I nod triumphantly, though while she’s wearing a bikini and cutoffs, chair positioned in the blazing sun, I’ve got my three-quarter-length red shirt and dark denim bermuda shorts on, chair strategically in the shade of one of the large trees that frame the cabin. Connor shrugs. “Suit yourselves.” He flashes a grin. “I’ll be back soon.”
I watch him walk away, then close my eyes again as the breeze picks up. I lay my head against the back of the chair. A bird calls in the distance, adding to my personal realm of tranquility. Why was I worried about this?
Another giggle erupts next to me, and I open my eyes to Ella’s face, flushed and excited, inches from mine. “Simone, do you want to come catch butterflies with me?”
I smile as she holds up two green nets. How can I turn down that hopeful little face? Plus, her timing is impeccable—I spot Connor’s mom walking toward us with another couple who’s arrived, so playing with Ella will save me from a fresh round of questioning.
“Sure.” I take one of the nets and jump up, then quickly reach my hand down to steady myself—head rush. After taking a beat to gather myself, I trot after Ella.
It’s warmer than I expect out in the sun, but I press forward. Ella has her eye on a bright-orange monarch in her grandma’s flower garden, and I’m her dutiful sidekick along for the ride. I make a show of grandly sweeping my net at a ladybug, and Ella giggles uncontrollably until we lose sight of the monarch. She’s disappointed until she spots a dragonfly and decides it’s now a dragonfly hunt.
That goes on for several minutes, and by the time I sprint after her toward a grove of trees, I’m breathing heavily, the sun blazing down on my back. Ella doubles back toward the flower garden and plops down among the flowers, disappointed. When I catch her, I drop down, too, wiping my slick face and trying to catch my breath. It’s like any stamina I’ve gained from all the workouts with Nikki is no match for this heat. My throat is dry, but I croak out, “What’s wrong?”
She pouts. “I can’t catch anything.”
“Maybe we could find more ladybugs?”
Her face lights up, and she springs to her feet. “Come on!”
I smile, wishing I had half her energy, and push myself up. But as I stand my head swims, my eyes blur. I take a deep breath, but a flash of nausea hits—the final blow—and when I reach out to steady myself, there’s nothing to grab on to. My hand flails, and I stumble forward onto one knee.
Ella leaps back, her little eyes widening. “Simone?”
I want to stand up and laugh it off, show her there’s nothing to fear, but the exhaustion is too strong, it’s too damn hot, and I need to focus on my breathing until the nausea subsides. I roll back to a sitting position, press a shaky hand to my burning cheeks in a feeble attempt to part the fog in my head. “Ella, can you please get Connor?” But in the distance I can hear the roar of the Jet Ski.
“Mom!” Ella yells, and I want so badly to tell her no, please don’t call attention to me, but the sun is blazing down, relentless. So I stay silent as I sit and wait, powerless.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Arielle rushes over and crouches in front of me, followed closely by Irene and the other couple—two people I’ve never met before. Perfect.
I focus on my breathing, slow and steady, but I don’t miss the stage whisper of the man behind Irene. “Is she drunk?” At least his wife has the decency to elbow him.
Arielle rolls her eyes. “Irene, why don’t you take the Fritzes and wave down Connor? They’re not that far from shore.”
She watches them go, cursing at them under her breath, then turns to me. “How can I help, Simone?”
She hands me a water bottle, and I take a cautious sip, then force a smile. “I’m sorry, it’s just so hot.”
“Do you need to go inside?”
I nod weakly. “ I just . . . don’t want to . . .” I glance around at the party, where people are still mingling in their respective areas but also sneaking furtive glances in our direction. I swallow back the lump in my throat. I don’t want to humiliate myself in front of a big group of strangers.
Arielle pshaws. “I wouldn’t worry about these people. Half of them are already drunk.” She sits down next to me, wrapping up her long black curls into a loose bun, and we’re quiet for a few moments before she speaks again. “The first time I met Cam’s family, we stayed up late playing drinking games, and I puked all over their table.”
