by Beth Yarnall
I picture her on that makeshift bed in the dining area and I want to hit something. When she said she didn’t sleep in a bed I thought it was because of the rape, like maybe it gave her flashbacks or something. I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I’m grasping at wisps of smoke. She’s given me no indication that there’s anything to hold onto here. It was all built up in my mind despite her protests that we didn’t have a relationship. We had sex. That was it. Just fucking.
I got so frustrated at how she held herself away from me. The more she did it the more I wanted her. I wanted to know her, every part of her. Now I’ve seen it all and I’m not sure I can handle it. I’m ashamed of that weakness, ashamed that I’m reacting exactly the way she thought I would. I’m failing the same way so many others in her life have. She expected I would and I didn’t disappoint.
I don’t know what to do. Do I tell her it doesn’t matter, that we can keep going like we are with no long-term future? Do I go in there and fight for us, try to convince her to get some help and tell I’ll be there every step of the way? Or do I end it?
I know what she expects me to do. But what do I want?
If I’d been asked that question before walking into her apartment I would’ve answered unequivocally her. Now? Now I just don’t know. I can’t pin any hope on her changing. I have to accept that she might never get better. We’d never be able to live together. That’s hard constraint to put on a relationship. Marriage would be out of the question. I mean, what married couple doesn’t live together?
If she gets help it has to be because she wants it. Am I strong enough to go through that with her? I wish I could say that I am, but I honestly have no idea.
The one thing I do know is that I can’t walk away. The thought of never getting to talk with her or touch her is…unimaginable. That hasn’t changed.
So I guess I have my answer.
But there are a thousand other questions rolling around in my head that I can’t answer, like what do I say to her? How do I make her believe I want the possibility of us? How do I get her to see that there can be an us? Where do we go from here?
I guess the first step is getting off my ass and getting back in there.
Hauling myself up, I dust off and take a deep breath, then another. I check myself to be sure I’m really doing this. Yeah, I am. Her front door is a portal that once crossed will change my world and maybe Lila’s too. Without knocking, I barge right on in.
“Lila,” I call out. “Lila, where are you?”
There’s some movement from somewhere deep in the apartment and then she appears. We stare at each other for a long moment. She’s surprised to see me. On some level I’m offended. I know I shouldn’t be. We haven’t known each other long enough for her to realize I’m not someone who gives up. I might be a fuck up, but I’m not a quitter.
I keep my focus on her and ignore everything else around me. “Did you gather what you need?”
Her brows pull together.
“To stay at my place.”
She stares at me like she doesn’t understand what I’m saying.
“Nothing’s changed,” I tell her. “It’s still not safe for you to be alone.”
“Oh.”
“Look, I didn’t handle this very well.” I gesture toward the apartment in general still keeping my focus on her so I don’t panic and bolt again. “I’m sorry for that. I can’t promise that I’ll always know the right thing to say or do. I’m bound to screw up more than get it right. If you can deal with that then I’d like to see if we could still try to figure out whatever this is between us. Because it feels big, Lila. It feels like you could change my life. And I don’t know, maybe I could change yours.”
My words hang in the air between us, a long bridge I hope she’ll cross. Her eyes and nose are red from crying. She’s wearing her protective, fuck off expression, but it’s all for show. She hugs herself like she’s starving to be held, but I know if I try to touch her she’ll reject me.
Her gaze turns wary. “You decide the sex was too good?”
“I’m not going to bullshit you. It’s the best I’ve ever had, but that’s not the only reason and you know it.”
“I really don’t.”
“Now who’s the bullshitter?”
“I must be a really good fuck to overlook all of this.”
“You can try to make it all about sex if you want to.”
“I don’t know any different. That’s the only kind of relationship I’ve ever had.” She recoils at her own admission as though it embarrasses her.
I’m sad for her. She deserves so much more. I gentle my voice. “Get your things. Come back to my apartment with me. Please.”
She blinks rapidly and swallows. “You sure?”
“Of what’s between us? Yes. Of the future and how we’ll work everything out? No.”
She drops her gaze, nodding. “Give me a minute?”
“I’ll wait outside for you.”
I try to measure my steps so she doesn’t see my panic. Now that I put it out there I can’t take it back. The enormity of her problem hits me all over again. I thought I had a handle on it, but seeing her apartment again was somehow worse than the first time. I was in shock and a fair bit of denial. Knowing what to expect when I walked in there didn’t make seeing it any easier a second time. If anything it was even more overwhelming. I’m crushed by the enormity of her problem.
I stood in the middle of all that chaos and promised to try to work through it with her, but now the doubts are back bigger and more insurmountable than before. I’m not cut out for this. I’m bound to fuck it up. I shouldn’t have promised those things to her. They weren’t lies at the time, but now I wonder whom I was trying to convince, her or me?
