by June Gray
For a long time, I posed in front of the mirror and finally allowed myself to admire my body in a way I hadn’t ever done before.
So maybe the stranger was right in suggesting I needed to appreciate my body, but there was no way in hell I was going to admit that out loud.
Before too long the room fell into silence when my iPod’s battery ran out of charge, and it was then I noticed a drip-drip noise outside. I peered between the blinds and was surprised to find the sun out and the snow beginning to melt. Water was dripping off the eaves of the house at a speed that meant the snow was on its way out.
Which meant no more houseguest. No more tall, dark, and handsome. No more piercing eyes, no more verbal sparring.
Rather than address the feelings of sadness, I dressed and went to the kitchen to check the freezer instead. I could make him a goodbye dinner at the very least, something to make up for my surly attitude so he wouldn’t forever remember me as the jerk in the trailer home.
He came padding out of the room just as I was draining the spaghetti noodles. “You have impeccable timing,” I said, taking in his sleep-mussed hair and the rumpled look on his face. “Did you get a good nap?”
“Yeah, but I still need an aspirin or something.”
I nodded to the bathroom. “There’s a plastic tub with pills and stuff under the sink,” I said and belatedly realized I’d just sent him to where I also kept my tampons and pads.
He came out a few minutes later, his hair damp and combed back a little.
“You look almost civilized,” I said, getting our bowls ready.
He smiled, the skin around his eyes crinkling. “Did you just compliment me?” he asked, reaching for the drink glasses.
I shrugged. “The snow is melting.”
He nodded. “Ah, so you’re playing nice now that I’m almost out of here. I get it,” he said.
“Something like that.”
He glanced out the window. “Depending on the situation after we eat, I can probably get out of your hair tonight.”
I felt a small lurch in my stomach. “Um, no, you can stay the night if you want,” I said, trying my best to sound casual and not at all panicked. “You’ll have better luck at the station in the morning.”
His stood beside me and grabbed our bowls of food. “You’ll miss me,” he teased, nudging me with his arm. “Just admit it.”
“No, I won’t.” Probably. Hopefully.
“Well I’ll miss you.”
I looked up at him to see if he was just teasing, but his face was all earnestness and warmth. “How could you possibly miss someone you’ve only known a few days?” I asked, needing an answer, anything that would explain away the tightness in my chest.
He gazed down at me and I knew with absolute clarity that I would never be the same. This stranger had somehow managed to change me. “You’re the only person I know. Of course I’ll miss you.”
It wasn’t the romantic declaration I’d unwittingly been hoping for, but it was enough. Whoever he was, whenever his memory returned, at least he would always remember me as the only person who took up space in his mind, at least for a time.
We ate in the living room and watched something on television, a reality show I’d never seen before about people doing daring stunts. The host looked squeamish during one of the stunts involving a tightrope walk across two skyscrapers. It was clear that he wasn’t the real host of the show, and said as much as he interviewed each contestant later.
“So, what’s Prozac?” the stranger asked, draining the last of his beer.
“What, were you snooping?” I asked, putting down my fork.
“I was just searching for the aspirin when I came across it,” he explained then said nothing else. He simply continued eating his spaghetti, leaving the question up in the air.
“It’s an antidepressant, okay?”
“Okay.”
I sighed. “God, you’re so nosy,” I muttered. “I started taking it in high school.”
“Ah.” He stared at me for a long time before asking, “Are you still taking it?”
I shook my head. “I’ve been off it for a year now. My doctor told me to keep taking it, but I just didn’t want to deal with deadening myself anymore. I wanted to feel things again. And if that sometimes meant I’d be so down I couldn’t even change out of my pajamas or get off the couch for a few days, then so be it.” It was why I worked out so much, to feel the natural high from the rush of endorphins.
He leaned back in the recliner, studying me quietly, a hand toying with his chin.
“Don’t judge me,” I said, truly disappointed in him. I didn’t think he was like that, and it hurt to be wrong.
“I’m not,” he said quickly. “I’m just wondering how to ask why you needed antidepressants in high school to begin with. Was it because of your mom?”
“A little. But it was mostly because of the fucktards I went to school with, who thought it was okay to make my life a living hell. I was that girl who ate lunch by herself, who was always drawing in her notebooks, always hiding under a hoodie and earphones, and it didn’t sit well with them that I didn’t want to be a part of their crowd.”
“You were bullied?”
“They spread rumors about me, that I was a cutter, that I would give head to the teachers to get a good grade. They basically made my already shitty life even more of a living hell.”
“I’m sorry,” he said with a look of shame all over his face.
“The one time I actually tried to fit in, I wore a nice dress to prom. My date brought me to an after-party and tried to get me to sleep with him. He was very aggressive about it, wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“Did he…” he cleared his throat. “Did he rape you?”
