by Vera Hollins
I hurried to my car, glancing over my shoulder every few seconds, but I didn’t see anyone. I chuckled at myself internally. I was being paranoid for no reason. No one was watching me. I was just imagining things.
I stopped next to my car and fumbled around in my backpack in search of my keys. Just then, I glanced at my driver-side window and spotted a fuzzy reflection of a vaguely familiar male figure with a cap twenty yards behind me. He was staring at me. With a gasp, I spun around to face him and shrieked when someone’s chest materialized right in front of my face.
Pressing myself against my car, I snapped my eyes up and met Blake’s gaze.
“B-Blake?”
His face carried a broken expression that made my stomach sink, and my mind filled with countless questions that added to my apprehension. Had the figure been him? No, it couldn’t have been because that person had stood in the distance and Blake wasn’t wearing a cap.
I peeped around Blake to find the mysterious figure, but there was no one. I shook my head. I hadn’t imagined it. I couldn’t have…
“What…what are you doing?” He didn’t answer; his eyes studied every inch of my face closely, and my cheeks warmed. Only now did I notice his eyes were red. “Blake?”
“You had to make it even harder for me,” he said in a hoarse voice. “You had to…”
My chest clenched at how torn he looked. He placed his hands against the roof of my car on either side of my body and hung his head low.
“I don’t want to trust you. I don’t want to want you… I…” He closed his eyes, his heavy breaths falling upon my cheeks. “I’m sorry.”
My breathing quickened. “You’re sorry? For what?”
He half-smiled, but it was empty. “For many things. For everything. For always being an asshole. For not having a clue how to feel. After last Saturday, I told myself you were going to stay in the past, but that’s a lie, and then that song… Fuck. That song.” A tear slid down his cheek, and I just stared dumbly at it, shocked that he was crying. He wiped it away swiftly and leaned back.
“What about the song?” I wanted to hear his answer badly. I wanted to know exactly how he’d felt when I sung it.
Another tear escaped his eye as he returned my gaze. “You and me…trapped. Having feelings neither of us want. Going in circles because we can’t stay away from each other.”
He cupped my cheek. I knew I should move away, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to, and it scared me, but I also embraced it.
“I never trusted you to be the person I hoped you to be,” he said. “I blew up on Saturday, searching for any possible reason to hate you more, and you gave me the perfect one.”
I licked my lips. “I’m really sorry, Blake. It was so wrong of me to do it for so many reasons. I’m so sorry. Please believe me.”
“I know.” He palmed my other cheek. “I know. I was so mad, but somehow it doesn’t matter. It can’t even compare to what I’ve done to you.”
“But it matters. Of course it matters. I never wanted to hurt you. It was stupid and completely wrong. I wish I’d never gone into your room.”
He just looked at me, searching desperately for something in my eyes. It seemed he found what he was looking for because a trace of a smile appeared on his face.
“The song is beautiful, Jessica.” He inched closer to me, and his gaze moved between my lips and my eyes. “You’re beautiful. You’re so beautiful, and I didn’t even see it. I didn’t want to see it. I kept telling myself you were bad, but I was wrong. I was so wrong.
“This week has been shitty for me. I couldn’t sleep, and as much as I tried to convince myself that what I said to you on Saturday night was right, it didn’t feel right. I wanted to see you.” His eyes seared into me. “I wanted to talk to you. And when that guy pushed you, it took everything in me not to grab you and hold you in my arms.”
He leaned his forehead against mine, his hands framing my face firmly. His desperation was tangible, and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what my next step would be. It was like walking on slippery ground in total darkness where even one wrong step could hurt me badly.
I placed my hands over his and removed them from my face. I had to put some distance between us no matter how much I yearned for his proximity. I moved away from him and stopped with my back turned to him.
“I wanted the same, Blake, but then again…I’m scared. One moment, everything is good, and the next, everything is bad. I want to find a middle ground with you, but somehow, it always slips away.” I balled my hands into fists, staring off into the distance. “I wish things could be different between us. Ups and downs, ups and downs…when can we get past that?”
He stayed quiet. Each second spent in silence brought me more ache, but then he said, “When we learn to trust each other. I want to trust you. I believe I can trust you. Can you trust me?”
I closed my eyes, fighting against my tears. Trust. One seemingly simple thing, but it was so hard to achieve it when you had a bad history with someone. All I knew was his cold side and insults, and I was just beginning to see his other side. But we had to take the first step toward trust in order to achieve it, and I wondered if this was our first step, a bridge to something better.
“I want to trust you,” I replied quietly.
I sensed him moving behind me, and then he placed his hand on my shoulder. I snapped my eyes open.
“How about hearing me out first, then?” he asked, sounding hopeful.
I sucked in air. “About what?”
“About everything. From the beginning. My fucked-up past…I want you to know everything.”
I struggled to even out my breaths. My body was hyperaware of his nearness, and it was hard to fight the need in me. He wanted to open up to me. He was ready to open up.
“You were right,” he continued. “All I gave you were half-truths. You gave me your song, your honesty, and now I want to be honest with you.”