It’s only when her front door closes behind me that I can pull in a full breath and the panic subsides to something close to tolerable. It’s still there though, waiting to creep over me again. I hope I can hide it from Lila. The last thing she needs is me backing out on her. I should’ve thought this through better. I should’ve taken the time to live with it for a while and really go over it in my head before making that declaration to her. You’d think I’d know better, but being the fuck up that I am I dove head first without working it through first.
Leaning against my car, I wait for Lila. My thoughts are racing rats in a maze, swarming over, under, and around. I’m so caught up in my head that I don’t notice it until the flash of a flame catches the corner of my eye. Turning my head, I see the dark sedan a split second before it peels away from the curb. My thoughts are slow so it takes me a moment to recognize the profile of one of the men from the Lucky Inn Motel—Billits’s man.
I come off the car to get Lila just as she comes out with a bag slung over her shoulder. She locks the door and comes toward me with a wary look on her face totally unaware of what just happened. I have to get us out of here. Gripping her by the arm, I hustle her into the passenger seat and jog back around the car and climb in.
“What’s wrong,” she asks.
I tear off down the street in the opposite direction the sedan went without a word. All I’m thinking about is getting Lila somewhere safe.
“Nolan, what’s going on?”
“Billits had a guy out in front of your apartment.”
“What?”
“He’s onto us. I gotta get you somewhere safe.”
I take the next turn practically on two wheels. Lila screeches and clings to her door. In my head I’m running through the possibilities of how they found us when my phone dings.
I hand my phone to Lila as I blow through a yellow light. “What does it say?”
“Side window breech.”
“Shit.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we can’t go back to my place.”
“Where are we going?”
The sedan pulls out onto the street half a block behind us, but doesn’t try to catch up. How in the…? Stupid. Of course. Think, I tell
myself. Taking the next turn, I speed up the next traffic light, then suddenly jerk to a stop and climb out. Dropping to my belly on the pavement, I search underneath the car. There. At the back near the left wheel a red light blinks on a black box. I pry it off and climb back into the car before the sedan rounds the corner.
I hand it to Lila. “Here. When I tell you to you’re going to get out of the car and follow my instructions.” I take off at the green light.
“What is this?”
“A tracking device. Don’t turn around and look. We’re being followed.”
To her credit she doesn’t look behind us. She stares down at the blinking light on the tracker. “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
“I just have to find the right… There.” I change lanes just in time. “When we stop at the light, get out and attach the tracker to that silver car.” I point to a car two car lengths ahead of us.
“It looks just like your car.”
“Exactly. Put it under the bumper, but don’t let the two passengers see you. When you get back in, slide down in your seat so you can’t be seen.” I keep an eye on my rearview mirror, watching for the sedan, but it hasn’t caught up to us yet. He’s not in a hurry. After all he’s got the advantage with the tracker.
“Oh, I get—”
“Now! Go! Hurry!”
22
Lila
I jump out of the car, slap the tracker under the lookalike car, and leap back in. Crouching in the foot well, I glance up at Nolan who is now wearing a cowboy hat and grinning at me like he’s having a fantastic time.
“That was awesome! Way to go, babe.”
His endearment slides through me like warm milk.
He looks back at the road. “The people in that other car didn’t even flinch.”
When the light turns green he eases us through the intersection and makes a left, his gaze flickering back and forth between the road and his rearview mirror. I can’t tell where we are, but it’s darker here. Maybe a residential street? He turns the car in a wide arc, then puts it in park and turns it off.
“What’s happening?” I ask.
He flashes me the quick smile that drew me from the first time I met him. “I think you did it. Come on out of there.”
I climb back up into my seat. We’re parked on a street with houses all around. In front of us is the main road we were just on.
“There.” He points to a black sedan that drives right in front us on the road we were just on. “It worked. They’re following the other car.”
He gives me a quick kiss, then another. Just like all of the other times we’ve gotten physical it quickly gets away from us. We’ve got out hands in each other’s pants when a car alarm goes off nearby startling us apart. Panting, we stare at each other in the dimly lit car.
“We need to find somewhere safe.” He tucks himself back into his pants. “I need to get you under me as soon as possible.”
I rebutton my jeans and press my legs together, trying to quell the throbbing between them. “Or over you.”
He glances up at me, his eyes heavy with desire. “That would work too.”
“Where are we going to go?”
“Give me a second to think.”
He watches the traffic go past the little street we’re on, his wrist hooked over the steering wheel. There’s something about his profile backlit by the streetlamp across the street that makes me feel safe. Not just in a physical sense—he’s already proven himself in there—but emotionally. He already knows the worst about me. Why he didn’t run the first chance he got I don’t know.
When he came back inside and gave his speech about me possibly changing his life I didn’t know what to say. His thoughts so closely echoed mine about him it scared me. It terrifies me as much as showing him my apartment. He could change my life. He might be the only person who can. His words stormed the walls of my resistance and gave me something I’ve never had—hope. He makes me want to try and that’s something I’ve never felt before. As much as my hoarding was a comfort it was also a trap. It wasn’t that I didn’t see it that way, it’s just that I see it much more clearly now.
