by Hart, Staci
She didn’t say anything; her bottom lip was busy, pinned between her teeth.
“I mean, what’s the worst he could do? They’re in public—our friends are there.”
She took a breath that skipped in her chest, the sound dangerously close to a sob, a sound that sent a cold shot of fear through me.
“Sarah, what are you not telling me?”
Her throat worked, fingers pressed to her lips. She shook her head. “It’s…I wanted to tell you before. I should have told you before, but I didn’t know if it would change anything.”
“Told me what?” I asked, the words as quiet as the eye of a storm.
Sarah moved her notebook and leaned over. “It’s just that I’ve never told anyone. And when you said Annie was with him…” She shook her head. “If we had been alone, I probably would have said it, but then…then it felt too late.”
“Said what?”
“I never told you what really happened that night, the night of the party.”
A tingling numbness climbed down my arms to my fingers, up my neck to my face as she spoke.
“You know that before that night, I’d been planning to break up with him, but the time was never right. I never knew what to say. I was afraid I’d lose so much more than him. I had a thousand excuses, and none of them mattered in the end.” She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “We went to that party and ended up in a huge fight. And I was so mad, so over it, I just blurted out that I was through. I was through fighting, through being controlled by him, fed up beyond the point of caring about the repercussions.
“We were in the middle of arguing about it when he finally realized I was serious, and he just…changed. I thought at the time that he was calm, resigned, accepting even. He told me we could be friends and that we should enjoy the party. And I was so relieved that I took the drink he’d offered and the one after without a second thought.”
She took a long breath, and when she spoke again, her voice was unsteady, her eyes on her trembling fingers as they twisted each other, seeking comfort.
“I only remember bits and pieces. Dancing in the living room. Laughing on the balcony. Feeling slow and tired and clumsy. Will taking me to a dark bedroom. Wondering if he’d drugged me as he laid me down in the bed. And I thought…I thought he was going to…” She shook her head. “But he didn’t. He left me there, and I remember how relieved I was. Until someone else came in.”
A heavy tear dropped from her lashes and to the floor. “I don’t know who he was—a boy from another school, I think. He was everywhere, and there was nothing I could do; I couldn’t move, couldn’t fight, couldn’t scream. And then he left me there in that room, just like Will had, but he’d taken everything from me before he’d gone.”
The words broke, her hand moving to press her lips, as if she could keep the sobs held down, and within a breath, I was at her side, pushing the textbooks away and pulling her into me, thinking only thoughts of agony and murder.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Tears pricked my eyes, flooded my vision, my fingers in her hair and her face against my chest.
“Because there was nothing I could do. I had no proof, couldn’t remember what he even looked like. And I know I shouldn’t have been ashamed, but I was. I am. Pictures of…of me started floating around school in group texts. And Will didn’t do a goddamn thing about it but use it as ammunition to ostracize me from everyone I knew. And I was afraid that if I said something, if I accused him, no one would believe me. It was easier to be labeled a whore than branded a liar.”
“And all this time…”
She pulled away, though my shirt was still fisted in her hands. “Those rumors I told you he spread were true. It happened, just not the way everyone said. I asked him once, begged him to tell me why he’d left me there, and he said that I shouldn’t have fucked with him. And when I asked him if he’d meant for me to get raped, he looked at me with dead eyes and said he stopped caring the second he walked out the door.”
My vision dimmed, my pulse driving my heart to the point of pain.
“Ever since he came back into your life, it’s been weighing on me. I didn’t know if it would help or hurt or make any difference at all. And I tried to tell you so many times, but I couldn’t speak the words. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I pulled her back into me, pressing her to my body, wishing I could undo what had been done to her. “Don’t apologize. Don’t you say you’re sorry, not for this,” I breathed. “But Annie’s with him right now. I have to go—I need to get her.”
She nodded, still crying.
I cupped my sister’s cheek and looked into her eyes. “Everything’s going to be fine,” I said, hoping it was true. “Don’t add this guilt to your heart.”
She nodded, but I knew the agreement was empty. Her heart would carry that guilt forever.
But I had to go, wouldn’t wait. I only hoped that son of a bitch was still there when I got to Annie.
Because I had so much to say.
Heartbeats
Annie
“So, let me see if I’ve got this straight,” Will said coolly from the other side of the booth. “You stayed here. Last night. With Greg. In the dress I gave you. And now you’re breaking up with me for him?”
My fingers were restless in my lap. “Will, I’m sorry.”
I didn’t even know what I was apologizing for. His hurt feelings? Mine?
“Listen,” he said, his face softening with his voice, “last night I said things I didn’t mean. I care about you, Annie, and I want to be with you. What do I have to do to prove that to you?”
“Nothing,” I said simply. “It just happened this way. It wasn’t your fault.”
It was another lie, and I couldn’t understand why I kept making excuses for him. But more than anything, I wanted this business done and over with. If placating him got me there, so be it.
“But we’re great together, Annie. I’m sorry for what I said last night. I just can’t keep suffering interventions from Brandon.” He spat the name like a curse.