I shook my head, remembering the night vividly. That one night had shaped the person I was. “No. I managed to fight him off and run out of the room, but my dress ripped. That Monday, pictures of me in my torn dress went around the school.” I took a deep breath, prepared to reveal all my cards. Hell, I’d already started, might as well go all in. “It got so bad, I tried to kill myself.”
He sat up. “What?”
I held out my arm and drew back my sleeve to reveal the thin white scar on my wrist about two inches long. I swallowed, afraid of what he’d think, but needing to share my story regardless. If this was the last time we’d spend together, I wanted him to know the reason I turned out this way. I needed him to know that when I said I didn’t give a shit, I completely meant it, because I’d come so close to losing everything already.
He came over, crouching by me as he held my wrist in his hands, his long, blunt fingers tracing the white line.
“After I was released from the hospital, the kids at school started taunting me that I should have cut longways, that it would have been more effective that way.”
His grip tightened around me as his breathing deepened. “Little assholes.”
“My dad… he found out and confronted the guy who attacked me. He’s in jail now, serving eleven years for assault and battery of a minor. People always assume it’s a child he laid his hands on, not a nearly eighteen-year-old football player who was more than capable of defending himself.
“I was ready to escape to college right before he was convicted, so I didn’t end up going. I moved out of the city to this town in BFE to be closer to the prison, so I could be near the only person who was ever there for me.” When I finished, I fixed my eyes on a stain on the carpet, unable to meet the stranger’s eyes.
“Will you ever move away and go back to school?” he asked, his fingers on my skin a soothing presence. I pulled away.
“I don’t think that’s in the cards for me.” I retrieved my bowl from the coffee table, holding it up between us as a buffer. “Anyway, that’s why I am the way I am.”
He sat back on the carpet, resting his arms on his bent knees saying nothing, only looking at me in a way that made me feel laid open and vulnerable, making me wonder if I’d don
e the right thing by telling all my secrets.
“Kat,” he murmured some time later as we were both heading off to our own beds. “Do you still want to kill yourself?”
I didn’t answer him for the longest time. Not because I didn’t have the answer, but because for the first time, it occurred to me that it was true. Had been for some time now. “No. Not anymore.”
“Good.”
I cocked my head, trying to understand his concern. “Why do you care?”
“I just do,” he said from where he stood across the room. “You saved my life. I’m just wondering if I need to return the favor.”
I was overcome with the urge to wrap my arms around him in that moment, to squeeze him to me and thank him for caring. But I didn’t. Of course I didn’t. I’m Kat, the Bitch of Sommers Lane, remember? I didn’t have feelings.
Still, that didn’t stop me from scratching out a gruff, “Thanks,” before closing my bedroom door behind me.
8
STRANGER
I went to bed that night with my stomach full of spaghetti and guilt. I didn’t know why I’d been filled with shame when she told me about her past—surely if I’d been one of her tormentors, she would have recognized me—but there was no denying that heavy dread of feeling in the pit of my stomach.
I kicked my legs in bed, unable to find a comfortable position, until I finally fell into a troubled sleep. I dreamt I was in a college auditorium, sitting with a group of guys I knew to be my friends. A very pretty girl came to sit near us, shooting flirty glances our way and we, of course, tried to impress her by acting like dicks. We talked louder, told cruder jokes, acted like we owned the world. I kept watching her during class, turned on by the way she kept biting on the end of her pen.
“Are you busy right now?” I asked, falling into step beside her after class.
She looked around. “No. Right now I’m just walking.”
“Let’s go get some coffee then.” No asking, no preamble, just a directive.
The dream shifted to the dorm room that she shared with another female, a homely girl with acne and an underbite.
“Hey, can we please get some privacy?” my date told her roommate.
“I’m studying,” she said. “Go perform fellatio somewhere else.”
“This is my room too.” The pretty one turned to me and slid down to her knees, unbuttoning my jeans right there in the middle of the room. Her roommate looked at us in disbelief, but I just shrugged with a cocky little smile on my face. “You’re welcome to join in,” I said, motioning to the carpet in front of me.
The roommate threw her hands up in disgust and left the room.
I woke up horny and agitated. I rubbed my face, disturbed by the dream and the guy in it, knowing deep down in my gut that it hadn’t been a creation of my imagination. I had a sick feeling that I was like one of those guys Kat had described who thought they ruled the school, who thought they could have everyone and everything they wanted simply because they were good looking or rich.
I suspected the more I found out about myself, the less I’d find to like.
I finally got up around seven in the morning and peered out the window, finding that the snow had melted overnight. The ground was still covered in snow, but it had melted enough to drive or walk in.
With a heavy heart, I put on my original clothes that Kat had washed yesterday and went out to make her a final batch of coffee and prepare breakfast. God knew the woman needed someone to take care of her at least once in her adult life.
When the table had been set, I knocked on her door and was rewarded with a scratching and sniffing on the hollow wood. “Josie, is that you?” I whispered and heard a soft whining. “Go wake up Kat. Go get her.”
