Shelter in the Dark

by Kathleen Hearn

  SHELTER

  IN THE

  DARK

  Copyright © 2021 by Kathleen Hearn

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN: 9798534956412

  SHELTER

  IN THE

  DARK

  KATHLEEN HEARN

  Chapter One - Twelve hours before Leah’s disappearance

  As I steered my BMW along the passing lane of the Garden State Parkway, I became aware of the highway’s daunting length. It was a long, miserable road with seemingly no beginning and no end. Driving along it felt as if I was suspended in space, or sucked into an empty vacuum until I suffocated. Of course, I wouldn’t have felt this way if I had been driving peacefully alone, but my girlfriend was in the passenger seat beside me. Being alone with her set my nerves on edge, making me dread the long drive ahead of us. The clouds hung low in the sky above the damp road. The moisture was thick outside, and tall pine trees with low-hanging branches stood on each side of the road.

  I clutched the steering wheel tightly, until the blood was squeezed from my knuckles. Reluctantly, I reached toward Leah, hoping that after all the fighting and miscommunication, she would at least accept a small gesture of affection. Surprisingly, her fingers closed gently around mine, neither rejecting or embracing me. She was simply tolerating my touch, which was more than I could’ve hoped for at that moment.

  I swallowed and tightened my sweaty grip of Leah’s hand, just in case she tried to pull away. As much as it pained me to sit in silence, I knew that Leah had a valid reason for being upset with me. Our trip to my parents’ Cape May beach house was supposed to be for the two of us, but when Rosie and a couple of her sorority friends asked to join in for a Spring Break adventure, I lacked the spine to say no.

  The engine hummed dully over the maddening silence. I eventually cleared my throat and spoke for the first time in what felt like an hour. My voice cut into the silence like a sharp blade against grindstone. “You know, we’ll still have a couple of hours to ourselves before my friends get there.”

  “Dani, don’t start,” Leah muttered.

  “Why won’t you let me apologize?”

  Instead of responding, Leah stared indifferently out the window.

  “We can do whatever you want,” I pressed on. “My friends won’t get there until eight. I can cook us dinner. We can have drinks on the porch.”

  “So I should be grateful for a few hours of your time, during a trip that was supposed to be for the two of us?”

  “I told you I’m sorry!”

  Leah yanked her hand out of my grasp, the small sign of affection disappearing just as quickly as it had come. I winced. What hurt the most wasn’t the rejection itself, but the painful lack of emotion. Leah wasn’t an aggressive person. She didn’t flick me away harshly, but wandered off like driftwood in a light current. Part of me wanted her to be angry. I wanted her to shout, cry, and project her passions onto me. But instead, her silence and lack of warmth spoke louder than any words that could’ve been said.

  Defeated, I put both hands on the wheel again, fixing my eyes on the long, flat highway ahead of us.

  “Why is it so hard to say no to Rosie?” Leah asked. She stared blankly at the tall pine trees flashing by. Thick forests stood on each side of the parkway, making the road feel more narrow than it already was. I felt as if Leah and I were being pushed together, suffocated by one another’s proximity. I suddenly wished I could crawl into a hole and hide from her.

  Leah turned to look at me, eyebrows raised. “Well?”

  I gulped deeply. I hated when Leah asked such difficult questions. The truth was, I didn’t know why I had such a hard time keeping a distance from my friends at college. I was constantly surrounded by their laughter, gossip, and chatter. It was hard to explain how being a part of their culture felt inescapable at times. Leah never went to college. She didn’t understand the strong sisterhood that bound Rosie and I together, amongst many of our other friends on campus.

  Silence lingered, until Leah eventually shook her head. Her voice was empty and drained. “I never thought you’d let me down like this, Dani.”

  Desperately, I reached for her hand again. When she pulled away from me, I became certain that we were nearing the end of our relationship. After this weekend, I may never see Leah again.

