by Sophie Hill
“Why are you sorry?” she said wearily. She stood up, smoothing out her skirt. “I’m leaving now,” she said, not looking at me. “If you see Heather, tell her I said that I apologize for being such a bitch, and she can come back to the Greasy Spoon any time. We miss her.”
And she walked out of my house and shut the door behind her.
I buried my face in my hands. I’d been drinking so much that my drunk and my hangover were all tangled together, and I always felt sick, and now Heather’s life literally was in danger.
I had to quit. I needed to quit. But God help me, I didn’t think I had the strength.
Heather
“How are you holding up, emotionally?” Veronica and I were sitting on her balcony watching the sun set. It was a million dollar view. There were sailboats in the distance, outlined in black against a tableau of red and gold. The orange ball of the sun melted into a lake of fire, and long streamers of pink and red clouds spread out from the conflagration.
I’m not, I thought.
“I’m fine.” I manufactured a smile and tried to make it look convincing.
“You know how you and I were going to watch movies tonight, and eat popcorn and talk about all the different kinds of scum that men are?”
“You found something better to do? I hope to God you found something better to do.”
Veronica shrugged. “There’s this guy from school who flew into town. Wants to take me out for drinks tonight. He doesn’t totally suck.”
“Whoa. Did you just say that? That is high praise, coming from you.”
“Will you be all right?”
“Of course I’ll be all right. I’m not going to jump off the balcony.”
Veronica looked down. “Well, if you did, it’s all sand, and it’s not that far. You might sprain an ankle, at most. All right, I’ll be home later, don’t wait up. But call me if you need me.”
I helped her pick a green dress and green strappy shoes and a little green purse from her huge walk in closet, which was as big as Slade’s living room. She accessorized with peacock feather earrings and an armful of silver bracelets, and glided from the house like a goddess, leaving me alone in the huge house by the sea.
Just after she left, the sun plummeted below the horizon, and the night turned black. I sat downstairs in the living room in the huge empty house, feeling spooked.
Was that a creaking sound I heard downstairs?
Don’t be ridiculous, I told myself. The alarm is on. I looked out the window at the sea oats swaying on the beach. It’s the wind, I thought. The wind is making the house creak.
The phone rang, and I glanced down at it, and my heart stuttered in my chest.
Slade.
I wanted to answer more than anything in the universe, but I just didn’t have the strength to let him get my hopes up and break my heart all over again. Or scream curses at me into the phone. Or whatever the hell else he might have planned.
So I turned the cell phone off and set it down on the coffee table and walked out of the house. If he tried calling me again I’d probably answer it. Or call him back. I didn’t trust myself where Slade was concerned.
Veronica had left behind the keys to the BMW, and had taken the Porsche instead. I grabbed the keys, turned on the house alarm, and headed out, with no real idea where I was going. Just away.
I let the city disappear in the distance behind me, the lights winking out, until finally I was winding down pitch black roads lit only by stars and the half-orb of the moon.
North Carolina country roads are beautiful at night, but they’re also creepy as heck. I could hear the creaking horror movie soundtrack of a thousand insects, the croaking of frogs, the call of strange birds.
Are they calling out to their loved ones? I wondered. I bet they are. Owls and stick bugs have a better love life than I do.
Something about that struck me as absurdly funny, and I started laughing as I drove, laughing until the tears ran down my cheeks.
Time to go back to the big empty house, I told myself. Time to stop wallowing. Life goes on. Hearts are broken, love dies, and life still goes on.
I slowed down, and as I did, I realized there was another car coming up on the road behind me. Another lonely soul on these empty country roads.
I made a quick u-turn and headed back towards town.
A little part of me fantasized that the other driver was Slade, come to look for me. He’d be sober, and really really sorry, and he’d beg me to come back. And I probably would. How sad was that?
Suddenly I realized that the car had also made a u-turn. I glanced in my rear view mirror. I couldn’t see the car that well on the dark, unlit road, but it definitely wasn’t Slade’s car.
What the hell? Had the driver followed me out here, without my noticing?
Panicked, I stepped on the accelerator. I had left my freaking cell phone back at Veronica’s house!
I glanced in the rearview mirror. The car was getting closer.
Scary visions of backwoods mutants flashed through my mind and I stepped on the gas. And they stepped on the gas.
The good thing about being in a Beamer is that it handles like a dream and can be quite the speed demon when you need it to be.
I was ahead of them, but barely…because the driver was driving like a lunatic. I didn’t dare to take my eyes off the twisty, curvy road ahead of me to try to see who was behind me.
Within minutes, I could see the lights of town up ahead of me, and I prayed that I would make it. Somewhere out there was a little girl who didn’t know that help was on the way, who for sure thought that her family and the world had forgotten her. If anything happened to me, her last hope was gone, I suspected.
I was in the city limits when I felt a jolt against the back of the car which hurled me forward against my seatbelt, and panic filled me.
I started honking my horn and I hit my emergency flashers as I sped past houses on the road, hoping that it would attract attention and scare off my pursuer.
Another jolt, and I was spinning out of control, helpless, dizzy, and suddenly I could see stars…could I see stars?
