I nod.
She starts walking again. “Sometimes we think we’re in the right place and we’re not. I was married once before.”
“I remember. Your husband…”
“Yes. The bridge.”
“My dad.”
“I know, hon.”
“After that.” I stop to look through a gap in the trees. The sun is shining on the meadow where the fireworks display went off last night. “Hawk was the only thing in my life that was right. May needed me, I couldn’t lean on her. He never asked anything in return. He gave me whatever I needed after my dad died.”
She steps beside me and listens. She’s good at that. Listening.
“Why was I so stupid? It took until the last day of school before I knew what it was. Just… something in the way he looked at me that day was different. He looked at me like he’d…”
“Never seen you before,” Jennifer says, softly.
“Yeah. I pretended to sleep on the bus so I could hold him.”
“I remember. I was there.”
I blink a few times. “Yeah, you were, weren’t you?”
“I should have said something. Public displays of affection and all that, but I decided, who cares? It’s not like it mattered. You’d effectively graduated and it made me happy to see two young people happy with each other. That was a dark time for me. The next four years were dark. Little spots like that got me through it.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
She looks at me with one eyebrow raised, and folds her arms over her chest. “I think you do.”
“I don’t feel like it.”
“If he’s right for you, if it’s right for you, then you just know. Sometimes that feeling isn’t as strong as our fears, but it’s there, and no matter how many reasons you find to fight it, it never goes away. Once that torch is lit, it never goes out.”
“Never?”
She shakes her head.
“How long did it take you to figure it out with Jacob?”
“Figure it out? Too long. It was there the first day, though. He looked at me like he’d never seen me before.”
To my own surprise, I sniff a little and rub at my eyes.
“What do I do?”
She sighs. “I just told you… okay, look. Why don’t you trust him?”
“What, like specifically? He wouldn’t tell me why he left.”
“Nothing at all?”
“He said if he told me I’d be in danger.”
“Do you think he’s telling the truth?”
I start to answer but go quiet.
“I don’t know. It sounds like an excuse.”
Jennifer shrugs. “Lots of times, things sound like an excuse when they’re not. Lots of excuses sound true, or they wouldn’t work. Maybe you should try asking him again. It sounds like he’s trying to protect you.”
My own fingers dig into my arms. “Protect me? Where was he to protect me when I needed him, Jennifer? They strapped me to a table and injected me with drugs. I wanted him so bad it hurt. All I wanted was for him to come get me and get me out of there and take me away and make it better.”
She doesn’t say anything for a while. A squirrel runs in circles at the base of a tree in front of us. Birds chirp. Jennifer sighs.
“Did he know where you were?”
“No.”
“If he did, would he have come?”
I swallow, but don’t answer her.
“Ask him again. Lay it out for him.”
“Whatever you decide to do, we have your back. If you want to get out now, we’ll get you out.”
“My stepfather has connections. He knows people.”
She only smirks a little. “I’m scared.”
“I’ll get you something you can use, I promise.”
“Don’t do anything rash, Alexis. Your safety is more important to us, to me, than dealing with your father. We have other ways of taking care of that. This is our mess to clean up.”
“No,” I say, “It’s mine. I was helping him for years.”
Again, she puts her hand on my shoulder. “You did what you had to do for yourself, and for your sister. Survival sometimes means we have to do things we’re not proud of, or even ashamed of, but that doesn’t make us weak, and it doesn’t make us wrong. You’re taking a stand now and that’s what matters most. Go tell my husband to get back here.”
Sighing, I walk back down the path, hook left at the parked bikes and find Jacob and Hawk standing around, eyeballing each other. I can practically smell the testosterone.
“Hey,” I tell Jacob, “Your wife wants you back.”
“Remember to call if there’s trouble. Don’t wait.”
Nodding, he starts back up the path, breaking into a jog. I look at Hawk, leaning against the tree. He’s doing it again.
Looking at me like he’s never seen me before.
“What did he tell you?”
“He told me to ask why my father put you in the psych ward.”
Of course he did. I chuff out a breath. “Will you tell me why your father made you leave?”
He kicks the ground and steps towards me. “Damn it, Alex. Just telling you could put your life in danger.”
My life in danger. That’s a good one.
“If you won’t trust me with your secrets, why should I trust you with mine?”
I put my hands on his chest, and wait.
“He killed my mother,” he says, very softly.
My stomach drops, and I feel my knees wobble a little.
“What?”
He looks around, and lowers his voice. “He put a drug called methyl iodide in my mother’s coffee. It made it look like she had a stroke.”
I take a step back, then another, and then another, and suddenly he’s holding me by the arms, holding me up. He pulls me to him off the path and I sink against the tree and sit down between the roots. Hawk lowers himself next to me and I sit there and hug myself.
“Why… you didn’t say anything?”
“He caught me on his computer. We fought. He told me to leave town. I told him to go fuck himself. I was going to kill him. Then…”
“What?”
