I mustered up the sweetest, most genuine smile I could. “Because you love me.”
His face softened for a moment before he glared at me. “But you ruined that, didn’t you?”
I skipped to the first question. “How’d you get my address? The one in New York, I mean.”
“Oh, that wasn’t hard at all. A few sessions with your parents and I had them wrapped around my finger. I told them I wanted to send you some papers regarding seeing me when you came home to visit. I told them I needed your address and they gave it to me. Just. Like. That.”
He snapped his fingers in front of the glass and I was sure his goal was to make me flinch or jump back or scream. But instead I sat there with a stone cold expression and ignored the churning in my gut.
“I remember the first time I saw you.” A wistful expression crossed his face. “There’s a picture in your parents’ living room right on the mantle. You were dressed for the winter and you were in the snow. Smiling. So beautiful. But you had a sadness in your eyes, Abby. A sadness that only I could fix. You needed me, you still do.”
Anger took hold of me and I sat there for a minute trying to breathe. All of this because of a stupid goddamn picture. I wanted to be angry at my parents as if all of this was somehow their fault. But it wasn’t. Van Sant was a sick, sick man and if this hadn’t happened to me it would have happened to someone else.
But it didn’t happen to someone else. “This started and ended with me,” I finally said and nodded with finality. “You won’t do this to another girl, you won’t hurt anyone else. Truthfully, Henry, I feel sorry for you. I’m sorry for whatever happened to you that made you this way and I’m sorry you didn’t get the help you needed. But you did help me, I’ll give you that.”
He smiled and nodded his head. “I know. I helped you realize how bad certain people are. I helped you realize how bad Knox is.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I said softly. “You did help me, Henry. You made me come to terms with the wrong I’ve done in this life and you helped me find my way back to Knox. You think you showed me how bad he is? Really? No, Henry, you showed me how much I love him.”
He started shouting and I held up a hand, waiting for him to quiet down. “I want you to know that this is the last time you’re going to see me. This is goodbye, Henry.”
He immediately started shaking his head, slamming the phone against the glass. “No! You need me, you fucking bitch. You need me!” I saw a few guards come up and try to restrain him, grabbing him by the arms and pinning him to the glass. He stared at me one last time with those cold, empty eyes and all at once I felt the closure I needed.
“Goodbye, Van Sant.”
Once back in town, I stopped at the grocery store to get some things for dinner. I noticed there was a lightness in my chest that hadn’t been there before seeing Van Sant. It was as though my heart knew it was finally over, knew that there was no reason to live in fear. I was no longer on edge or looking over my shoulder.
There was just peace. Simple, quiet, enjoy the sunshine peace.
I was tossing two loaves of bread into my carriage when I saw a familiar face stroll down the aisle. There was a Red Sox ball cap on his head and his scruff was longer than it was the last time I saw him.
“Caleb,” I said quietly, feeling the oxygen had been sucked out of my lungs.
His dark brown eyes met mine and he paused, his back straightening as he stopped swinging the basket he was holding.
After finding out that Caleb was released, I tried to no avail to get in touch with him. I called, texted, emailed. Hell, I even stopped by The Pelican to see his dad. But for all I knew, the Bishops hated my guts for the hell they had to endure. Being accused of stalking and harassment could do some serious damage to anyone’s reputation, even if all of the accusations were false.
Caleb had every right to hate me, I knew that. If, right now, he wanted to scream in my face and storm off, I’d let him. But not before he knew the truth. I needed him to know that I never thought it was him.
“I’m so sorry,” I started and moved forward. “I really am. I… I know that an apology doesn’t erase all of the pain you must have gone through, Caleb. But, I… I never thought it was you. I really fought for you from the moment-”
He held up a hand and shook his head before flashing a small, surprising smile. I know you did. I, uh, I got your texts. And calls. And emails,” he laughed.
I was confused. “Then why didn’t you-”
“Call you back?” Caleb finished for me. When I nodded, he continued. “I was going to, but then I heard Knox got hurt and figured it was taking up a lot of your time. Abby, after all the shit you went through I wasn’t going to bombard you and give you a hard time about everything. None of this is your fault.”
