by Heather Levy
She was almost finished when Isaac wiggled his fingers.
“Time for your end of the bargain, girlie.”
She paused sketching, trying to form a lie. She couldn’t think of one.
“I don’t know. I guess it feels good.”
He appeared to contemplate this.
“What kind of good?”
She shifted on the log, the words in her not even making sense to herself. It felt good because pain made her feel in control of her mind. It made the dark thoughts she had disappear for a while. Thoughts of her daddy, thoughts of never being able to get out of Blanchard and being stuck on the farm helping her mama and Grandma Haylin for the rest of her life.
“It just…I don’t know. It helps me not think about my dad.”
Isaac moved closer to her, and his knee touched hers.
“My dad left me and my brother when we were little too.”
Sam looked up at him. His face was serious, not open and friendly how it usually was.
“And I’m going to tell you something. It was the best damn thing he could’ve done for us.”
Sam didn’t understand how a father leaving could ever be good.
“He wasn’t a happy person, and he made life hell for everyone around him.” Isaac leaned forward, rested his hands on his thighs. “When he left, it was like the sun could shine again. We could breathe.”
“Didn’t you miss him?”
Isaac frowned a little. “Sure, I did, but the pain he left behind, it made me stronger. I had to stop being a kid and help my mom and brother. I had to be strong for them, for myself.”
Isaac took her hand, gave it a quick pump before letting go. It was the first time he had ever touched her. She had never given him a hug, even when her mama urged her to.
“We can’t control when people hurt us, but pain can be a good thing. It makes us resilient. Powerful.” He cocked his grin at her. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of for liking it.”
Sam smiled at him. His words made her feel less like a freak.
“Let’s finish up here and get back to the house before your mama starts to worry.”
Sam took up her sketchpad again and began shading in the creases of each finger. She tried hard not to think of those fingers touching her.
***
Sam stared down at the half-read Euripides’ Medea beside her in bed, the words distorting the more she tried to concentrate on them. The evening was so hatefully sweltering she could hardly stand wearing underwear. She did anyway in case her mama checked in on her after she got back from her evening out with Isaac, but she had taken off her shirt. Sam glanced over her bare shoulder at her door, half-expecting Arrow to be there apologizing for being such an asshole.
She didn’t understand why he stopped coming to her room, why he stopped talking to her or wanting to kiss her again. The whys got stuck in her throat, she felt them when she took a sip of water.
She thought of what Isaac had said, about pain making you stronger. She didn’t feel stronger, though. She felt confused about everything.
She set her book aside and dug out her portable CD player and headphones from her nightstand. She closed her eyes, the effort to hold back tears burning her face. Cocteau Twins surrounded her, the unearthly beauty of the music temporarily lifting the need to be touched by Arrow again. The sounds carried her deeper and deeper until she no longer heard her dog’s barking or the whine of animals in the barn. She didn’t know which song she fell asleep to, but she awoke to “Otterley.”
She was on her back, and she felt a weight next to her on her bed. A hand reached out and found one of her hands, a thumb caressing hers. She didn’t move. After the song ended, she slowly removed her headphones and turned onto her side. With her old nightlight the sole illumination, she could only see the outline of his face, not his expression.
For a brief moment, she imagined it was Isaac, not Arrow, next to her, and fear traced a fingernail down her spine. The rumors of rape flared in her mind, and she held her breath, her entire body frozen.
Arrow pulled closer to her, his hand lightly touching her shoulder, and the fear evaporated.
His lips brushed her own, so soft, but she pushed away from him.
“Why did you ignore me?” she asked.
“I wasn’t trying to, but—”
“You admit it, then.”
He said nothing but she sensed his silent yes.
“I don’t get you. You kiss me and then you act like it was nothing. What do you want?”
But she knew. He moved his hand over her naked chest, exploring like a blind person in a new room, every surface gently touched and memorized, her skin tingling with goosebumps. Yes, she knew what he wanted. It was what she wanted too, and she knew he came to her because their parents were away for the evening and Grandma Haylin was at the church bingo.
He moved his hand lower, over her stomach, and she let him. She saw how nervous and young he looked and realized he didn’t know what he was doing any more than she did.
“Sam, I know I shouldn’t, but I like you. I just…”
“Just what?”
Arrow stopped moving his hand and stared at her, into the dark bubble of her bedroom.
“I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Chapter 6: Eric, 2009
There were many building supply stores in Oklahoma City, but Eric always found himself driving the forty minutes south to Blanchard when he had a new remodeling job. The building supply there was reasonable, but that’s not why he went. Today, like most days when he drove out to Blanchard, he cruised down County Line Road, Nine Inch Nails or Tool blasting. He drove down a packed dirt lane leading to a small acreage, to the place where Sam grew up.
The current owners had torn down the two-story white farmhouse, built a brown brick single-story home in its place. Eric wanted to scream and cry the first time he saw the new house, and he did allow himself some tears once he saw that they’d kept the old red barn. They painted it white, but he saw that the inside was remarkably the same. How many times had he snuck onto the property since that first time? Probably dozens. Each time Eric told himself it’d be the last, that it was wrong and dangerous to trespass, but being there helped him feel whole again.