  • • •

  Nine Hours Before Leah’s Disappearance:

  When we arrived at the beach house, Leah immediately took refuge in the guest room. Grateful for a breath of fresh air, I went to the beachfront balcony for a moment alone. There was a lawn chair facing the ocean. With a long sigh, I sank deep into the cushions and allowed every muscle in my body to finally relax. Warm, salty air drifted into my nostrils as I slowly breathed in and out. The clouds above were an ominous grey, barricading the beach from the sun’s warmth. In between the beach and my grandmother’s home was a freshly mowed lawn, which was alive with myrtle trees, flowers, and rose bushes. The season was supposed to be in full bloom this time of year, but instead of sprouting to life, the trees were soggy and dripping with rainwater. As the breeze accelerated, lightly wisping through my hair, I expected a thunderstorm to approach soon. I sat forward in my chair, rubbing my temples as bits and pieces of the last few months cycled into my memory.

  Leah and I had barely spoken in the last month. All of our conversations were brief, dull, and distant. I barely knew what she had been up to recently, but our prolonged estrangement was my fault. The damage I had inflicted on our relationship was irreversible. Yet as much as I wanted to resent her, I still craved her affection. I wanted to hold her and kiss her the way I used to, but every time I tried to dig my way through her tough exterior, she resisted me. It had become a toxic cycle of pain that would only gain momentum until one of us finally gave up. I was beginning to wonder if that person had to be me. Deep down, I knew I had to break up with her, but I wasn’t sure if I was emotionally strong enough to do what was right.

  After a few minutes of deep contemplation, I eventually rose from my chair and headed toward the sliding glass door to find Leah. Right as I reached for the handle, Leah appeared through the glass. Her dark brown eyes held onto mine as she gently slid the door open. The ocean breeze rustled her wavy hair as she stepped through the doorway. I latched my gaze onto her own, wishing I could look away but mustering the strength not to.

  “Leah…” I said softly.

  She watched me with curious expectation. There was a distinct sadness in her eyes, as if she knew what I was about to say.

  “Do you think…?” I hesitated as my throat tightened into a knot. I didn’t want to say it, but I knew I had to. “Do you think we ought to break up?”

  I expected her to nod in agreement, but she raised her eyebrows with confusion, as if she hadn’t heard what I just said. She looked into my eyes so deeply that she appeared to be searching for answers, reading and studying.

  “Why?” she asked. Her eyes began to fill with tears.

  “You don’t want me anymore.”

  “Oh…no.” Heavy emotion ignited like fire in Leah’s expression. She took a seat on the lawn chair beside me, as if she had just grown dizzy and needed to steady herself. “You think this is about me not wanting you?”

  I blinked at her, confused.

  “Dani, you don’t understand me at all anymore,” she said. “You couldn’t possibly understand me if you think that I don’t want you.” Her tear-soaked eyes burned fiercely into mine. “You’re the one who has broken my heart every single day for the last six months.”

  “How
?” I asked. “I keep reaching for you, trying to touch you and talk to you, but you act like I’m not even here. It feels like you barely even see me. After a while, it…” My voice was momentarily cut off by the lump in my throat. “…it starts to feel like you don’t even love me.”

  “Do you love me?” she asked. Despite the pain, the emptiness and gloom that hung between us like a thick layer of fog, Leah’s beauty shined through. I wanted to touch her, but I knew she’d shove me away.

  “Do you?” she asked again, as if I hadn’t heard her the first time.

  Telling Leah that I loved her had become a natural, thoughtless habit over the last five years of our relationship, but Leah had never asked if I loved her in such a confrontational and challenging way. I suddenly found myself tongue tied, lacking the ability to say the words that she was trying to dig out of me.

  “You don’t,” Leah said with a head nod, as if her suspicions had been confirmed. “Of course you don’t. If you did, you wouldn’t have left me behind when you went to college. You wouldn’t have let your friends come in between us every time there’s an opportunity for us to be alone.”

  “I…” I stammered.