“You. He said if I didt anything he’d hurt you. He didn’t say what he’d do but he said he had friends that would like to… do things… to you. You, Alex. I don’t care what happens to me. If something happened to you, I’d die. I’d rather cut out my own heart.”
My throat is dry as a bone.
“If… if you’d known where I was, would you have come for me?”
“Yes.”
He says it immediately, without hesitation, without reservation. He grabs my hand and squeezes, and a bright brilliant burning part of me wants to throw my arms around him right now, but another part goes cold, and I pull my hand out of his.
“I don’t know if I can do it,” I say, softly. “It hurt me, Hawk. What they did. It hurt me here.” I touch my chest. “I still have feelings for you, I think, but I can’t…”
I trail off.
He pulls his hand back and leans on his knees.
“Will you tell me what happened? Why they committed you?”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I blurt out, choking down a sob. “I didn’t!”
“Alex, I know you didn’t do anything-”
“I mean I didn’t do anything. I don’t know why. I was home for winter break and I was living with them because mom moved in and gave up the apartment.” It just spills out of me in a single breath. “Tom was in his office talking to some guy about shipments or clearing customs or something, and he said something about… about whales?” I clutch my head. “I can’t remember. The drugs make it all fuzzy.”
By the end I’m whimpering.
Lightly, gingerly, Hawk puts his arm around me and pulls me to him. I bury my face in his chest and choke down my sobs.
“It’s okay, Alex.”
“It’s not okay. It’ll never be okay. I still have dreams about that
place. Sometimes I wake up and I think I’m still there and this is all a dream. I’m still trapped on the bed and I can feel that knife on my leg and any second it’s going to start sawing and…”
“It’s okay, I’ll never let-”
“I have worse dreams. They have me strapped down and it’s May. She’s in the bed next to mine and they’re injecting her with something and she starts screaming. Sometimes I wake up and I can’t… I can’t move.”
His arms tighten around me.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“What?”
“I’ll rip out his throat with my bare hands.”
“You can’t.” I’m holding him back, now. “They’ll take you away again. I can’t go through that again. You can’t leave me. Ever.”
I pull away from him. He lets go, only reluctantly, and I sit back against the tree. He reaches over and sets his palm against my cheek, brushes the tear away with his thumb. The calloused, tough skin of his hand is rough against my cheek. I lean into his touch, rub my cheek against his hand.
“Before you left,” I say, very calmly. “I was going to, uh, make a move. Tell you how I felt.”
“How did you feel?”
I can’t say it. Three little words and I can’t say it. It catches in my throat and makes tears leak from my eyes. I want to, but something won’t let me.
“I feel the same way now I did then,” he says.
The world turns blurry as my eyes water. I pull up my shirt and use it to scrub at my tears, but not too hard; I don’t want to look like I’ve been crying when I get home.
“I can’t stay away too long,” I sigh. “My runs don’t usually last this long. I need to get back.”
“I know. We can’t be seen together. You go on ahead.”
“Are you going to follow me?”
“Yes. Just to keep an eye on you.”
I manage to stand up, slowly.
When I start to run I don’t look back.
Not because I don’t want to, because I don’t have to.
God I hate myself.
How many days, months, years praying for Hawk to come back? For him to show up and save me?
I meant what I said. I want it to be like it was. I ache for it with every fiber of my being, long for it down to the marrow of my bones. I would give anything, anything, to go back to that water park, back to that bus, just to feel that way again. I want the world I was supposed to have, not this hell.
I run.
It takes maybe fifteen minutes to get back to the house. By then I’ve run myself out, I’m totally winded, breathing hard in ragged heaves as I walk back up the porch steps, slip in through the back door and start upstairs.
As I pass through the kitchen, the office door opens and I scurry upstairs, a fright passing through me like an electric shock.
I hear Tom’s voice.
“Thank you again, Eli. We’ll be starting soon.”
No answer to that, whoever Eli is, I can’t hear his voice. I hear footsteps, though, and see a man in what looks like an Amish getup walk through the foyer, Tom at his back. By the time they open the door for Tom’s guest to leave, I’m already in my room, the door locked. I wait a good ten minutes before I grab my robe and head into the bathroom for a quick shower.
When I step out, Tom is coming up the stairs.
I feel sick. His gaze is like a rotten banana peel on my skin. Not that I’m showing much, but just the way his eyes rake over my calves and my chest before I squeeze the collar around my throat makes me want to scream.
“There you are. Enjoy your morning run?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. I’m going to need you today. We’ll be working weekends and pulling a few all-nighters as the campaign heats up.”
I nod. “I’ll get dressed.”
As I grasp my doorknob he says, “Has Howard spoken to you at all?”
It feels like I just swallowed an ice cube and it’s stuck in my throat.
“No, sir. Not at all.”
He eyes me for a moment, then smiles, nods, and walks down the stairs.
“You’re always such a reliable young woman, Alexis. I hope you enjoy working with me as I much as I enjoy working with you.”
