One Perfect Love

by Jessie Evans

  “Shut up,” Isaac shouts, making me flinch. “I’m sorry,” he adds in a whisper. “I just hate him, Caitlin. I hate his voice, I hate his face, I hate his money, and his fucking cocky attitude. And I hate that you love him…more than you love me.” He sucks in a breath that emerges as a sob. “Why, Caitlin? Why don’t you love me?”

  I stare up into his glassy eyes, with all the pain simmering behind them, but I know Isaac isn’t looking back at me. He isn’t seeing me, he’s seeing whatever it is that has left him so broken he doesn’t have the love for himself he needs to let me go. Maybe it’s because his parents always favored Ian, even though his little brother was an unrepentant asshole. Maybe it’s all those years of being called “Titty Boy” in elementary school, back before Isaac became an athlete, and was just big and overweight, not big and strong. Maybe it’s because his last girlfriend, Heather, told him he was lousy in bed when they broke up, and swore she had never loved him.

  Maybe it’s a little of all those things, but looking up at him now, I know it wouldn’t matter if I promised to go back to Maui with him, and love him forever. It wouldn’t matter if there had never been a Gabe, and Isaac had been my first and only. Isaac would never be confident in my love. He would still do his best to wear me down, and keep me weak, because that’s the only way he knows how to be strong. All these years I thought he was my rock, but really he was picking away at my foundation, so that he would always need to be there to prop me up.

  “That’s not the answer you need, Isaac,” I finally say, though I doubt anything I say will make a difference with him in his current state. “You need to ask why you don’t love yourself.”

  Isaac sobs and drops his head, bringing his sweaty cheek to press against mine. “I need you, Caitlin. Please don’t leave. Please stay with me. I’ll be whatever you want me to be. I’ll make a lot of money. I’ll learn to walk and talk like a cocky asshole, whatever you need. Just please stay. Please let me take you away from here, and keep you safe.”

  Lock me away is more like it. Isaac doesn’t want a partner, he wants a princess in a tower, always in need of rescuing. We are trapped in a tug of war between what Isaac needs, and who I am, and only one of us is going to win. I know that, and I suddenly know he’s not going to give me a choice whether or not to pull the trigger.

  “I’m going to shoot you, Isaac,” I say, tears filling my eyes. “If you don’t put me down and walk away, right now, I’m going to shoot you.”

  He shakes his head. “You won’t. I know you won’t.”

  I swallow past the lump in my throat and curl my finger. “You’re wrong. If you could really see me, you would know that.”

  The gunshot is so loud it feels like a thunderbolt has ripped through my head. Isaac drops me and stumbles back, clutching the top of his shoulder, his mouth open wide, but I can’t hear his scream. All I can hear is high-pitched whining in my ears, and the pounding of my blood rushing through my veins. I slide the action again and aim the gun at Isaac, but he’s already on the floor, clutching his bleeding shoulder as he curls into a sobbing ball on the linoleum. The wound doesn’t look fatal, but the fact that I’ve shot him seems to have killed the last of Isaac’s will to fight for me. I wait another beat, long enough to make sure he’s staying down, and then I hurry across the room to free Gabe.

  Gabe’s mouth moves, but I can’t hear him, either, so I just shake my head and kneel down. I set the gun between my knees and work the knots free in less than a minute now that I have the use of both of my hands.

  Gabe springs up from the chair, pulling me up off the ground and hugging me tight. He smoothes my hair from my forehead, and I think I hear him mumble something, but I still can’t make out the words.

  “I can’t hear you,” I say, looking up into his steady blue eyes. “My ears are ringing. But we have to get out of here. Should we bring the gun?”

  Gabe shakes his head, then presses the rope I pulled from his wrists into my hand before motioning to Ian on the ground. I nod, and kneel down next to Isaac’s brother, pulling his heavy arms behind his back and binding them, doing my best not to look at Isaac writhing on the floor a few feet away. I’m dimly aware of Gabe moving around the kitchen, doing something with the gun, but I don’t look up until he kneels next to Isaac and rolls him over onto his back.