“It happens,” I say sympathetically.
“All over the giant white-lace doily Irene used as a tablecloth.”
“Oof.”
“Yep. Her grandmother made it.”
My cringe deepens. “I mean, was it really a wise choice to have it out there in the first place?”
“Right? That’s what I thought, too.” We share a smile, and I am grateful. Ella walks over, and Arielle scoops her into her lap, braiding her daughter’s hair as we sit in silence, together.
Within moments, Connor rushes up to us, kneeling in front of me with worried eyes. “Simone, what happened?” His hand strokes gently across my flushed face.
I flash a wan smile. “It’s the heat. It’s not good . . . for . . .”
“MS.” His eyes soften in understanding.
“I’m sorry. It’s just . . . this hasn’t happened before.”
“Hey, don’t apologize,” he says softly as he takes my arm. “Come on, let’s get you inside.”
With him next to me, strong and solid, I rise to my feet easily, though another head rush rocks me as I stand. He wraps an arm around my shoulder, but as his other arm circles around me, I shake my head. “You don’t need to carry me. I can walk.”
“Are you sure?”
“I don’t . . .” My eyes dart around again. “I’m already embarrassed enough.”
“You have nothing to be embarrassed about,” Arielle says as she and Ella stand.
But I turn pleading eyes to Connor. “Please.” He nods, and we walk slowly together toward the house.
Inside, the air-conditioning wraps me in its cool embrace, and I ease down on the sofa.
“I’ll be right back,” Connor says. He returns within moments with a glass of ice water and a fan, which he points directly at my face, then sits down next to me and leans in, voice low. “Do you need to go to the doctor?”
I shake my head slowly, not wanting any more dizziness. “I’ll be fine, really. I just need to rest.”
He looks doubtful, though, as Arielle and Ella settle across from us on the opposite couch. “Hey, let’s watch a movie,” Arielle says brightly.
“The Last Jedi!” Ella cries.
Arielle’s eyes darken briefly, but she smiles, her voice light. “You’ve watched that, like, a million times already, El. Let’s watch something else.”
Ella sighs dramatically. “Okay, fine. Beauty and the Beast.”
The movie begins, and it’s just the four of us—no one else is looking at me, no one judging—and yet I can’t shake it. The knot in my gut. The shame and the helplessness. The fear, taunting me.
This will keep happening. Things will only get worse.
But Connor circles his arm around me, and I lean in to him, warm and solid. He is here, and everything is okay. That’s all that matters right now. I close my eyes and try to let my body rest, drifting off with the murmur of the movie in the background.
After a few minutes, Irene sticks her head in, her chipper voice waking me. “Hey, guys, Davey and Mick are here.”
Arielle scrunches her nose when Irene isn’t looking, but Connor’s face lights up. “Oh yeah? I didn’t know they were coming.”
“They’d like to see all of you. I told them Ella is getting so big. They’re waiting by the keg, of course.” Irene rolls her eyes, then adds wryly, “Don’t worry, your father is keeping them company.”
Connor turns to me. “They’re a couple of buddies from high school.”
Irene fixes her expectant smile on Arielle, whose face is expressionless as she pauses the movie.
Ella whines, but Arielle gets her up and outside with the promise of another freezie pop. As they breeze stoically by, I marvel at Arielle’s strength, how every moment here with Cam’s family and friends must be a reminder of all that she’s lost.
I turn to Connor. “Aren’t you going out to say hi?”
He shakes his head, grabs the remote. “Nah, I’m good.”
“Connor.” I stare at him until he meets my eyes. “I’m fine. Go.”
“You’re sure?” I nod, so he leans in and kisses my forehead, then jumps up. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, okay?”
I smile as I watch him go, and so does his mom. At least I think she’s watching him, but when I turn toward her, I realize she’s watching me, her smile at the dangerous crossroads between sympathy and pity. I brace myself.
She clucks, hand to her chest. “He’s always been such a good boy—so loyal and dependable.”
“That’s great,” I say cautiously.