Anger blew through me in a gust. “Stop it, Will. I’m sorry I even brought him into this. It’s about you and me. And last night wasn’t the first time you failed to take my feelings into account.”
He laughed, a cold, bitter sound. “Your feelings? Not once did you listen when I told you he was trying to get between us. Not once did you seem to care what I wanted, what I’d asked for. But I’m the one who’s insensitive? That’s rich, Annie. Real rich.”
My cheeks prickled with heat. “I cannot believe you. Are you so blinded by jealousy that you can’t see you’ve been acting like a child?”
“A child?” he said, his eyes narrowed and voice on the rise. “You hadn’t even been kissed when I met you. You have no fucking clue what the world is about, not one.” He slapped the table, and I jolted at the sound. “God, even now you have that look on your face like a lost little girl.”
Tears sprang in my eyes, and I felt just as inexperienced as he suggested. I should have listened to Greg—I never should have agreed to this.
But my gaze was steady and hot as the sun. “Thank you for making this so easy for me. Have a nice life, Will. And I wouldn’t come back here if I were you.”
I scooted to the edge of the booth to get the hell away from him, but before I could get all the way out, he sighed and dragged a hand through his hair, reaching for my hand.
“Wait.”
I met his eyes, pulling my hand away before he could touch me.
Another sigh. His face was touched with resignation, but his eyes were dark and stormy. “Annie, I’m sorry. I’m…I’m just surprised, that’s all. I don’t like being caught off guard, and I thought I was coming here today to get you back. I know I can be a dick. Please, forgive me.”
I softened. “Thank you. And I’m sorry to do this to you. I’m sorry for hurting you.”
His lips twitched in a sad smile. “All is fair in love and war, right?”
I of
fered an apologetic smile of my own. “I should go.”
“You’re not working today?” he asked.
“No, I’m off. I just came here to meet you.”
“Well, let me give you a ride home.” His face was turned down as he pulled on his coat.
“Oh no, that’s okay. I’ll catch a cab,” I said without hesitation.
He straightened his collar. “I insist. My car’s right outside. It’s the least I can do after my little outburst.”
I eyed him, looking for any sign of danger, but I found none. “All right. Thanks, Will.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Cam was sitting at the bar, pretending to work on her laptop, but I knew it was a charade. Her eyes met mine in question.
“Let me go say bye to Cam real quick, okay?”
He nodded once, reaching for the dress boxes I’d brought. “The car’s just out front.”
I said my thanks, and we parted ways.
“What happened?” Cam said quietly when I approached, as if someone might overhear.
“It’s done. He’s going to give me a ride home.”
Her brows knit together. “You sure that’s okay?”
“It’s a ten-minute drive, and it’ll save me cab fare. It’ll be okay.”
“Okay,” she said, not sounding at all convinced. “Text me when you get home, okay? I worry.”
I laughed and made my promise.
A minute later, I slid into the Mercedes with Will, who leaned toward his door, face propped on his hand, staring out the window.
The driver pulled away from the curb.
The car was silent, and with every tick of the clock, the quiet screwed tighter until it was thrumming between us.
“I can’t believe you chose him over me,” he said, almost to himself, the words touched with disbelief and disapproval.
I’d naively thought it was over. Stupid me. Discomfort slid over me. “Will, I thought—”
“What could he possibly give you that I can’t? How could you possibly choose him over me? Didn’t I do everything you wanted?”
He turned to look at me, and for the first time, I saw Will as he truly was. The angles of his face sharpened, his eyes glinting with superiority.
“Didn’t I give you the things you wanted, like that day in Central Park? Didn’t I tell you we could take it slow even though it was the last thing I wanted? Didn’t I put up with your bullshit with Brandon? I cared about you. I thought…I thought you could be a fresh start, a second chance, one I didn’t even deserve. I would never hurt you, no matter what that asshole says about me.”
I watched him rant with my lips parted, my eyes skimming his hard, angry body.
“I can’t believe I lost to him.”
I didn’t realize I’d been shifting to the door, the instinct to get out of the car hijacking my body, sending a cold chill up my back and to the hairs on my neck.
His face shifted, flashing with anger, his hand darting out to grab my wrist. His fingers closed around the small circumference and yanked, pulling me across the leather bench and into him. I yelped in surprise.
“You should be mine.”
“Let me go, Will,” I said through my teeth, twisting my flaming wrist, but it was locked in his fist.
“Sir?” The driver eyed us in the rearview mirror.
“You’re hurting me,” I bit out, tears filling my eyes.
“You’re supposed to be mine,” he said, holding me still as he pressed a rigid kiss to my lips.
I fought against him, uselessly pushing his stony chest with my free hand and turning my head to escape his unyielding mouth, but he pulled me closer. My heart jackhammered, dimming my vision in pulses.
“Sir!”
Will’s face turned to the driver as the car came to a stop.
I pulled my free hand back and slapped him hard enough to send the sting up to my elbow. And in his shock, he relaxed his grip enough for me to reclaim my wrist. I flew across the car and opened the door, scrambling out just before his fingers closed on the back of my jacket.
And the moment my feet hit the pavement, I ran.