  Isaac’s scream as he’s moved is loud enough to penetrate the ringing filling my head, but he doesn’t fight Gabe when Gabe presses a folded kitchen towel to his shoulder, then wraps a garbage bag around it, and ties it tight, ensuring there will be pressure on the wound. Once he’s finished, Gabe moves to Isaac’s feet and tugs the laces from his boots before using them to tie Isaac’s legs together.

  When he’s finished, he presses another towel into my hands and makes wiping gestures. I nod and begin striding swiftly around the kitchen, wiping down everything I think I touched. Gabe does the same with another towel, and in a few minutes, he’s back at my side, urging me down the darkened hall to the back door.

  “We…go,” he says. “No sirens…but…soon.”

  I pick up pieces of his sentences as the ringing in my ears begins to fade, and nod. “Let’s go. The keys are in the van. It’s parked two blocks away.”

  I follow him down the hall, ignoring the pitiful voice calling my name from behind me. Isaac is in my past now. He’s going to live, and I’m glad about that, but in my heart he’s dead and buried. I don’t have any more love to waste on him.

  I’m saving my energy for Gabe, the kids, and the new life waiting for us if Gabe and I can make it to the airport in time.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Gabe

  “But shall I live in hope? All men, I hope, live so.”

  -Shakespeare

  Caitlin and I make it to the airport with only fifteen minutes remaining before the flight to Frankfurt will begin to board. Luckily, the rental car office is closed, and all we have to do is park the van, dump the keys in a lockbox, and catch the shuttle to the terminal. Even luckier, I have all our passports and birth certificates, and ten grand in cash from the sale of the car, shoved into my back pockets. I tucked it all into my jeans on the way out of Harry’s, and the documents aren’t much worse for wear after my adventure with Isaac.

  Caitlin and I step off the shuttle, and jog hand in hand toward the international terminal, with eight minutes left before our flight is due to board. Just from the way her palm is sweating in mine, I can tell she’s starting to stress. Big time.

  “I’ll get the boarding passes,” I say as we hurry through the automatic doors. “You say goodbye to Sherry, and get the kids ready to go through security.”

  She nods and gives my hand one final squeeze before we part ways—me toward the self-serve kiosks, and her toward an anxious-looking Sherry, who is holding a sleeping Emmie in her arms. In the next row of seats, Ray and Sean lean tiredly against each other, a pile of backpacks at their feet. Caitlin and I agreed the kids should only bring their essentials, no suitcases. The lighter we travel, the more quickly we can move, and we can always buy new clothes and toys when we get to Porec.

  I print out the boarding passes and tuck each pass into the corresponding passport, hoping I’m saving us time, and that the kids are going to remember their new names just in case someone asks. Emmie, at least, looks too far gone to do more than drool on my shoulder as we pass through security, but hopefully Caitlin’s talk with the boys this afternoon made an impression. I know Ray and Sean are tough, but they’ve been through a lot the past year, and God only knows when the next stressful situation is going to be the one that breaks them.

  The only person I’m not worried about is Caitlin, who was a champion through the entire ordeal with Isaac, and started the van with a steady hand a minute after we left the house. Gone is the trembling, shattered woman who had trouble holding it together after Ned Pitt almost killed her. I don’t know if it’s the fact that Isaac is obviously going to live, or that Caitlin is simply that much tougher than she was be
fore, but I can tell she’s already put our interlude with Isaac behind her and moved on, her focus on the future.

  I couldn’t be prouder of her, and I can’t wait to get on that plane tonight. I’ll breathe easier as soon as we touch down in Frankfurt, and have a few thousand miles, and an ocean, between her and my parents.

  “We ready?” I ask as I reach Caitlin and Sherry, who are talking in whispers so as not to wake Emmie. “Is everything okay?”

  Caitlin turns, driving a hand through her hair. “No. Danny ran off.”

  “What?” I ask, glancing around the terminal, wondering where he could have gone.

  “It was at the hotel,” Sherry clarifies in a tone that makes it clear she feels terrible for losing one of the kids. “He went to get snacks from the machine down the hall, and didn’t come back for a long time. Then Ray found a note in the bathroom. Danny said he’s not coming with you guys tonight. He wants to fly back to Maui with me next Tuesday to say good-bye to Sam, and then meet you after. He promised he’d come back to the hotel tomorrow morning after y’all were gone.”