There was no pain at all, only a sense of wonder at all those stars.
Chapter Nineteen
“She’s coming to.” The voice was a million miles away and I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.
I squinted, trying to open my eyes, which took me a minute, but when I looked up I could see a blurry crowd of faces hovering over me.
“Oh, thank God.” I must have been dreaming, because I could have sworn that sounded like Slade.
“Can you feel my hand?” A warm, strong hand wrapped around mine. “Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”
I squeezed, and heard another, heartfelt, “Oh, thank God,” and it really was Slade.
I felt his lips press against my forehead, and when I opened my eyes again, I could see Dottie, Aurora, Veronica, and Slade.
The world was woozy and they all kept rippling in and out of sight.
“What…what time is it?” I managed. Why had I asked that? What did it matter? I couldn’t think of anything else to ask. My head was pounding and I ached all over.
“Five a.m.”
“I’m in the hospital?” I struggled into a sitting position. I felt something in my arm; I looked down and saw an i.v. taped there. There was a blood pressure cuff wrapped around my other arm.
A doctor walked in the room, and they moved aside. He knelt down next to the bed.
“You’re very lucky, young lady. It appears that you went around a curve too quickly and wiped out on someone’s lawn,” he said.
My jaw dropped. What?
“No, somebody was chasing me!” I said indignantly. “They rear-ended me and pushed me off the road!”
Instantly Slade was back by my side, and my stomach turned to water when I saw how bad he looked. His dark stubble stood out against his pale face, and the circles under his eyes had deepened.
“Who was chasing y
ou?” he demanded.
“I don’t know, I couldn’t see them.”
The doctor looked at me skeptically, pulling a small flashlight from his pocket and shining it in each of my eyes.
“Do you know what year it is?” he asked.
“2013.”
“Do you know who the president is?”
“Barack Obama.”
“What’s your name?”
“Heather Tremaine.”
“And do you know where you are right now?”
“I’m going to take a wild guess and say the emergency room at Hidden Cove Memorial Hospital?”
“Good guess.” He stood up. “We’d like to watch you for a few more hours, but you should be fine. The CAT scan showed that you have a mild concussion but no fractures, and you’re bruised up pretty badly where you hit the seatbelt. The seatbelt and the airbags saved your life. I don’t know what to tell you about the other car. You’ll have to discuss that with the police.”
And he left my little curtained in room.
I turned to Slade. “I’m still fuzzy. What happened?”
“Some homeowner called the police and said that there was a car upside down on his lawn.” He took my hand in his.
“I’m not crazy,” I told him. “I swear to God, there was another car.”
“I believe you. You couldn’t tell kind of car they were driving?
“No, but they were definitely gunning for me. It could have been someone from the Rodriguez family, it could have been Barron…” I glanced at Veronica, who looked thoughtful.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Barron’s kind of a cowardly little bitch. He’s your typical bully; he only attacks when he thinks he can’t get in trouble for it and he’s picking on someone half his size.”
“True,” I said. “It probably wasn’t him. So either the Rodriguez family or some random psycho.”
“We’ll talk to the police in the morning,” Slade said. “And I’m by your side every minute from now on.”
“How did you guys even know that I was here?” I asked.
“When the accident happened, the police called Veronica, because she’s the owner of the car. And the 911 dispatcher is a guy I used to date, so he called me,” Dottie said. “I’m sorry about the other day, Heather. I was having a bad day. I’ve been meaning to call you and apologize.”
“It’s all right,” I mumbled. I couldn’t think straight.
“How are you feeling? Are you still dizzy?” Slade asked anxiously.
“A little. Are your hands shaking?” I mumbled. He glanced at the others. “Can I…Can I talk to her alone for a minute?”
Veronica raised an eyebrow at him and gave him a dirty look, turned and walked out. They all trooped out of the room after her.
I peered at Slade closely. “Do you have a hand print on your cheek?”
He rubbed his hand on his stubbled cheek. “Yeah. When I showed up here, Veronica slapped me.”
“Holy Shiitake mushrooms. Wow. She hit you hard.”
“I deserved a lot worse.” He looked me in the eye. “I fucked up. Really, really badly. It just made so much more sense to me that someone like you would be playing me for a sucker than that you’d actually care about me.”
“You’re an idiot,” I said, my voice trembling.
“I know that. Oh, God, I know.” His voice shook, and he gripped my hand so hard it hurt. “I have no right to ask this, but I want you back. I haven’t touched a woman since I walked away from you that day. I’ve done nothing but drink until I pass out, because I can’t stand my life without you there. I literally don’t want to be awake, don’t want to be conscious, if I can’t see you again. I’m falling to pieces without you. I think about you every waking second. And every sleeping second.”
“Join the club,” I choked out, and tears filled my eyes and spilled down my cheeks.
“Really? I….I thought you were fine. I thought you were over me already,” he whispered.
“Never.” I shook my head, crying harder. “Moron.”
He clutched my hand hard and closed his eyes. “I haven’t had a drink in about a day now, and I’m sick as a dog. It’s…it’s going to be a few days before I’m all right. But I swear this to you, I’m never drinking another drop. I’m going to sober up, and I’ll take care of you.”
