Unloved, a love story

by Katy Regnery

  What I have always dreaded, always feared, is happening, is coming true.

  I am turning into him.

  I blink at her lying there on the floor, my heart racing, my lungs unable to fill. I can’t breathe. I can’t look away. I am so filled with horror and revulsion and self-hate, I want to die.

  It was only a matter of time.

  My fingers unfurl, and my hands are shaking uncontrollably. I want to reach for her, to help her, to bandage her wrist and apologize for frightening her, for yelling at her, but I don’t trust myself. If I am turning into my father, next time I might do worse than just raise my fist—I might actually use it.

  The best thing I can do—the only thing I can do—is leave her, put as much distance as possible between her and me.

  I leap over her huddled body, bolt out the front door, barefoot, into the dark night, and start running.

  ***

  It’s a while before I stop, and I do only because my feet don’t have calluses sufficient for running through the woods at night. They are cut up and bleeding from rocks and twigs and uneven ground. They hurt. I deserve it.

  I don’t know where that violent, beastly scream came from, but I know it scared her enough to cause her to slip and fall and hurt herself. I know I am the cause of her injury, and I hate myself for it.

  I’m not sure where I am, but I was going southeast, toward Baxter Park, when I left the house, so I assume I’ve come up on Daicey Pond at this point. I wade in, letting my feet squish into the cold mud. It eases the sharp physical pain in my soles, but nothing can lessen the anguish in my heart.

  I have hurt someone.

  For the first time in my quiet life, I have hurt someone.

  And worst of all . . . I have hurt someone I love.

  Looking up at the dark sky, I consider my options now.

  Not that she still wants me after what I did, but I definitely don’t trust myself around her now. If she should mention being together or—God forbid—having children who might inherit and carry the genes of my insane father, I can’t guarantee that I won’t lose it again. My God, I raised my fist to her. If she’d kept talking, would I have actually hit her? I feel sick at the thought. I want to believe that nothing could ever lead me to harm her. But I know what lives inside me. I don’t—I cannot—trust myself.

  Live quiet, and no matter what happens inside of you, you won’t never be able to hurt someone, Cassidy. It’s what yore mama would want.

  Gramp’s words come back to me, as right and true as the day he said them.

  I allowed Brynn to get too close to me.

  I allowed myself to get too close to her.

  I have put her in jeopardy.

  The very thought makes me sob. Tears stream down my face as I throw my head back and scream to the dark, unforgiving heavens, “I’m sorry! I’m so goddamned sorry!”

  A drop of water plops on my forehead.

  It’s joined by another and another and another, dotting my face and wetting my shirt, mixing with my tears and washing me clean.

  And the answer comes to me quickly:

  To keep her safe, send her away.

  If you love her, let her go.

  There is redemption only through action.

  There is peace only through righteousness.

  I know what I have to do.

  ***

  I take my time hiking back to the homestead because I need Brynn to be asleep when I get there.

  Gramp kept a glass bottle of ether in the root cellar, mostly for the animals. He’d use it if they were injured or, once, for a cow during the breech birth of her calf. At the end of her life, when Mama was in terrible pain and the fentanyl prescribed by her doctor wasn’t helping anymore, Gramp would apply a bit of ether to a rag and set it over her nose and mouth so she could sleep easier. I know how to use it.

  Brynn must leave, and she can’t come back looking for me. I need to get her away from me, somewhere safe, as soon as possible.

  On its own, a fight in the kitchen like ours—an intense, emotional conflict between an otherwise loving young couple—might not warrant more than cursory concern. In fact, between two normal people, such anger without name-calling, threats, or actual physical violence might even be chalked up to passionate argument. But I am not normal. Now that it’s begun, it’s only a matter of time before my behavior will escalate. And Brynn must be far away from me when that happens.

  My plan is to use the ether to drug her while she sleeps so she stays unconscious, bundle her up in a blanket on my lap, and drive her to Millinocket under cover of night. I’ll find somewhere safe to leave her, and then I’ll return home to start packing up.