I took a deep breath as I turned around slowly. “Okay. I’ll hear you out.”
His lips curled up in a small smile, and it was so painfully beautiful. He was beautiful.
“Then come to my house right now.”
I angled my head to the side. “Your house?”
“Yes.”
“But your parents—”
“They’re on my dad’s business trip for the weekend. He has some conference in Hartford, my mom is with him, and our maids have the day off. No one will interrupt us.”
My pulse quickened. Blake and me. In his house. Alone. My body warmed just thinking about it.
His eyes turned pleading. “I won’t hurt you. I just want you to know the truth.”
My mouth turned dry. I stood on the edge, weighing positives and negatives.
“Trust me,” he added, almost begging me.
Butterflies ravaged my belly as I took another deep breath.
“Okay. I’ll come.”
I parked my car behind his Dodge Challenger in his driveway and sent a quick text to Mel to tell her I was at Blake’s house. Expecting my phone to blow up with her texts, I put it on silent and followed him into his house.
Blake took me to that beautiful garden, and now in daylight, I could see it in all its glory. I stopped next to the pond and studied the flowers of various colors that adorned the space. The way they mashed together left me in wonder.
He stopped close to me, and my muscles locked up in awareness. “What’s your favorite flower?” he asked.
“Take a guess.”
His eyes smoldered. “Jasmine.”
Warmth rushed to my cheeks at the reminder of that moment in the school basement. “You remember.”
“How could I forget?”
My heart jumped in my chest. I bent and plucked a small flower from the grass, looking at it but not seeing it.
“Emma hated flowers.” I went still. “She was allergic to them.”
I looked at him as I stood up. He carried a sorrowful but soft expression. I wa
s burning to ask him about her, but I hesitated.
I decided to bite the bullet since he’d mentioned her first. “How did you two meet?”
He picked up a small, flat rock from the ground and skipped it across the pond. It jumped four times before it ended up on the other side of the garden. For a second, I thought he was going to refuse to answer, but I was wrong.
“She was the granddaughter of one of our previous maids. We were the same age. She lost her parents when she was four, and she came here to live with the only remaining member of her family.” He smiled. “It took me just one glance to decide she was going to be my best friend. We were best friends ever after.”
A small pang hit my chest. I knew I shouldn’t get jealous of Emma—it was awful—but I couldn’t help but compare myself to her. She’d gotten Blake’s friendship from day one. I’d gotten only his hatred.
“It sounds like she was a nice girl.”
His smile trembled. “She was. She was the most amazing girl.”
I pursed my lips, holding back a sigh. He talked about her with so much love.
“And when did you start dating?” I asked tentatively.
“In seventh grade. I had a crush on her for a long time, and that’s when I finally found the guts to ask her out. We were fourteen when we got kidnapped.”
I pressed my hand over my lips. They were only fourteen. I tried to push away the image of Emma on the floor with that monster pressing her against it as he… No.
“But why? Why did they kidnap you?”
His eyes were on the pond, becoming glassy. “Money.” His voice was monotone, as if he’d said this word countless times before he became detached. “They knew my family was rolling in it, so they made a plan to capture me and demand ransom.”
I stifled a cry that burned to escape from my mouth. “Why did they take Emma?”
“She just happened to be with me. They never would’ve taken her if she hadn’t gone out with me that day.” He clenched his hand and released it right away, his eyes haunted. I could see it. He was blaming himself.
“That’s horrible,” I whispered, tears filling my eyes.
He crouched and ran his hand over the surface of the water, creating small ripples. “It was horrible. Day after day, hour after hour…minute after minute that felt like a fucking eternity, and I thought I was losing my sanity. I’d already lost hope we would ever get out of that place alive. We were left in that dark basement for days, and at times, they kept us without food or water. They beat me whenever I refused to listen to them, and sometimes it was so brutal I almost begged them to kill me so I wouldn’t have to feel that pain anymore. But I couldn’t die. I had to stay alive for her.” He stopped moving his hand, keeping it an inch above the water. “They filmed everything and sent my parents the videos as an ‘incentive’ to make them shell out their money.”
My throat closed at his words. His tone was emotionless, but I could feel the stormy emotions twirling beneath that impenetrable shield of his, and I wanted to take all his pain away. I wished for a healing touch that would make all his demons and bad memories disappear.
“But why did it take so long for your parents to pay the ransom?”
“At first, my dad didn’t want to yield to them. He thought they were just some rookies who would give up once they saw he wasn’t intimidated.” He smiled bitterly. “He was wrong.”
I didn’t know what to say. It was hard to believe his father was ready to gamble his son’s and Emma’s lives just so he wouldn’t be cornered into giving in to their demands.
“You saw that video. That was the eleventh day. After…” He closed his eyes. He made a motion like he was trying to grab the water, only to clench his hand so hard the veins on the back of his hand bulged out. “After her death, they kept me there for three more days, until my parents finally handed over the money. I don’t even remember the last day, because they beat me to the brink of death and I lost consciousness. I woke up at the hospital.”