I squeezed his hand, relief washing over me in a giant wave. Even if we didn’t work out long term, if I could just get him to stop drinking, if I could just know that he was all right, that would be enough for me. “Anything you need. We can get through this together. I’ll babysit you until you feel okay.”
“You’ll come back home with me?” his eyes were pleading, desperate. “It’s your home too. I’ll make you a key. I should have done that before.”
“One step at a time,” I said. “Let’s get through this next week. Maybe when you sober up, you’ll realize you don’t even like me.” My voice was shaky; I was halfway joking, and halfway afraid that it was true.
“No,” he said fervently. “You’re the reason I’m getting sober. Without you…there’s no reason for me to try.”
“Don’t say that,” I begged. “There’s a million reasons for you to clean up. It’s not just me.”
The curtain parted and Dottie, Aurora, and Veronica filed back in.
Veronica flicked a cold gaze at Slade. “Everything okay?” she asked me.
“Everything’s fine. Except that someone tried to kill me and my head feels like a woodpecker’s attacking it, and I still am no closer to finding out where Consuelo is.”
“One step at a time,” Slade echoed back to me.
Slade
I could see from the look on Sheriff Blackstone’s face that he was skeptical about Heather’s claims of a second car, but he took down her report. Unfortunately she had nothing for him to go on. She hadn’t seen what kind of car it was, hadn’t seen who was driving it or how many people might be in the car. He said that he’d have the BMW examined, see if there was any paint transfer on it from when the other car hit it, but he didn’t seem too hopeful.
“Either way, the car was pretty banged up and it hit a tree, rolled over, and slid hundreds of feet across a lawn,” he said. “If there was any paint transfer, it may very well be gone by now.”
She told him about her father and Consuelo, and the Rodriguez family, and he said that he’d call the Timberline Police Department and ask them to look into it.
But the look on his face said, don’t expect anything.
He turned to Heather, avoiding my eyes. “If you really think someone deliberately tried to harm you, then don’t drive by yourself. Especially at night, out of town. And keep your cell phone with you at all times.”
“Will do.” she nodded.
I was sitting on the bed next to Heather. I glanced up at him. “I stopped drinking,” I told him. “For good.”
He didn’t even bother to answer, just said to Heather “Take care of yourself,”and then left the room. Heather winced. “He’ll come around,” she said. “When he sees that you mean it.”
Her pure, simple faith in me, after everything I’d put her through, stung me to the core. I swear to God I’d die before I’d ever let her down again.
And by the time the day was over, I felt like I was dying.
I’d already poured every last drop of alcohol in my house down the toilet and thrown away all of the empty bottles and cans.
Veronica drove Heather and me back to my house, although I could tell she wasn’t exactly thrilled about it.
“You won’t regret this,” I told her.
“You were really charming the last time I came to your door, by the way,” she said, as she carried an overnight bag stuffed with Heather’s clothing into my house.
“I don’t remember that, but I’m sorry,” I winced. “If it makes you feel any better, you can hit me again. Hard as you want.”
“Nahh. You’d probably enjoy it,” she said coldly. “I get the impression you like to
wallow in your own misery.”
Ouch. I couldn’t even argue.
Heather and I both sprawled out on my couch, aching and miserable, while Veronica cleaned up my house. I tried to tell her that she didn’t have to, but she just snapped “My best friend’s not staying in this toxic pigsty,” while she swept the floor with angry flourishes of her broom, and I was too sick to argue.
It was a toss up which one of us was in worse shape, Heather or me. Veronica went out and picked up antibiotics for Heather’s cuts and scrapes, and B vitamins that were supposed to help me get through the DTs.
I don’t know if they helped or not. I curled up in my bed in a ball of agony, shaking and sweating. I couldn’t keep anything down, not even water.
I woke up to find Heather shaking me and yelling my name.
“What happened?” I groaned. She held out a glass of water and I gulped it down.
“You were screaming Dad, don’t. Over and over.”
“My mother,” I whispered. “Oh, jesus.”
“What happened?” her voice trembled, like she knew what was coming.
And suddenly, the dam broke. The massive, concrete dam, the one I’d built to wall away all of my emotions, my grief and rage and horrible, horrible guilt.
“My dad. He drank. He beat my mother and me, but she’d never leave him. When I was 16, he was beating me, and she jumped in and tried to stop him.” Hot tears ran down my face, in rivers, torrents. Years worth of dammed up tears.
“He hit her, and she fell and hit her head on the table. I attacked him, we fought…the neighbors called the police…she died.”
“Oh my God.” Her voice shook, and she wrapped her arms around me, and I was crying into her shoulder, shaking and sobbing like a baby.
“He went to prison. He hung himself in his cell a few months later. I didn’t go to his funeral.”
“I am sorry. I am so, so, sorry.” Heather was crying too.
“I was weak. I’m weak, Heather, I’m useless.” I choked out the words. Every fight I get in now, every time I win a fight, I think, why couldn’t I have won that one time, the only time it was really important?”