A few seconds elapsed before the door opened and Kat stood before me in a t-shirt that wasn’t the size of a tent and a pair of cotton shorts. My eyes flicked down to her bare legs, surprised by her incredible muscle tone. Before I had a chance to compose myself and look back up, the door slammed in my face.
When next it opened, Kat was back in sweatpants and sweatshirt. “Can I help you?” she asked in a sleep-roughened voice, running her fingers through her disheveled blond hair. She took a deep, appreciative breath with her eyes closed. “Did you make breakfast?”
“Yes.” I led her to the kitchen table, wondering all the while what else she was hiding underneath those clothes.
She sat down, folding one leg under her butt, and immediately took a bite out of a piece of bacon. “Is it just me or does it feel like we’re always eating?” she asked.
I salted my eggs. “Not much else to do when you’re stuck inside on a snowy day, I guess.”
“I really need to work out,” she mumbled into her steaming mug of coffee.
I was about to say I wanted to join her—my body was starting to feel sluggish without exercise—when I remembered that today was the day I would leave. There was to be no exercising with Kat in my near future. “Yeah, you look really out of shape,” I joked instead.
She grinned at me, her eyes flicking down to my torso. “Yeah, you too.”
We lingered over mugs of coffee long after our food had all been eaten. I had a feeling that Kat was also trying to put off the moment I’d have to walk out the door; at least, I hoped that was the case. Perhaps I wanted her to want me to stay as much as I wanted it myself. I didn’t want to be wrong about the long, wistful looks she was giving me, about the way she averted her eyes when my gaze collided with hers. Something had changed, something that was now making her face flush, and I badly wanted to stick around to find out. Even if it meant never returning to my old life.
But I couldn’t stay. Not if she didn’t ask.
We finished with breakfast and washed the dishes; all the while I kept my ears pricked for any mention or even hint of my staying. But it never came. Kat showered and got ready, already waiting in the Jeep with Josie by the time I had dressed in my own clothes.
We drove into town in awkward silence, and it wasn’t long before she was parking in front of the small building that was the police station. Before climbing out, I reached to the back seat and scratched Josie behind the ears. Her tail thumped against the leather seat and her tongue lolled out, enjoying my attention. “You take care of Kat,” I said to the dog, glancing at her owner from the corner of my eye. “Make sure she doesn’t save any more handsome strangers from the side of the road.”
Kat snickered and got out of the car.
“I’m serious,” I told Josie before climbing out.
Kat and I met at the front of the car and she held out a hand. “Well, it’s been nice saving you.”
I took her hand in mine. “It’s been nice being saved.” I studied her face, trying to memorize the blue of her eyes, the face that could look both innocent and worldly.
“Kat…” I began but didn’t know how to end. I didn’t even know how to put to words the thoughts swirling through my head. How do you tell someone you don’t really know how much she already means to you?
So I just pulled on her hand and brought her in for a hug, surprised at how good it felt to hold her. She stood stiffly for a few heartbeats before wrapping her arms around my back and returning the embrace.
Then the hug was over as she stepped back and gave me a friendly pat on the arm. “Well, you take care,” she said, walking back to the driver’s side.
I followed her. “Where are you off to now?”
“I think I’ll go see my dad,” she said, climbing in and starting the engine.
I put my hands in my pockets and grinned. “You going to tell him about me?”
She smiled, flashing that dimple at the corner of her mouth. “Sure. I’ll tell him I took in a stranger with amnesia during a snowstorm.”
I cocked my head to the side, a little irritated by her words. “That’s all I was?”
“Were you more?” she asked, her words coming out like a challenge.
“I was hoping I’d become more.”
I chuckled. “Maybe I can come back some time and make you a cup of coffee.”
“Now that I’ll agree to,” she said then closed the door. She waved once through the window and backed out of the parking space.
I watched her Jeep drive off down the street before turning around and heading into the police station, ready to find out who the hell I used to be.
9
KAT
Josie whined in the passenger seat as I drove home, giving away that she was a sucker for a handsome face and a rub on the belly. As for me, I couldn’t care less that the stranger was gone; it didn’t matter if I never saw his face again. And this tightness in the middle of my chest? Well, that was just heartburn from breakfast, obviously.
No way in hell was I going to miss those grey eyes and the breathtaking face surrounding it. And I definitely was not going to miss the way he pushed my buttons, the way he bulldozed past my defenses, through the anger and bullshit, and somehow found a path to the center of who I really was. Even though nobody else had ever gone there before—a few had tried, but none had ever managed to withstand the prickly hedges—I certainly wouldn’t miss the one person who had.
Nuh-uh. No way, no how.
After securing Josie back in the house and making sure she had food and water, I drove out of town towards Cormack Correctional, which was about twenty-six miles southwest of Ayashe.
The guards at the correctional center knew me on sight, but I still had to sign in. Then I waited in a large room full of tables and benches, inmates and visitors, while they fetched my father from his cell. A few minutes later they brought him in, the guard reminding him to behave before going back to his post at the edge of the room.