There’s a leering edge to his voice that’s like a finger tracing down my back, and I rush into my room before he gets low enough down the stairs to look up my robe. I lock the door and sit on the bed and try to focus, but the world goes blurry again.
What the fuck am I doing? I should be getting May to pack her things and we should go with Hawk right now, I don’t care how old she is. He came back to save me and now I won’t let him.
What’s wrong with me?
I have to dress professionally. That means as much as it disgusts me, I have to put on a pencil skirt. Tom prefers I wear those. I buy the longest ones I can, so they go past my knees, but I still feel uncomfortable wearing something so tight around my ass. I usually wear a blazer to cover up as much as I can, over a loose blouse. I button this one to my neck and pull my hair into a ponytail, slip on ballet flats (he keeps buying me shoes but I am not sitting around in his office wearing red fuck-me pumps.)
Then I head downstairs.
The office door is open, and he’s waiting inside, but not at his desk. He’s slipping something into his attaché case, which he then hands off to me. I take it and step back by the door.
“We’re going to meet with a campaign supporter,” he says, smirking at me. “You look lovely today, Alexis.”
“Thank you,” I manage to say without sounding like I want to puke.
My stepfather, man of the people, drives an old Ford pickup when it suits him. Today it suits him to take the Mercedes. Like a perfect gentlemen, he opens the door for me, and rakes my legs with his eyes. Before he gets in, I tug the hem down over my knees, for all the good that will do.
“Who are we meeting?”
“An old friend. We need to talk, Alexis.”
I try not to react to that.
As he pulls out onto the road he says, “You need to understand I’ve essentially been tapped on the shoulder. There’s been a lot of commotion lately in our political landscape. Someone has to step up. Mayor of this town is only the first step on a path that’s going to lead to high office.”
“High office?”
“State level, such as governor, possibly senator.”
“Because the Katzenbergs went to prison?”
“Partly, yes. The interim mayor serving now isn’t quite right for the role.”
“You sound very confident.”
He smiles at that, and glances at me. “Aren’t you hot, buttoned up to the neck like that?”
“I’m fine.”
He turns the air conditioning all the way up. With it blasting on my bare legs, I start to shiver.
“Cold?”
“I’m all right.”
He drives, humming to himself. Then he says,
“You realize this represents an opportunity for you.”
“Me?”
“Politics is often a family affair, Alexis, and I’ll be blunt: My youngest son is a jackass, the best I can manage for him is damage control. My eldest is a walking PR nightmare and has no sense of well, anything. You, though, you’ve been the daughter I never had. I can’t tell you how proud I am of how you’ve come around.”
Just the idea makes me sick. I glance in the rearview mirror to make sure I haven’t turned green.
“When I move up, it’ll open spaces below me. I think we’ll start you off with an appointed position first. I’ll have you working in my office in some capacity. Something important, so you’ll look qualified later on to run for mayor yourself.”
“Me?” I squeak out.
“You. I’ll need someone I can trust here if we’re going to establish ourselves as a proper political family. That’s what my grandfather always wanted, you see. Back when there was coal and logging, he saw that politics was the proper avenue for people like
us.”
“Oh.”
“Of course, you’re not of my family, but that doesn’t matter. I’ve been trying with your mother. She’s still young enough, but it doesn’t seem to be working.”
Oh God, I didn’t need to hear that. I took health, I know what he means by trying.
“So I’m putting all my hopes on you.”
I swallow.
“That means a lot to me.”
I look over at him and feel like someone slipped an ice cube down my top. This man killed his own wife, horrifically, for some reason. Was it because he wanted my mother? I thought he hated us. I never even knew they were involved.
“Ah,” he says, “We’re here.”
He turns off the road into the parking lot of one of the restaurants on the east side of the river. This one has a big open porch that overlooks the water. I think Tom owns a stake in it; he’s tied up in half the real estate in Paradise Falls.
“Let’s go inside and meet them. Be on your best behavior, sweetheart. These men are going to make you mayor one day, or better. All you have to do is keep being my good girl.”
He tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear and it’s everything I have not to bite his finger off.
Then he steps out of the car, and I follow him inside.
Hawk
Now
I take it slow getting home. Home. It still feels weird to call that house home. It feels like a museum now, a foreign place. The whole town feels artificial to me, like I’m walking through a studio backlot, plodding past movie sets. The facades are empty, there’s nothing behind them. Fury burns in my veins, and my nails dig into my palm.
As I walk, it hits me that the only reason I’m not going to kill my father today is because Alexis begged me not to.
At first I thought she was just angry with me, but it’s more than that. She’s changed. Haunted. The sound of her voice as she told me what they did to her is like a knife sliding along my bone and I hear another quiet voice whisper in my ear: Because of you.
I will never leave her again. I swear.
By the time I get back to the house, I feel like I’ve run for ten miles. It’s not the walk that did it, it’s the weight. Like a dead elephant on my back. I step inside and find my brother standing in the kitchen, eating a sandwich, chewing it loudly and sloppily, holding a beer in his other hand.
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