I don’t have Pollyanna thoughts about his love changing me in some magical way like a hundred and ninety pound fairy godmother waving his wand and making all of my issues go away. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t see it that way either. Behind the incredible things he said to me were tiny seeds of doubt and a heavy dose of incredulousness. Taking me on with all of my baggage is daunting to him and I’m apprehensive about letting him.
None of what we’re considering here is going to be easy. I know that. I already harbor a tremendous amount of guilt over what I’ll likely put him through and for not cutting him loose altogether. He shouldn’t have to deal with me and my problems. He should be dating someone who can throw away junk instead of holding onto it like a life preserver. Someone he can think about a future with not someone who may never be normal and who can’t give him normal things.
Why he would want me I don’t know. I’m not sure I would take him on if our roles were reversed. That not only makes him better than me, but better than I deserve. I don’t know what it is he sees in me that’s bigger than my problems. It has to go beyond chemistry. There’s no way he’s so desperate for hot sex he’s willing to overlook something as huge as my issues. Nobody’s that good. I’m certainly not.
He starts the car. “I know where we should go.”
“Where?”
“If you don’t mind roughing it a bit my friend has an RV parked on the side of his house. It’s in a fenced off carport. I stayed there a couple days when I had my floors redone. It’s not fancy, but it’ll be secure and off the grid so to speak.”
“You mean no credit card charges for a hotel.”
“Right. And he won’t care if we just show up.”
“Sounds perfect. You know I live in a constant state of roughing it.”
He gives me a quick glance. “Shit. That’s not what I meant.”
“I know it’s not. You’ve been really good about it. Maybe too good.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know. Never mind.”
“No. Say what you want to say.”
“It’s just that the sex can’t be that good.”
At a light he turns to me. “You tell me how good it is.”
I look away from him out the side window. “It’s amazing.”
“Is that all it is for you?”
“No.”
“Then why do you assume that’s all it is for me?”
I shrug, then realize he can’t see me. His gaze is back on the road as we make our way through the intersection.
“I don’t know. I don’t know how to do this.”
“Neither do I. Right now I’m just trying to keep us safe until we can talk to Mr. Nash’s FBI contact.”
“And we can fuck.”
“You’re really starting to piss me off.”
“You can’t tell me that’s not what this is about. You honestly can’t be this hard up. No one is.”
“Goddamn it!”
He jerks the wheel and we come to an abrupt stop at the side of the road. The seatbelt halts my lunge forward. When he turns to me his face is in shadow so I can’t see his expression, but his breathing is rapid and harsh sounding in the cocoon of the car.
“Are we going to have this out right now, right here?” he asks.
I tilt my chin up in defense. “I guess so.”
“You’ve made this about sex from the start. I went along with it because I didn’t see any other way to have you, but I’m done with you setting the limits here. Here’s how it’s going to go. Yeah, we’re gonna fuck because it’s what we do best. The rest of the time we’re going to try to figure out how to make the in between times work. It’s going to suck sometimes. It’s going to be just okay other times and then there will be pockets of holy fuck this is good because that’s how relationships go. If you want ou
t, if you can’t handle that then say so right now and I’ll let you go.”
His eyes shine in the darkened interior. I’ve never had what he’s talking about. My parents had it. I saw it everyday and wanted it for myself. And then everything collapsed and it was me at the bottom of the avalanche trying to dig myself out. I’m still trying to tunnel out with my bare hands. They’re bruised and raw and I’m tired. So tired. It feels like he’s handing me a shovel, but I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t know how to make this work the way he wants it to. I’m scared.
I don’t realize I said the last out loud until he cups my cheek with his hand. “I know you are. So am I.”
“You?”
“It’s fucking overwhelming, Lila. All of it. Your apartment. The way we connect. The way I feel about you. I’m out of my depth here.”
“It was easier when I didn’t like you.”
He lets out a self-deprecating laugh. “Yeah, it was.”
“I might not ever be the person you want me to be. I might never be normal. That’s not fair to you.”
“No, it’s not. But who ever said life was fair?”
“I’m going to hold you back. You could have someone so much better than me.”
“Here’s the thing… I don’t want anyone else.”
“I can’t do this to you.” I don’t know how to make him understand what I’m trying to say. “I can’t be the person who contorts your future into an approximation of what it should be.”
“What if I was in an accident and I ended up in a wheelchair. Would you stay with me?”
His question throws me off guard, but it only takes me a moment to come up with an answer. “Yes.”
“Your life would never be normal. I’d hold you back.”
“But it wouldn’t change who you are.”
“Would it change how you feel about me?”
“No.”
He doesn’t say anything for a long time. “I don’t know how to help you or if I even can. You might never change. I’m working on coming to terms with that and what it means for us. It’s not easy. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I’m not pissed as hell at you or that I understand and accept your…compulsion. I don’t. I don’t get it. At all. I might never get it. But here’s the thing. I get you. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”