He shouted a string of insults out the open door, but they didn’t reach me. I barely registered the honking cars or the Mercedes pulling away. All I could hear was the erratic thump of my pulse in my ears. All I could feel was the cold ground beneath my feet. All I knew was that I had to escape.
When I came to a stop, I dropped to my knees, my vision vibrating with my heartbeat, my heart fluttering so fast, too fast, the muscle spasming frantically. I fumbled for my phone with shaking hands, unable to draw enough breath, my lungs empty and scraping against my ribs. —I couldn’t call I couldn’t speak.
I pulled up my sister’s last message and fired off a text.
Need help. I’m in the park, sending you my location.
There wasn’t enough air, my limbs moving laboriously as a creeping blackness in my vision pulled me to the ground. And then I felt it—the jerk in my heart, like a string had been pulled. It was on fire, my heart in my chest beating so fast, so hard, so bruised, that I pressed my palms to my sternum in disbelief of the deep measure of pain, a hot slice of a knife through the very center of me.
And with a final gasp of air from the very depths of my lungs, I slipped away, onto the cold, icy ground, into darkness.
Greg
I hopped off my board and ran to the door of the bookstore, whipping it open, rushing inside, scanning the bar for Annie. I found Cam instead.
“Where is she?”
Alarm commandeered her, arresting her face and planting her feet on the ground. “She left with Will, not five minutes ago. He was giving her a ride home.”
I swore, pulling my phone out of my back pocket to text her again. She hadn’t answered my text from before, and my mind jumped from one conclusion to the next without taking a breath.
My phone buzzed in my hand with a text from Elle.
Have you seen Annie? Something happened. She’s in the park, but I don’t know where.
My fingers flew as I sent back three words.
I’ll find her.
I turned and ran back out without a word, throwing my board onto the pavement in front of me and jumping on without thinking about what I was doing or the cold or what would happen.
Every thought I had was focused on her.
My mind raced with my wheels, tracking the path he would have used to take her home, not certain why it was urgent, but knowing it was all the same. The temperature had dropped, my breath leaving me in bursts of burning cold, my eyes scanning the park around me, not knowing what exactly I was looking for.
And then I saw it—the flash of yellow between trees, the same sunshiny color of her coat.
I hopped the curb and jumped off my board, leaving it where it was, running full tilt for the heap in the frosted grass. And with every footfall, my hope slipped away, replaced by cold awareness.
I fell to my knees at her side and rolled her into my lap, my heart stopping when I saw her lifeless face.
Her skin was an unnatural shade of gray, her lips a deep shade of purple, the blue veins in her closed lids visible.
“Annie,” I whispered, my throat locking.
Her body was limp, dead weight in my arms, her head lolling. I held her cheek; it was cold as ice.
“Annie, can you hear me?” I pressed my fingers to her neck and found her pulse easily; it was beating double the time it should have been.
“Jesus Christ,” I breathed, pulling her into me, my face turning to the expanse of gray sky. “Please. God, please.”
She stirred in my arms, the smallest moan escaping her lips, and I held her, looking into her face as her lids fluttered open.
Her lips parted as if to speak, but only a soft Ah made it through before her eyes closed again.
“No,” I whispered, fumbling for my phone. “Don’t leave me,” I begged as the line rang. “Hurry,” I demanded after I gave the dispatcher everything I coul
d.
And then it was just her and me, the birds in the park and my fingers on her careening pulse, the sirens in the distance and her life on a thread. And I prayed to every god I knew.
Waiting
Greg
The only sound in the waiting room was the soft, unintelligible conversation from the nurses’ station. A television was playing Planet of the Apes with the captions on, an empty gesture made commonplace by some psychologist somewhere who had determined that people waiting for bad news needed something to mark time in the room besides a clock.
Not that anyone ever watched it beyond a cursory glance or an empty gaze; in that circumstance, it wasn’t possible to offer anything more.
My eyes weren’t following Charlton Heston through his mysterious adventure—they were on my hands, clasped and hanging between my knees, the carpet beyond them blurred.
The deep, staggered lines in my knuckles caught the attention of my subconscious. They were surrounded by skin covered in infinitesimal cracks, barely visible, rarely noticed. But I saw each tiny one, thousands of them connecting to make a web spread across every inch of me.
I was reminded of a time that seemed to be a hundred years ago, most of that distance traveled in the last eight hours, when a thirteen-year-old version of my sister had become obsessed with reading palms. She’d sat with me on the rug in her room as I moaned and groaned and rolled my eyes, poring over the lines in the meat of my hand as she flipped through a book that would help her decipher them.
I turned my hand over and opened it, trying to remember what she’d told me, which line was which. I only remembered two—the love line and the life line.
The one meant for love was deep, running in a clear path from well off the side of my hand, curving up all the way to the point where my forefinger and middle finger met. It was supposed to mean that I would find true love, my soul mate, and that love would be as deep and true as that unassuming crease in my hand. Sarah had been starry-eyed and sighing at my luck. I’d thought it was nonsense.
The line for my life was also deep and long, stretching in a gentle arch from an inch from my thumb and down to curve around the heel of my palm. I’d live until I was a hundred, as far as that line was concerned.