  “Why do you hate being alone with me, Dani?” she challenged. “You’re always looking for a way to avoid me. Why?!”

  Leah’s sudden anger took me by surprise. I’d grown used to the constant silence and lack of confrontation. The aggression that exploded out of her made me want to hide. I gripped the balcony railing and shut my eyes.

  “Why, Dani?!” she asked again.

  When I failed to answer, the distant roar of the ocean was all that could be heard between us, until there came a low groan of thunder from the east. I could taste the earth’s salty humidity on my tongue. Leah observed me for another minute, until her anger eventually dissipated like a deflated balloon.

  “Forget it,” she said with a disappointed sigh. She turned to go back inside, but I called after her abruptly.

  “Leah, wait,” I said.

  She froze in front of the door, keeping her back toward me and gripping the door handle. “What?”

  “I…I do love you,” I blurted out, as if this was my last hope of staying afloat before drowning.

  “Then prove it.”

  “I’ll call Rosie right now,” I said. “I’ll tell her that the party is canceled. You and I can take time to talk.”

  Slowly, Leah’s body rotated around to face me. “You will?”

  Still wet with tears, her eyes softened. She wiped them with her sleeve.

  Right as I picked up my phone to call Rosie, there came a distant thump from inside the house. I peered over Leah’s shoulder and curiously fixed my gaze through the glass door. The front door of the house swung open, and Rosie made her way inside without knocking. A group of girls trailed behind her. Her voice was muffled through the thick glass, but her high-pitched voice was unmistakable.

  “Dani?! Where are you? We’re here early!” she called.

  I stood motionless on the balcony, feeling the heat of Leah’s resentful gaze. In that moment, I became certain that I would never again feel the warmth of Leah’s embrace. Our relationship was over.

  Chapter Two - Eight hours before Leah’s disappearance

  The beach house was packed within twenty minutes after Rosie’s arrival. As Rosie sauntered inside, a group of at least twenty people trailed in behind her carrying cases of beer and sparkling bottles of liquor. She didn’t hesitate to hook up her iPhone to a large Bose speaker, which emitted music loud enough to disturb the neighbors. Fast, upbeat music pumped through the mansion, mingled with busy chatter and laughter. By ten o’clock, the kitchen was so packed that I had to push my way through the crowd in order to grab a drink from the fridge. My mother’s expensive countertops were littered with plastic red cups and glass bottles. Trails of muddy footprints meandered across the polished marble floor, which was sticky from sloshes of beer. I groaned at the thought of cleaning all this up tomorrow, but I willed myself to compartmentalize the impending dread. I should have expected that the party would get this out of control. Rosie knew everyone at Rowan University. Since she was a social butterfly who was surrounded by admirers everywhere she went and migrated from group to group with lubricated ease, parties like this one tended to erupt whenever Rosie summoned them. I was an introvert in comparison to her, which meant that I was often thrown into situations like this against my will.

  “Where’s your girlfriend?” Rosie asked, shouting in my ear over the loud music. We were sitting together on my mother’s fancy leather sofa. Rosie was slouched beside me with her feet propped up on the mahogany coffee table. I considered telling her to move her feet, but decided not to.

  I glanced around the crowded living room toward the opposite couch, where Leah was sitting with her head tilted down, her face glowing from the blue light of her iPhone screen. She appeared bored, as if she lacked the energy to be angry at me anymore. She hadn’t spoken a word to anyone all night. This wasn’t unusual of her, even back when the two of us were happy. A difficult childhood caused Leah to keep everyone around her at a distance, especially people like Rosie and the other sorority girls.

  “Over there,” I replied to Rosie, nodding subtly in Leah’s direction. The music and chatter was so loud that I knew Leah couldn’t hear us. And even if she could, I doubted she cared enough to eavesdrop on the conversation. Leah appeared immersed in her phone, making me wonder who she was texting.

  Following my gaze, Rosie looked over at Leah briefly. “Why’s your girlfriend always so antisocial?”