  “I should have known something like this would happen,” Caitlin says, teeth digging into her bottom lip hard enough to turn the skin white. “He let me off the hook way too easy this afternoon when I told him we weren’t going back to Hawaii.” She curses softly. “God, that kid. What are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to get on the plane,” I say, glancing at Sherry. “Assuming you’re okay with taking Danny back to Maui with you next week?”

  Sherry nods. “Totally. I don’t mind at all, and he can stay with me and Bjorn until you guys book another flight for him. Danny and I get along great, I just feel so bad.”

  “Don’t feel bad,” Caitlin says, squeezing Sherry’s arm before turning back to me. “But I don’t know, Gabe. What if something happens and we can’t get him to Croatia to meet us? What will we do then?”

  “We’ll figure something out,” I say, adding gently. “And he’s a smart kid, he’s going to take care of himself tonight, and come back to Sherry tomorrow the way he promised. But if we don’t get going, we might not make the flight, and we’re not guaranteed another chance out of the country.”

  Caitlin filled me in on her sister’s warning on the way to the airport. She knows the danger is real, and after only a moment, she nods.

  “Okay, let’s go.” She grabs Emmie’s backpack and her own from the ground. “Ray, Sean, grab your bags, guys, we’ve got to hustle to make it on the plane.”

  “I want pretzels,” Sean says sleepily. “Will they have free pretzels on this one?”

  “I’ll buy you pretzels from the stewardess if they don’t,” I say, leaning down so that Sherry can more easily shift Emmie into my arms. Emmie snuffles and turns her cheek the other direction on my shoulder, but doesn’t wake up, and thirty seconds later we’ve waved good-bye to Sherry and started toward security.

  At ten-fifteen on a Monday night, the security line in the international terminal is nearly deserted. Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Clement and their sleepy daughter, Sophie—as well as Mrs. Clement’s two younger brothers, Derrick and Henry Dawes—are swept through the family line in just a few minutes, spared the ordeal of having to remove shoes by a quick sweep of Mr. Clement’s palms, proving he hasn’t been tampering with any chemicals or explosives in his recent past. (Though it’s a good thing they didn’t sweep Mrs. Clement, instead, as she might have had gun powder residue clinging to her skin.)

  The Clement clan reach their gate with a few minutes left to spare, and take their place at the end of the long line waiting to board the plane to Frankfurt. Seeing an opportunity to obtain the pretzels he promised his young brother-in-law, Mr. Clement leaves his bag with his beautiful wife, and heads into the travel shop a few yards away, where he grabs bottled waters, energy drinks, pretzels, granola bars, Starburst, M&Ms, and a coloring book, for when his daughter, Sophie, wakes up.

  He is in line to pay, certain he has plenty of time to rejoin his family in line, when his phone vibrates against his hip. He fumbles with his purchases, cradling them in one arm so he can pull the phone out of his pocket to see the name on the display.

  It is a familiar one.

  I blink, not able to make sense of seeing my father’s name on my screen. I had already slipped into Mr. Clement’s skin and was looking forward to a peaceful flight with my family to Frankfurt, Germany. I don’t intend to answer the call, but for some reason I find myself tapping the green button and putting the phone to my ear.

  “What can I do for you?” I ask in a pleasant voice, determined not to give my father the satisfaction of knowing how much he’s hurt me. All the hurt is almost over. As soon as I get on that plane, there is nothing but a bright future with a beautiful, strong, sexy woman, who loves me, exactly the way I am.

  “Where are you?” Dad asks, not bothering to hide his irritation. “You need to come home, your mother’s worried.”

  “I bet she is.” I smile at the clerk behind the counter as he rings up my purchases. “Mom hates it when things don’t go according to plan. And you two really put a lot into this one, didn’t you? Quite the investment of time, money, and deception.”

  My father sighs. “You’ve made contact with Caitlin.”

  “You could say that.” I pass over two twenty dollar bills, the clerk hands me back a few coins, and I claim my bag of goodies before starting back to the boarding line.