  I’ll shut up my house as best I can and disappear into the wilderness. I will find somewhere else to live quiet, and this time, I won’t allow myself to diverge from that course. And if the madness gets bad enough—I gulp with the heaviness of my thoughts—then I will take my own life.

  When I get home, I detour to the barn, then head to the house. It’s quiet, and the clock in the tidy kitchen reads 1:10. I move soundlessly across the living room carpet, to Brynn’s room, and step through the doorway. I swallow back the meager contents of my stomach when I see the state of her room and my sweet girl.

  She is sleeping on her side, tissues littering the floor by the bed, her wrist wrapped in a dish towel. Hurt and sad, she must have cried herself to sleep, and my heart aches with love and sorrow and regret. It never, ever should have come to this.

  You did this to her.

  You, Cassidy.

  My fingers tighten around the ether bottle and rag by my side.

  Now do what’s right.

  Make it right.

  So I do.

  ***

  It’s a slow ride from my place into Millinocket, and it takes a little over two hours.

  The roads are mostly empty—they’re often quiet anyway, but from two to four on a weekday morning, almost no one is around, which is good. I know where the police station is from my very occasional visits to town. It’s behind the post office, where Gramp used to collect his government checks. My plan is to park close by and carry Brynn to the entrance. I’ll leave her there and drive home.

  When I stop the quad in the far corner of the parking lot, near the road, I don’t see anyone around. Brynn hasn’t stirred much during our trip, though I’ve re-dosed her twice just to be sure she didn’t wake up. I stopped feeling my arms halfway through the trip since she was lying across my lap. Now I cut the engine, looking down at her face.

  I love you, I wish I could say.

  And if things were different, I’d love you forever, my sweet angel.

  Thank you for giving me the happiest days of my sorry life.

  Thank you for seeing the good in me when I know there is so much bad deep inside.

  Thank you for loving me when I was certain I’d spend the rest of my life unloved.

  I promise—I give you my most sacred vow—that I will never come looking for you again. I will leave you alone to find happiness. I will leave you alone so that I know you’re safe.

  You are, and will forever be, my life’s greatest treasure, and I will still be loving you on the day I die, Brynn Cadogan.

  I clutch her against me, clenching my leaking eyes closed as I lean my forehead against hers and breathe her in one final time.

  “Don’t come looking for me,” I beg her. “If I ever see you again, I’ll never be able to let you go.”

  I gather her into my arms and stand up, pressing my lips to her forehead and holding them there for a long moment.

  It is a certain kind of death march as I walk slowly across the dark parking lot, to the nondescript brick building before me, because my life will be colorless and loveless when I leave her and go. But still my feet move forward in their labor because I love her and I suspect my descent into madness has already begun

  Finally I am near the door, where I find a bench. I can place her on it, and she’ll be just to t
he left of the police station door. Someone will find her quickly. Or when she wakes up, she’ll figure out where she is right away. Certainly no one will bother her this close to the station entrance. It’s my best chance at leaving her somewhere safe.

  Standing behind the back of the bench, I lower her gently before taking a step away. To my right, there is a bulletin board, and a notice behind the glass catches my eye.

  TIP LINE OPEN – MISSING WOMAN / DEAD MAN

  The Millinocket Police Department is seeking information about the disappearance of a woman from the Chimney Pond Trail on June 19 In conjunction, police seek information regarding the stabbing death of a man found in an Appalachian Trail lean-to one quarter mile west of the Chimney Pond ranger station on June 21.

  Events possibly related.

  Any details can be forwarded to the MPD.

  My held breath burns my lungs as I read and reread the notice once, twice, three horrifying times.

  It cannot be a coincidence.

  Brynn is the missing woman.

  Wayne, her attacker, is the dead man.

  My mind flashes back to that afternoon. To hearing Brynn scream. To finding Wayne stabbing her. To throwing him across the lean-to, where he remained unconscious until I left with her.

  No. Not unconscious.

  Dead.

  I . . . oh, my God . . . oh, my God, no . . . I killed him.

  I killed a human being.