“He’s my little fixer.”
My stomach lurches. “Your what?”
“You know, just always there to help people who need it—his friends, his family, people who are, you know, struggling. Less fortunate.” She beams at me. “And it’s just so nice that now you have him to help you.”
It’s like a punch to the gut. She sighs, a wistful little puff, and then flits away still wearing her proud-mama smile.
But her words linger behind. And I sit with them in the silence, alone.
PART EIGHT
CONCEALMENT
Monday, December 6, 10:11 a.m.
I freeze, silent, as another footstep creaks outside the office door—then terror courses through me when the handle jiggles.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
It’s locked and barricaded, I remind myself. He can’t get in.
“Hello? 911. Is someone there?” I want to answer the woman on the phone, but I can’t take my focus off the door handle. There’s a scrape of metal on metal, one and then another, the handle jiggling each time but not giving.
As if the person has a set of keys, trying each one.
Hayley whimpers and Nikki clutches my hand, her fingers cold and clammy. It’s the jolt I need—this is real, and time is running out.
And I’ll be damned if we sit here in the open, defenseless.
“There’s a shooter on campus at Southeastern State University,” I hiss into the phone. “Herald Hall 120.”
I drop the receiver and turn to Hayley. “Closet.” The word is barely a whisper, but she leaps up, rushes across the office, and pulls open the closet door.
I wrap my arms under Nikki and lift, the rush of self-preservation on my side as I carry her across the room, legs aflame with pins and needles with every step. Her breaths are rough and I know she’s in pain, she’s losing so much blood, but we have to hide—nothing will matter if we don’t get to that goddamn closet.
Inside the long, narrow closet, I lay Nikki down as gently as possible as Hayley eases the door shut behind us. Nikki is shaking now—I think she’s going into shock?—so I whip off my cardigan and drape it over her.
My arms tremble as I press down on her wound again. She’ll be okay. We’ll stay here in the dark until help arrives. Police response time is minutes—Officer Jackson might even be on campus right now.
Or she might be dead.
Before the thought fully forms, a loud bang shatters the silence. My eyes whip frantically to Hayley, who stares back at me wide eyed, crouched in the corner of the closet.
But it isn’t a gunshot—it’s the office door, slamming against the bookshelf.
Another bang rings out, then another, like a relentless beating drum, but suddenly it stops. A deathly silence hums around us, seconds ticking by excruciatingly slowly, and then I hear a sound even more terrifying.
The creak of footsteps inside the office.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
July 4, five months before
Fixer. The word repeats itself inside my head, a relentless beating drum, but I don’t have long to wallow before Arielle and Ella return, the former muttering obscenities under her breath. Gratitude fills me—at least we can sit in our misery together. Surely the low point of the day is over. Once we’re out of here, I can try to process Connor’s mom’s statement and how it made me feel—for now, I need to get through the rest of this visit.
Thankfully, I get to hide here in this blessedly cool room with two members of Connor’s family I truly like.
I’m getting hungry, but I’ll be damned if I’ll risk talking to anyone else to go out to the buffet table and make a plate. I glance at my phone—almost eight o’clock. We’d planned to be on the road by nine. I can hold out for another hour; then maybe we can stop for food on the way home.
Connor bounds into the room then and sets a plate on my lap triumphantly. I catch a whiff of nacho-cheesy goodness before I even look down. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted a burger or a brat, so I thought I would bring you Doritos for an appetizer.” He grins at all three of us, and when Ella jumps up, he scoops her up. “Come on, guys, grab a plate. They’re about to start.”
“About to start what?” Arielle’s eyes narrow.
“The slideshow.” Connor’s grin broadens, and it strikes me that his enthusiasm is fake, the Doritos a delicious bribe to stay later than our agreed-upon departure time.
“Slideshow?” I ask softly.
“God dammit.” Arielle doesn’t mutter, and Connor’s jaw tenses.
“Mommy!” Ella claps a hand to her mouth.
Arielle forces a smile. “Sorry, baby. I’ll put a quarter in the swear jar when we get home.”