I was shaking with silent tears that ran unchecked down my cheeks. My chest ached with dull pain that only pulsated stronger.
“Those days were a new kind of nightmare. I went crazy, raging and screaming at them to kill me because I didn’t want to live. I didn’t deserve to live. She was gone. She died because of me, and I was so mad, so full of anger. They had to strap me to the bed until they were sure I wasn’t going to kill myself.”
I pressed my hand over my chest. It hurt so much.
“Life wasn’t the same after that,” he concluded, standing up.
A flock of birds rushed across the sky, wonderfully free and unconstrained by the cage that life could be. The hues of orange, purple, pink, and red colored the horizon as the day gave way to night—a beautiful sight that contrasted with the ugliness of Blake’s past.
“I’m sorry, Blake. I’m so sorry for everything you had to go through. I’m sorry for Emma.”
He finally turned to look at me; his face was ghostly pale. His eyes scanned over mine, tracing my tears. “You’re crying. Why?”
I took a tentative step toward him. I wanted to pull him into a hug and tell him everything was going to be all right.
“Because I feel for you. I feel for Emma. I wish neither of you had gone through any of that. When I saw that video…” I wiped off the tears, but they kept coming. “It was monstrous. It was heartbreaking. I’m so sorry.”
He watched me silently with a blank face. He turned away and looked at the sky.
“My parents kept everything under wraps, you know? No police, no media, nothing. No one knew about it. They did everything they could to keep my father’s reputation and career intact, letting my kidnappers get away with it.”
“But what about…?”
“What?”
“What about Emma? The police must’ve been notified about her death.”
“They weren’t notified, because the kidnappers had disposed of her body somewhere.”
I cried out. She hadn’t even had a proper burial.
“Her grandmother wanted to bring those people to justice, but she had a stroke a few days after they released me. She died.”
I gave up on restraining myself and closed the distance between us. I brushed the remaining tears off my face as I placed my hand on his shoulder, remembering too late it was a wrong move.
He flinched and spun around to face me. “Fuck. Don’t touch me like that,” he hissed through his teeth. “Don’t ever touch my shoulder from behind.”
I cursed myself internally. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I won’t do it again.”
His brows drew tight. “I don’t like being touched like that. I can’t stand it.”
“Why?”
He inhaled a long breath and released it with a curse. “Because that’s how they got to me when they kidnapped us. Emma and I were walking together when someone approached us from behind and grabbed my shoulder before they knocked me unconscious. And now it’s my phobia. Just like the phobia of basements.”
I intertwined my fingers together. “I’m sorry, Blake. I wish there were something I could do to help—with your phobias, with everything. It sounds ridiculous because I know I can’t do anything, but still…I’m here if you need me.”
There was something in his eyes; it was like ice thawing in the sun, layer after layer. It held me still and left me short of breath.
“You’re here if I need you…even after everything I’ve done to you.” Slowly, he took my hand in his, never looking away from me. “I was such a fool. I did the worst things to you, and here you are, offering help to someone who doesn’t even deserve it.” He shook his head, smiling to himself, but the smile was self-reproaching. “All these years I’ve felt alone. I had family and friends, but they could never fill that void inside of me. I was always empty, but now, with you…”
I held my breath. “With me…?” I spurred him on, too curious to know.
“We were enemies. We have every reason not to be around
each other. You have every reason to hate me. But right now, with you, I feel this is how it’s supposed to be.” He caressed my palm with his thumb. “And I like the feeling.”
I observed our connected hands. I had so many things I wanted to say, but the words were stuck in my throat. He was completely opening up to me, allowing me to see much more than I’d ever hoped for.
I cleared my throat. “I also can’t lie to you and say I’ve gotten over our past, because I haven’t gotten over all the things you’ve done. Some of my scars are still fresh, but all I knew until now was running away from you and blaming you. I don’t want to feel bitter any longer and let it poison me. So I want to start over. You can be sure I won’t betray you. I won’t tell anyone what you’ve just told me.”
A ghost of a smile appeared briefly on his face as he held my gaze. “I know. I knew it the moment you sang those words as you looked at me like I was your everything. In front of the whole school…so brave.”
I stopped breathing, growing hot under his eyes. I was taken back to that moment on the stage when we looked at each other, bound by something that was stronger than us or our past. We were both puppets of the irony that led our lives, for how could something so pure as my feelings for him come out of ugliness? How could my enemy turn into someone I wanted to protect?
“Why are you giving your heart to me? I don’t deserve you.” His words were laden with anguish.
I pulled my hand out of his, blushing. “It’s not like I chose this. I didn’t choose how I feel, but then again, I believe in second chances. I believe if you want to change, you deserve a second chance.”
The briefest glimpse of hope illuminated his face, but then his eyes darkened and he turned away. “It’s too late for a second chance.”
My breathing halted. “What do you mean by that?”
“I already told you about my promise. I intend to keep it.”
My heart squeezed hard. “You want to get revenge on your kidnappers.”
“Yes. They got away with it, but not anymore. I’ve been searching for them for years, and now that I finally found them, I’ll get justice for Emma.”