  Brynn stirs in her sleep, whimpering softly, but I turn away from her, and I don’t look back. I turn over my quad and zoom out of the parking lot like the devil’s on my heels.

  She will be safe now. And that’s all that matters.

  As for me?

  I am damned.

  I am a murderer now . . . just like my father.

  Brynn

  I don’t know where I am. I just know that I’m not in bed, because it’s hard and cold. If I was in bed, Cassidy would be keeping me warm.

  I blink my eyes open and try to orient myself, but I have no idea what I’m looking at. Pushing myself into a sitting position, I realize that I’m fully dressed, outdoors, on a bench, beside a red brick building.

  Where the hell am I?

  As I twist my head to look around, it throbs like crazy, and I wince, pressing my fingers to my temples.

  What happened?

  The last thing I remember is crying myself to sleep after our fight—our terrible fight in the kitchen when I pressured Cassidy to imagine a life with me, and he rejected me without exception, then left me hurting and alone on the floor.

  A sob rises in my throat, but I swallow it back. My head aches and my eyes burn. I have no idea where I am, but hysterics won’t help me figure it out.

  I reach for my wrist and find it wrapped carefully with an Ace bandage, my braided bracelet moved to my other wrist. Did Cassidy do that while I was sleeping? Did he bring me to town to have it checked out? Surely not. He treated my stab wounds himself. Where is he?

  “Cass?” I call weakly, looking around at the parking lot behind me. There are only three cars parked and no ATV.

  I look up at the sky, noting that the sun is on the rise. I’m guessing it’s about six o’clock. The world is still waking up.

  “Cassidy?” I call again, standing up.

  This is when I realize I have shoes on.

  I haven’t worn shoes in weeks, so the hiking boots I wore to hike Katahdin feel heavy and confining on my feet. I didn’t even realize that Cassidy had saved them, but feeling them on my feet feels wrong, feels like bad news that I don’t want to hear.

  I scan the parking area for Cassidy’s ATV because there’s no other way I could have gotten here. But I don’t see him. I don’t hear the quad’s motor nearby either.

  Looking down, I realize there is a note pinned to my shirt, and I unpin it, holding it up.

  Sweet Brynn. This was the only way. You asked if I love you, and the answer is yes. So much that I have to let you go. You will always be my treasure, and I will never, ever forget you. But you are better off without me, I promise. For both our sakes, please don’t come looking for me. Cass. P.S. Your wrist is sprained. Ice it when you wake up.

  I inhale sharply, my fingers shaking as I read and reread the short message, its stark and horrible meaning sinking in. I stare at the beautiful, ruthless letters that have severed my life from his. He loves me, but he has gone to drastic measures to keep us apart, and it rips my heart in two.

  He’s left me here.

  He’s gone.

  My stomach clenches and my knees weaken, forcing me back down on the bench. I lean forward on my knees, afraid I’m going to be sick.

  “Miss? Miss? I just seen you out here. Can I help you?”

  Turning to look behind me, I see a glass door being held open by a portly, uniformed officer.

  “Miss? Are you okay?”

  No. No, I am not okay. Not at all.

  “I don’t . . . I don’t know. Where am I?”

  “You’re in Millinocket, Maine. At the police station,” he says, gesturing to the words on the door. “Why don’t you come on in? I have a pot of hot coffee brewin’.”

  “No. I have to find . . .”

  Who? Cassidy? No, Brynn. Cassidy’s gone. No matter how much he claims to love you, it wasn’t enough to want a future with you.

  “Miss, you don’t look too good. What’s your name?”

  “Brynn Cadogan.”

  “Brynn Elizabeth Cadogan?”

  I nod, distracted from the pain in my heart by the fact that this person knows my middle name.

  “Well, good Lord,” he says, opening the door a little wider. “We been lookin’ everywhere for you.”

  “For me?”

  “Ayuh, miss. For you.”

  I tilt my head to the side and walk into the small police department, watching as he opens a leaf in the countertop and rounds the counter to sit behind the desk. “Brynn Cadogan. Yore parents been sick ’bout you. They been stayin’ over at the Ferguson Lake Lodge on Route 11. Been up that mountain ’bout a hundred times lookin’ for you, don’t you know.”

