, I know you said he wasn’t physically violent toward you, but it sounds like that wasn’t true for other people and you have no idea how he might have changed since you saw him last. If he’s tracked you down and is intent on punishing you, there’s a possibility he means you harm. I think you need to consider going to the police.”
“And say what?” she demanded. “I ran away from my parents seven years ago and now they’ve found me and I want the police to do…what? What would I claim on a petition for a restraining order? Their records are clean. I have no proof they’re trying to hurt me.”
“Why are they coming after you?”
“Why was Stephanie so terrified of having children?” she demanded, her eyes filled with anger instead of fear.
Vance was so taken aback by not only her intrusive question, but the fire behind it, that he fell back against the couch and closed his mouth.
“I’m sorry,” Natalie whispered. “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s none of my business, but I just…I can’t talk about it. It’s too…I just can’t.” Tears began tumbling down her cheeks as her shoulders shook. The defeat that weighed them down bothered Vance deeply.
He didn’t move from his position on the couch, but he did start talking. “Stephanie’s father was a cruel man. He beat her mother, but he never touched Steph. He wasn’t kind to her, but he never hurt her physically. She didn’t understand why, and honestly, I don’t understand why he spared her and no one else either.”
Vance shook his head, wondering not for the first time if it was some manipulative method of abuse only he understood, because his choice to never raise a hand to her certainly didn’t protect her. “When Steph was three, her mother finally tried to leave and take Steph with her. They didn’t make it far before he found them both and dragged them back home. Her mother took her own life two days later.” He heard Natalie’s gasp, but he continued on. “After that, it was an endless string of woman, some live-in girlfriends, and some women he actually married. He didn’t treat any of them better than he had Steph’s mom. He even had several other children with these women, but they all grew to hate Stephanie just as much as they hated her father.”
“Why?” Natalie asked quietly.
“Because she was the only one he never hurt. Most of the women turned their anger on Stephanie. If he caught them hurting her, he would punish them for it, but all that did was make them hate her even more. Eventually all the other girlfriends and wives left him, taking their poor children away from a horrible situation, but they blamed Steph for everything they had been through.” Vance sank into the couch, imagining what Stephanie had suffered for so long. “She wasn’t spared, though. The emotional abuse her father subjected her to, the way the other women and her half siblings treated her, it nearly broke her. When we met in college, she was terrified of forming relationships, because she had been convinced that anyone she tried to befriend would end up being hurt and hating her like everyone else had. She honestly thought she was cursed.”
“But you helped her.”
Had he? Not enough, apparently. Vance didn’t respond to Natalie’s comment. “After the way she was treated as a child, Stephanie was so scared she’d end up like her father or those other women. It terrified her to think of putting a child through the same things she had been through.”
“But she wouldn’t have,” Natalie argued.
“She knew her fears were irrational,” Vance said, “but I suppose you know better than most how little that matters.”
Natalie frowned and dropped her gaze. “I know all too well.”
Dragging his hands down his face, Vance sighed. “Nothing I said or did could convince her that things would be different with us. She hid the damage she’d suffered well—not that she hadn’t overcome many of her fears—but she held on to a lot more than people knew. I thought one day she’d let it all go, but I was wrong.”
The room fell silent after that. Vance didn’t expect Natalie to open up just because he had. He knew she wasn’t ready to talk. That wasn’t why he’d said what he did. He wasn’t even sure why he’d told Stephanie’s secrets. Her passing didn’t absolve him of promises to keep her confidence. The truth was, he didn’t understand why Steph had made the choices she did. Not really. He understood in a conceptual way, but emotionally…it tore straight through to his soul that she hadn’t told him about the pregnancies or trusted him enough to help her through it. Maybe he thought telling Natalie, who harbored her own seemingly insurmountable fears could give him insight, explain why, but the pained expression on her face said she didn’t understand any more than he did.
“I’m so sorry for everything Stephanie put you through these last few weeks,” Natalie said softly. “I know it doesn’t mean much coming from me, and I can’t explain why she lied to you. What I do know is that it wasn’t about you, Vance. She loved you, and she did trust you, more than anyone else in this world, but she didn’t trust herself and she couldn’t overcome her fear of herself. Maybe she would have eventually, maybe not. The point is, none of what happened was your fault.”