My eyes watered and I gave a small sniffle, my face getting hot right there in the bread aisle. Caleb didn’t hate me, didn’t blame me for making the last few weeks of his life a living hell.
His eyes widened as a tear fell down my cheek and he looked around frantically. “Shit, please don’t cry. I’m sorry. I, uh, I… shit. What did I say?”
I shook my head, laughing before moving forward and wrapping my arms around him in a tight embrace. “Nothing. You didn’t say anything, Caleb. I’m so sorry about all of this.”
He wrapped one arm around my shoulders and squeezed affectionately. “Enough with the apologies. I still have my job, you no longer have a stalker. Things are exactly the way they should be.”
I smiled, knowing that he was right. After all of the bullshit and all of the mayhem that occurred over the last few months, it was finally over. I was home, safe, surrounded by friends and family. I had a man who loved me despite my flaws and incessant need to over analyze everything. Things were exactly the way they should be.
Epilogue
One Month Later
I unpacked the last box and then pumped my fists in the air as I kicked shut the bottom drawer of our dresser. In our bedroom. In our house. I smiled and twirled in a circle before jumping up and down. It took nearly a month for me to be completely moved in. Going back to New York to pack up my apartment had been bittersweet but I was focusing on the road ahead. The new road that involved an incredible job that I loved and a live-in boyfriend. A beautiful road with no dead ends, only speed bumps and road head - that I did for the first time last week, by the way. A little bumpy but not so bad.
It’s official. I’m all moved in and you're stuck with me.
Knox was back at work after finally getting the green light from his doctor. He still had restrictions and had to take things slow, so Alex was still helping him out at the gym a few days a week. But I had to admit my boyfriend’s mood had greatly improved since he was allowed back in the gym.
Truthfully, his mood started to improve after we finally had sex. We had to wait a month. A whole month. That was like an eternity for us.
I was walking back into the kitchen when my phone vibrated.
About damn time.
Aw, did you think I was going to up and leave?
Nah. Plus, you know damn well I’d come after you, throw you over my shoulder caveman style and bring you home.
I smiled and chewed my thumbnail. Things were good now, for the most part. I was in a good place with Logan, who seemed to be Knox’s best friend now, and things had gone right back to normal with my folks, meaning my father was working all the time and my mother was still devouring wine by the bottle when she wasn’t parading around town. My only concern was Robbie. After what happened he spent a while beating himself up thinking that he could have prevented it somehow. He said it never would have happened if he’d stayed behind with Van Sant. He and Simone seemed to be keeping a distance and I wondered how I could concoct a plan to get them a little closer. Maybe a house warming party? Or a end of summer party!
After all, I was a mildly successful party planner.
I wanted out of Port James when I was younger. I wanted to go o
ut and experience life on my own and while that was all well and good it was true that there’s no place like home. I ran away from Port James and then I ran away from New York. I’d spent so much time running that sometimes I forgot to stop and enjoy the view. Enjoy my successes and learn from my failures, take it all in.
I was done running. It was time to slow down, settle down and take things one day at a time. There was no longer an urgency to my actions, and as my boyfriend walked through the front door wearing exhaustion and a wide grin, I couldn’t help but smile back. Slowly.
“Beautiful,” Knox dropped his bag and moved toward me, pressing his lips against mine in a hard kiss, slipping his tongue in my mouth and hoisting me up on the counter.
I laughed, my ankles instinctively locking around his waist and pulling him against me. “Hi to you, too. Slow down, will ya?”
He arched a brow and then leaned in, trailing kisses down my neck. “Why slow? I thought you liked it fast.”
I smirked and then grabbed his face between my hands, pulling him back to look me in the eye. “Because,” I said finally. “We have all the time in the world.”
About Alyssa Coolen
Alyssa Coolen knew she wanted to be a writer when she was thirteen years old. The backs of notebooks, napkins, and graph paper all served as a way of putting her ideas into words, and she found herself falling in love with the characters she wrote about. She draws plenty of inspiration from the real life blunders of raising her teenage niece and navigating her twenties like any single parent would; blindly with too many pop culture references. Alyssa currently resides in the southern shore of Massachusetts but hopes to move somewhere warmer soon. Very soon.
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Keep Me Safe: A Small Town Suspenseful Love Story (Port James Book 1) Page 16