  “Just know that you have to take everything that girl says with a grain of salt, son,” my father says in his best litigator voice. “She’s an accomplished liar. She pulled the wool over all of our eyes last summer. But as soon as you went into the hospital, we saw her true colors. All she wanted was money, and she was willing to do anything to get it. She tried to blackmail me and your mother and—”

  “Oh please, Dad,” I say with a laugh, stopping next to a row of wall phones no one is using, to watch the boarding line creep forward, not wanting to get close enough for Caitlin or the kids to overhear my conversation. “I don’t know which is more impressive, the number of lies in that sentence, or the number of idioms. I thought you were supposed to be an award-winning orator. Seriously, I’m embarrassed for you.”

  “Gabriel, you need to be very careful,” Aaron says, his irritation with me coming through loud and clear. “Things are going to be put into motion tomorrow that, once they’re started, can’t be stopped. If you want to avoid going to jail with that girl, you need to come home right now, and have a long talk with me and your mother about how we move forward from here.”

  I hum beneath my breath, lifting a hand to Caitlin when she turns to look for me. She hitches Emmie higher in her arms and lifts her brows. I hold up one finger and she smiles, and it is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Because there is nothing but truth in that smile, nothing but heart and hope. I know what real love feels like now, and nothing my father can say can destroy what Caitlin and I have rediscovered.

  All the money and power and influence in the world can’t hold a candle to the power of this kind of love.

  “Did you hear me, son?” my father asks. “It’s time to get your life back on track before it’s too late. You have a legacy to live up to. I don’t want you to pay the price for falling in with the wrong kind of girl, but if you give me no other choice…”

  “There’s always a choice, Dad,” I say. “You had a choice whether or not to defend people you knew were guilty. You had a choice whether to try to bully me into being exactly like you for my entire childhood.”

  “Now, see here, Gabriel, I—”

  “And you had a choice whether or not to trick me into having the surgery, and then lie to me about Caitlin after,” I say, judging by the stunned silence that Aaron is surprised to learn I’ve recovered that particular memory. “But even though I want to hate you for telling Caitlin I was dead, and breaking her heart, I can’t. Because without you, I wouldn’t have had the surgery, or be here with Caitlin right now. I have a second ch
ance at life with the woman I love because of you, Dad, so I want to say…thank you. Thank you, and enjoy the rest of your life. I hope you can forget you ever had a son who caused you so much trouble.”

  I hang up before he can answer, and move to tuck my phone back into my pocket, but at the last minute I toss it into the trash can along with the receipt from my purchases. I join Caitlin and the kids in line and take my backpack from Ray, who shoots my paper bag an interested look.

  “Any candy in there, Gabe?” Ray asks.

  “Starburst and M&Ms,” I say, laughing when his eyes light up. “But you have to ask Caitlin when it’s okay to have them.”

  “As soon as we find our seats and get buckled in,” Caitlin says, smiling at Ray. “I think we all deserve a treat.”

  “I want M&Ms before my pretzels,” Sean says, looking more awake than he did a few minutes ago, clearly excited by the beginning of our adventure. “No, I want M&Ms and pretzels at the same time!”

  “Gross,” Ray says, wrinkling his nose.

  “It’s not gross,” Sean protests in a louder voice. “It’s delicious.”

  “Hush guys, you’ll wake Emmie,” Caitlin says, glancing up at me as we shuffle a few steps closer to the front of the line. “Everything okay?”

  I nod. “Just saying goodbye. Looks like we were smart to leave tonight.”

  Her eyes widen. “Your parents?”

  “My dad,” I said. “But it’s okay. He didn’t have any idea where we were. We’ll be gone before he figures out where we’ve gone.”

  Caitlin nods, her brows drawing together. “How about you, are you okay?”

  “I’m perfect.” I put my arm around her shoulders, and draw her close to my side for the rest of our shuffle to the front of the line. We separate long enough to give the stewardess our tickets, but come back together as we walk down the jet way. We sit together on the flight, with Emmie sprawled across our laps, and Caitlin falls asleep on my shoulder just after the movie.