Vance heard every word. They brushed against his skin, sinking deeper until the suffocating guilt he had been buried under changed. It didn’t leave him. It didn’t lessen. Something changed, though, like a hand reaching through the fog to guide him back to the sunlight. Vance took in a deep breath, and it felt like the first one he’d taken since Guy’s call that night.
“Thank you,” he said. One of Natalie’s shoulders bobbed and she tucked her knees in more tightly. He was bothered by her brushoff of his apology and felt the need to convince her. “It does mean something to me. It means a lot. Especially from you.”
Natalie looked up at him over her huddled knees. “Why?”
“Because you understand her better than anyone else, and because…” Vance paused, taking a second to word his thoughts correctly. “Because you’re the strongest person I know. Right now I feel about as tough as a tissue, but I know you won’t let me fall apart.”
“I’m not strong,” Natalie argued, her head shaking back and forth.
Vance stared at her and smiled. “Really? So it doesn’t take strength to face down your fear of interacting with people every day? Or to call Guy or agree to sessions with me when it terrified you? What about going out painting that night, or trying group therapy? Letting me in here tonight took a lot of strength, so much that you really surprised me. All of that takes strength, Natalie. A lot of it.”
Biting her lip so hard the dark pink flesh paled, she looked at everything in the room but him. “I don’t know if I’m strong enough to help you through this.”
“That’s okay,” Vance said softly, “because I do.”
Chapter 21
The Thank You
Unable to respond to what Vance had said, Natalie took the coward’s way out. She gathered up the bowls and hid in the kitchen until Vance nodded off on the couch. Even once she heard his breathing even out, she continued to hide. Having him in her apartment wasn’t nearly as bad as she had thought it would be. She wasn’t sure why, but expected it had something to do with her shift in perspective. Vance wasn’t going to hurt her, and she was determined to find enough strength to hold him together from the outside while he pieced himself back together on the inside.
Digging up that hidden strength Vance seemed to think was so easy to see took her a few more minutes. When she finally felt steady enough, she slowly stepped out of the kitchen and peeked into the living room. Mouth open and head back, Vance was completely out. He looked extremely uncomfortable sleeping upright like that,
but there was no way Natalie was going to attempt moving him.
Nor was she going to ask him to go home, she realized.
Even with good heating, winters in Chicago were cold in older buildings such as the one she lived in. Vance might have been exhausted enough that he’d sleep through the night regardless of the chill, but Natalie felt guilty leaving him there like that. Moving back into the kitchen, she crossed the tiled floor, darted through the entryway, and stopped in front of the linen closet in the hall.
Reaching in, she grabbed a good blanket, but hesitated before closing the door. Being in the same room with Vance all night was sure to mean a restless night’s sleep, but escaping to her room and not being able to keep an eye on him was equally unnerving. Natalie hadn’t slept a single night with company of the human variety since running from her parents’ home. She wasn’t sure she could do it. The other option was waking Vance and asking him to leave, and she couldn’t do that either.
Indecision kept her standing in front of the linen closet for a long while before she finally forced herself to be calm and rational and took a second blanket from the shelf. The walk back to the living room felt like a death march. Her whole body was trembling by the time she approached Vance’s slumped form. He had fallen slightly to the side, but still wasn’t lying down.
Breathe. Keep breathing, Natalie reminded herself as she clutched the blankets to her chest. Putting one on Vance was simply too much for her in that moment. Instead, she took the second blanket and dropped it on her chair for later use. Deep breath. Without turning around, Natalie shook the blanket out, holding the edges so the remainder of the blanket hung down in front of her.
Her eyes squeezed shut no matter how hard she tried to be brave and keep them open. Knowing her own apartment as well as she did, it was no problem to sidestep the coffee table and place herself next to the couch without opening her eyes. Soft snores from Vance told her where he was and that he seemed to have fallen over completely. Not wanting to toss the blanket on his face by accident, Natalie strained to open her eyes.
The Only Shark In The Sea (The Date Shark Series Book 3) Page 16