  “My parents?” I gasp. “They’re . . . here?”

  “Ayuh. At the Ferguson Lake Lodge.”

  “How long have they been here?”

  “Two weeks? Three, maybe? Don’t know exactly, but we see Colin ’n’ Jenny least every other day. They come by lookin’ for leads.” The officer cocks his head. “If you don’t mind my askin’, what in sam hell happened to you?”

  I place my palms on the reception desk between us, my fingers white and rigid. “I was hiking Katahdin a few weeks ago. I was attacked. In an AT lean-to.”

  “Yep.” He nods, like he knows, unaccountably, that this is so. “On June 19”

  “That’s right.” I rub my forehead, the bruising headache getting worse and my stomach still roiling, though I haven’t eaten anything since lunch yesterday. “I was, um . . . a little bit west of the Chimney Pond-Saddle merge when a man named . . . um, named Wayne attacked me.”

  “Huh,” he murmurs, squinting his eyes and pursing his lips like something isn’t quite adding up. “You say his name was . . . Wayne?”

  “Yes. Wayne. He . . . he stabbed me.”

  I hear the front door open behind me, and the officer I’m speaking to makes eye contact with someone over my shoulder. “Mornin’, Marty. I think you’re gonna want to hear this.”

  Hee-uh this.

  Another officer, dressed in street clothes and slightly younger than the first, opens the leaf in the counter and faces me. He looks me over, his brown eyes keen, before nodding slowly.

  “Brynn Elizabeth Cadogan,” he says, staring at my face.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where you been?”

  The first officer clears his throat and nods. “Go ahead and tell Marty what you just told me.”

  “I was attacked on the . . . the, uh, Saddle Trail. A little ways up from the Chimney Pond merge. I had s-skinned my knee and wanted to ba
ndage it up. I stopped in at a lean-to, and . . . and . . .”

  The relentless rain.

  Wayne’s smile.

  Want me to take a look-see at your kneesie?

  It all comes rushing back, and the room spins so I clench my eyes shut.

  “Take your time,” says Marty. “Lou, get her a cup of water, eh?”

  I take a deep, shaking breath and open my eyes. “There was a man there. Named W-Wayne. He . . . he threw me against the wall . . . and he . . .” My hand falls to my hip. “. . . he stabbed me. He s-stabbed me six times.”

  Marty tilts his head to the side, then rubs his chin. “Wayne, you say.”

  “Wayne.” I nod, twisting the braided bracelet that Cassidy gave to me. “He said his name was Wayne.”

  “Huh.” Marty is perched on the side of Lou’s desk with a cup of coffee in one hand and a laptop bag on his other shoulder. He points to a nondescript gray metal desk a few feet behind him. “I think we better sit down to sort this out. Come with me, miss?”

  He opens the leaf in the counter, and I follow him to his desk. He gestures to a beat-up, padded chair, and I sit down, gratefully taking the cup of water that Lou offers. I take a sip, letting the coolness sluice down my throat, and suddenly my eyes fill with tears.

  Cassidy brought me here.

  He left me here.

  He is gone and believes I am better off without him even though he loves me . . . even after I told him I loved him. Even though we love each other, he isn’t willing to give us a chance.

  A sudden pain in my chest makes me cover my heart with my palm. I whimper softly, and I think I’m going to be sick. I close my eyes, leaning my chin on my chest.

  “Just breathe a minute, miss,” says Marty. “I’ll get some fresh air in here.”

  I hear the sound of a window opening, and suddenly the sounds of humanity fill the room—the hum of a car engine, the footfalls of a jogger, the buzz of a cell phone.

  I am so far from Cassidy now.

  He has abandoned me here.

  I am all alone.

  Yore parents been sick ’bout you. They been stayin’ over at the Ferguson Lake Lodge on Route 11.

  As tears roll down my face, I am overwhelmed with a longing to see my parents.

  “I want my mom and dad.”