  “I don’t think she’s my girlfriend anymore,” I said as I took a sip of my drink. The bitter taste of beer fizzled on my tongue.

  Rosie didn’t look surprised. “Did you break up officially?”

  “Not exactly, but it’s over. I know it is.”

  “How do you feel?” Rosie asked.

  “Like I need another drink,” I replied as I stared blankly into my empty cup.

  “I can get you another beer in a sec,” Rosie said before leaning close to my ear. She lowered her voice. “Tell me what happened first.”

  I could see in Rosie’s eyes that she was being sincere. She had a reputation for having her nose in everyone’s business, but she wasn’t like that with me. She cared about me and would often look for any opportunity to show me that, no matter how much I resisted.

  “This weekend was meant for the two of us,” I admitted. “Me and her. I shouldn’t have held this party here.”

  “Oh…” Visible redness and embarrassment rose in her cheeks. “I’m sorry…I wish you had told me that. I would’ve called Jenna and told her to cancel the party.”

  I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. We were bound to break up eventually. Maybe this is the nudge we needed to just…give up.”

  As the words escaped my lips, I wondered if I was speaking the truth or simply lying to myself. Perhaps there was still a chance that Leah and I could work things out, but I was too numb and intoxicated to stress about it anymore.

  I glanced at Leah again. She was still immersed in her phone. As she sat alone and silent, she tapped her thumbs against the screen, as if she was sending a long and urgent text.

  “Well, don’t let Leah ruin your night,” Rosie said, squeezing my hand lightly. “Jenna brought her ping pong table here. I think a bunch of guys are setting up a pong tournament on the back deck. How about we sign up for the next game? I’ll get you a beer.”

  In all honesty, I wasn’t in the mood for drinking games. I would have rather spent the night sitting alone on the couch, sinking deeper into the cushions with each heavy gulp of beer. I wanted to feel numb, to forget about the heartbreak that was inevitably hurtling toward me like a gunshot. But the longer I sat here, the more miserable I would become. Plus, I couldn’t stand looking at Leah anymore. I didn’t want to spend the entire night wondering who she had been texting all this time.

  “Yeah, in a minute,” I replied to Rosie. “I’ll
meet you out there.”

  She nodded, left the living room, and went into the backyard to join the others. The crowd had thinned within the last few minutes, leaving Leah and I alone in the living room. I stood and approached her, even though I was in desperate need of some distance from her. I still wanted to make sure she was okay. She sat with her head down, her shoulders slouched, and her long hair hanging in front of her face.

  I crouched in front of her and patted her knee gently. “Are you just gonna sit here by yourself all night? If you’re ready for bed, I can bring some sheets into the guest room for you. That’s assuming you won’t want to sleep in the master bedroom with me…”

  I waited patiently for a response.

  “I’m alright,” Leah replied, still staring at her phone screen. “I’ll be leaving soon.”

  “But your car isn’t here,” I said.

  “I’ll find a ride.”

  “From who?”

  Leah shrugged indifferently, apparently too distracted to provide a legitimate response.

  Subtle anguish sweltered through me, but with a deep breath, I willed myself to remain placid. “Leah, come on. Just stay here for the night. It’s late and your apartment is an hour away.”

  “I can find somewhere else to stay for the night.”

  All of a sudden, a swell of anger ignited and caught fire in my gut. “Oh? Is that why you’ve been texting all night? You’re trying to find someone to sleep with instead of me?”

  Leah finally looked up from her phone and met my eyes briefly. There was a distinct emptiness in her gaze. A heavy blackness that was almost frightening. “Leave me alone, Dani.”

  “So you are!” I said, surprised by the rise in volume of my voice. My words were slurring. The effects of my last drink had settled in and taken control of my actions. “We haven’t even officially broken up yet, but you’re looking for someone to sleep—”

  Leah’s voice cut over mine with burning intensity. “If you even think I’d ever cheat on you, then you’re the one who’s fucked up. Not me.”