Two years and the owners still hadn’t worked the land, and Eric wondered why the hell they bought it. There were twenty or so chickens in a poorly made coop, and the owners had a thin dairy cow he usually saw inside the barn instead of out grazing the fields.
He parked at least a hundred yards from the beginning of the dirt road and walked to the property, red dust billowing in clouds behind him. He made sure no one was around and crept past the new house to the barn. The mid-afternoon sun made the whitewash appear to glow, reminding him of the church Jeri had forced him to attend, how the Sunday morning sun reached its fingers out from the sides of the building. Each time he approached the barn, his heart sped up with the thought that Sam would be there waiting for him when he entered. The disappointment of knowing he was alone dragged his stomach down to his feet until he felt like he was tripping over memories of her.
He entered the barn, the cow acknowledging him with a low moo. The wooden ladder leading up to the loft was splintery but solid, and Eric slowly climbed, feeling the ache in his damaged left leg with each rung. There wasn’t much space at the top, and he had to crouch over to the corner of the loft where he used to sneak away with Sam, talking and making out on the hay for hours. He had never been with anyone like he was with her, without any thought about time.
He kneeled down and crawled to the space just under the large hinged window. It was closed, trapping the summer heat inside the barn. Eric rolled his eyes. The new owners had no idea what they were doing. He was tempted to lift the window, let in some air for the cow, but instead he ran his hand down the wall until his fingers found grooves in the weathered oak. His fingertips traced the carved heart, the ‘E’ and ‘S’ inside, and he was ba
ck where he wanted to be, where he needed to be.
“How often do you come here?” a woman’s voice called from below.Shit. He thought he had been careful, parking his truck well outside of the property. There was no good explanation for him being there but for the truth. It had been his home once, no matter how short a time. He stooped back to the ladder and looked over, expecting to see an angry homeowner. It was as if a hard wind blew him back, knocking him on his ass. He quickly recovered and looked over the ladder again.
Sam peered up at him, her face set in an expression he could study for a thousand years and never know the meaning of. She stood erect and tense like she was about to change her mind and run off.
She wore a pale gray V-neck shirt, tight blue jeans hugging her curves. Her long dark hair was down and parted in the middle, and a simple gold necklace rested above her breasts. She was more beautiful than he remembered.
“Barn cat got your tongue?” she said.
“No, I’m just—I didn’t expect you here.”
“Well, I am.”
He felt silly trying to talk from the loft, so he climbed down the ladder, the pain in his calf increasing by the minute. He was glad he was wearing one of his nicer plaid button-up shirts with good clean boots, but he didn’t shave that morning and now regretted his laziness.
When he reached the ground, he wasn’t sure what to do. It had been a week since he saw her at the bank, and he figured ever speaking with her again was a lost cause. He had so many questions he wanted to ask her, namely why she decided to see him now. He tried to act casual by leaning against the ladder. Really, he wanted to sit somewhere to get pressure off his left leg before it gave out on him.
“Still bothers you, huh?” Sam said, eyeing his calf.
“Yeah, but it’s okay most of the time.” He was a good three inches taller than she was, but Sam seemed to tower over him, her eyes pressing him closer to the ladder. “Did you follow me here?”
“You’re not the only one who can stalk people.”
“I didn’t stalk you. I just had to cash a check and there you were.” He saw she looked doubtful. “How did you find me?”
“It wasn’t hard. Public records.”
So, she followed him from his house, and he hadn’t even noticed her vehicle behind him.
He took a tentative step forward, and Sam stepped back, crossing her arms.
“I can’t believe these assholes tore down the house,” she said. “Had another hundred years in it, at least.”
“I know. Field’s gone to dust too.”
“It’s depressing as hell. Why did you come here?”
He didn’t know how to explain it to her, how coming to the property felt like coming home. “I miss it. It was good land, still is.”
“You miss the land.” There was so much bitterness and hurt in Sam’s face, Eric almost broke down in front of her. “Then why the hell did you leave?”
“I didn’t want to leave. Your mom—I don’t know why but she didn’t want me around. She called services, and I went into foster care.”
Sam closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. She looked like Jeri when she had been stressed and about to lose her shit. “My mom wouldn’t have done that. I would’ve known.”
“Ask Grandma Haylin. She knows all about it.”
Sam released a sound as if Eric had punched her chest.
“Grandma…she died a couple of years after you left. Another stroke.” Her voice broke, and he could see she was fighting tears.
Eric closed the gap between them and held Sam. He felt her stiffen in his arms.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, and Sam relaxed a little.
He had loved Grandma Haylin. She’d been kind to him, treated him like family. He owed her so much.
“I needed you, Eric, and you disappeared. I didn’t even know if you were alive until…until a few years ago.”
So, he was right and she had blocked him after he liked her Facebook status. He couldn’t be angry about it now that he knew why she shut him out. She thought he had abandoned her.