Connor turns to me, his eyes questioning. “You feeling up to it?”
His mom’s words—my little fixer—slice through me, and I nod, pushing myself to my feet. I shove some Doritos into my mouth and follow them down the fluffy carpeted stairs into the basement great room, unsure exactly what it is we’re walking into.
Apparently it’s an annual family tradition to stuff their sweaty, tipsy bodies downstairs to watch a slideshow of their family adventures throughout the years. I’m hanging out in the back, leaning against the wall, giggling as I watch Connor with his awkward preteen mullet flexing for pictures with his cousins, or Connor the chubby little toddler wearing his He-Man Halloween costume.
But as the pictures press on—well past nine o’clock—through the relentless procession of time, Arielle’s face grows paler. Connor is growing closer to adulthood—and so is his brother. Sure enough, photos begin to pop up of Arielle and Cam—at prom, graduation, and finally, their wedding day.
Ella is loving it, sitting on her grandma’s lap, eyes glued to the large flat-screen on the wall in front of her, but I catch Arielle swiping at her eyes as she sneaks silently up the stairs.
Then another couple fills the screen, and my heart leaps to my throat.
It’s Connor, a bit younger, with a strikingly beautiful redhead.
Well, it’s nice to finally meet you, Diana.
I was wrong. I hadn’t yet reached the night’s low point—or maybe I had, but somehow we’ve now sunk beyond the low point and into the second level of hell.
And is it my imagination, or has an awkward hush fallen over the room—are eyes darting to me? It’s certainly quieter, voices not as boisterous now. Next to me, Connor visibly tenses, his eyes flitting apologetically to mine as the screen shows Connor and Diana dancing at Cam and Arielle’s wedding, Connor and Diana wearing matching sweaters at Christmastime, Connor and Diana cuddled together on a ski lift.
Finally, he rubs his forehead. “Mom.”
A few uncomfortable snickers burst out around the room, and Irene shrugs. “Sorry—we add on to the same old slideshow every year. We’ll be past these soon, Simone.”
I am horrified at the callout and the laughter that follows. I shrink into myself but still can’t stop watching as the photos continue. Connor and Diana running a marathon—a marathon? I glance at him,
and he smiles sheepishly, shrugs. He has never mentioned this, and I am humiliated when I realize why—because I’m struggling to even run a 5K, and he didn’t want to embarrass me.
Of course not—he wants to help me. I’m the girlfriend he needs to help.
Next—as if the universe really wants to drive home the stark contrasts between us—is a rock-climbing selfie. Shit, she’s even one of those women who looks beautifully put together when she sweats.
Then the room goes silent. Connor jumps up, mutters “God dammit,” and bolts forward to manually skip the slideshow forward, but not before I see it. Diana, smiling big as life, Connor kissing her demurely.
Her hand thrust forward, displaying her bright, shiny diamond ring.
My breath leaves me.
They were engaged?
I fight not to react. I know all eyes are on me, but as Connor and his mom argue and fumble with the projector, I slip up the stairs as quickly as possible, not looking back.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Up in the silent kitchen, my hands shake as I take out my phone and type out a text to Nikki.
I am in hell.
My phone buzzes with her response within moments.
Well, you are in North Dakota.
I scoff. Very funny. Seriously, this is terrible.
You’re meeting the in-laws. What do you expect?
The in-laws. The phrase jolts me. Before today I could picture it. I’ve been picturing it since we met, if I’m honest. The fantasy of it.
But now the reality doesn’t seem as possible. Now I’ve seen a glimpse of Connor’s past life with Diana—healthy, adventurous Diana. I try to reconcile it with his life with me—needy, fragile me.
More ugly words swirl about my mind, taunting me. Telling me I’m fooling myself to think this could work. Even a fixer has limits when the burden is too great.
Burden. The word strikes me hard and fast, a white-hot poker straight to my core.
A sob wells up in my throat, threatening to escape, and I clamp my hand over my mouth.
The Speed of Light Page 17