He looked down at her sandaled feet. Her toes were painted shiny red, and he wanted to touch them. He imagined someone, a boyfriend or husband, holding those perfectly painted feet, kissing them. “The first year in foster care, I wrote letters to you. All the time.”
Sam pulled back from him. “I never got any letters from you.”
He shook his head. “I promise I did. None got returned.”
He imagined Jeri ripping up every letter. Of course she would protect her daughter from him whatever way she could. At the time, he thought Sam wanted nothing more to do with him. He had never felt so alone in his life, not even after his mom died.
“What did you write to me?”
Eric forced himself to look into her eyes, and he thought he saw the old Sam, the young, strong-willed Sam who was too smart for the town where she was born and raised.
“Stuff about the families I was staying with and my new school. Things like that.”
“That’s it?” she said, disappointment in her voice.
“No. I wrote about how much I missed you. That I…that I would find a way back to see you.”
Sam shook her head as if she didn’t believe him. He needed her to believe.
“Well, you didn’t come back,” she said. “And I was okay.”
His heart sank to the dirt. “Why did you follow me here?”
Sam stepped back from him, her eyes red and lips hardened.
“A detective came to my work.”
Eric stared back at her, confused.
“Police found a white Chevy in the pond, the one off Morgan.”
Then Eric understood. His father’s truck.
“The detective asked a lot of questions. Questions about you and Isaac. Questions that made me think…”
It took all his power to ask, “What?”
“That something bad happened to him.”
He saw worry in Sam’s eyes, worry for his father. It made his stomach turn.
“Police already talked to my mom. She hasn’t even mentioned it to me. Probably doesn’t want to worry me.” She shrugged. “I told the detective I don’t know where you are.”
“Why’d you say that? I have nothing to hide.”
Sam shot him a fierce look and he knew what she was thinking. That December day fifteen years ago.
Eric didn’t want to relive that day, the sound of Bing Crosby’s singing and the smell of Grandma Haylin’s freshly baked gingerbread cookies following him to the woods lining the farmhouse. Deep into those woods, he walked, his pocketknife ready.
Whenever he thought of that day, it was in bursts, in white flashes of fear and the sound of Sam crying over his leg gushing blood, her own right hand cut deep, the gray sky dotted black with scattering birds.
“Eric, we need to find Isaac.”
He knew what Sam was getting at. His father would never part with his truck. Change the license plate to avoid the police, sure, but not leave it at the bottom of a pond. If the police thought something happened to his father and didn’t find him, there’d be questions Eric didn’t want to answer.
He looked Sam in the eyes, and he knew she didn’t want to answer those questions either.
He took her hand. “Okay.”
Chapter 7: Sam, 1994
I don’t want you to get hurt.
Sam asked Arrow what he meant, but he kissed her instead of giving her an answer, his hands sliding off her underwear, his fingers pushing between her legs until she forgot his words and only wanted more from him. When he finally gave her what she wanted, she cried.
She cried because it felt good. She cried because she could never get the girl she had been back, and she wasn’t sure who the new girl was yet. She was a bubble floating free, afraid of the approaching treetops.
Arrow stopped moving in her. “Am I hurting you?”
The bubble popped. “No,�
� she lied, her temples wet with tears. It felt like being torn in half with all the blood in her body pooling to that single area throbbing with the pain, a pain so wrapped in pleasure she wasn’t sure which she liked more.
When she didn’t move with him, he continued until he sharply inhaled like he was the one hurting, and warmth filled her. She had seen enough animals mate to know what the warmth was, and she felt soiled like she had in church four years ago when her period first came. She had bled on her favorite blue dress, soaked right through it onto the wooden pew and she had no idea. Her mama scolded her as if she’d done it on purpose. She didn’t want to think about the sticky blood between her thighs after Arrow pulled out of her, her old self exiting with him, but she was glad she was on top of her bedding. Can’t wash a mattress.
“What are you thinking about?” Arrow whispered, his head nestled in the nook of her neck.
“Zeus and Hera.”
“Why?”
She wiggled her shoulder until Arrow traded places with her, allowing her to rest her head on him.
“Zeus and Hera were brother and sister. They got married and had kids. Hera was always crazy because Zeus was a cheating asshole.” Like her daddy.
“But we’re not related.” He lightly rubbed her head in an even, circular motion that was exactly how her mama stroked her head when she was little. It made goosebumps rise on her skin. “What? Are you scared of going to hell?”
Sam swallowed hard. She thought of her mama’s face when she listened to Pastor Doss preach, the way her eyes closed and her hand lifted high toward the ceiling, the Spirit overcoming her. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“Well, I’m not scared of hell.”
“How can you not be scared of hell?”
Arrow withdrew his hand buried in her hair. “Because I’ve seen it.”
The way he sounded as he said it, the sudden flatness to his voice, made her shiver. He pulled the covers over them although it was still burning up in her room.
She was about to ask him what kind of hell he had seen, the rape rumors itching on her tongue, but he cuddled close to her again, holding her like she’d disappear.
