Walking Through Needles

by Heather Levy

  From the first time he saw Sam at the feed shop while Jeri was working behind the counter flirting with his father, he knew. He knew he needed to know her.

  “I’ve always loved you. Nothing’s changed.”

  Sam’s body relaxed until she molded with his own, just like when they were younger and it seemed they could never get close enough. He inhaled the scent of her fruity shampoo, the freshness of her mixed with the heat of their bodies.

  “I can’t believe he’s dead.”

  “I know,” he said into her hair, hugging her closer.

  “I guess that makes you an orphan now.”

  He hadn’t thought of that, but Sam saying it made the truth punch through his chest. He had no parents. He had no one. Tears came from nowhere and he couldn’t prevent them. The shame of crying in front of her made it harder to stop.

  “It’s okay.”

  “Is this real?” he choked out. “Is this really happening?”

  He felt Sam hesitate before rubbing the back of his head. “Yeah.”

  He couldn’t get a handle on himself. He didn’t know what it was he was feeling. Maybe regret. He could never look his father in the eyes and try to understand him, to somehow release the apprehension tunneled inside him, eating his insides.

  “Hey.” Sam pressed her hands to his cheeks, wiping away his tears with her thumbs. “It’s okay. I’m here. It’s going to be okay.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know, but it will.”

  She touched his cheek as if to confirm it, but it wasn’t enough for him. She didn’t feel real. Nothing felt real.

  He held her face in his hands, felt her stiffen in his arms when he sought her lips. Her body eased against him, and she kissed him back with a fierceness that surprised him. The taste of her mouth made him want to taste every part of her. He kissed along her neck, pushed up her top and kissed the breasts he had dreamed about for the last fifteen years. Every part of her was new and terrifying, surreal. She took his hand, pulled it back up and kissed his palm before forming his fingers around her throat.

  He froze.

  “It’s okay,” she said, her breath fast and urgent against his face. “I want you to.”

  He knew what she wanted from him. The thing he couldn’t give her those years ago. She pressed his fingers tighter on her neck, and he felt every cord of muscle twitch under his hand.

  Everything in him fought against his hand squeezing her long neck, against pressing her into her bed with his weight until he trapped her under him. The sound of pleasure that escaped her lips stabbed through his hand, up his arm, and into his chest and he thought about stopping, getting dressed, and leaving her there on the bed, half-naked.

  He wanted this to be real, for her to be real for him again and make him feel real too. Not like this, though.

  He let go of her neck. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You won’t. I’ll help you.”

  He held in the words he wanted to say: Please, don’t ask me to be like him.

  “I can’t.”

  He tried to kiss her again, but she turned her face and removed his hand from her breast.

  “It’s okay,” she said, but he knew it wasn’t.

  For those short, beautiful moments, though, he found himself in her touch, in hearing her shallow breath against his ear, and there was no time, no past. It was just them in the bed with the storm raging overhead. Now, there was nothing, and he was so tired.

  He turned on his side, away from Sam. She stroked his arm, but he couldn’t find sleep.

  “I should get back to my place,” he said.

  Sam was quiet for a long moment. “Okay.”

  He couldn’t leave fast enough.

  Chapter 16: Sam, 2009

  Sam sat at a table near the front door at a kitschy diner, a place off the highway feeding into Guthrie. She ordered a cheeseburger and fries from the server who was too old to be doing that sort of job and waited.

  She didn’t immediately recognize Meredith Lang from her Facebook profile pic. For one, Meredith had dyed her long strawberry blond hair a gaudy burgundy color and cut it into a jagged bob. She also had the stringy, wired look typical of a meth user. She was almost Sam’s age, but she looked a hell of a lot older.

  Sam waited for her food, playing a game on her iPhone and trying not to think about how Eric couldn’t wait to leave her place last night. She knew why he left. He was disgusted with himself, with her too, for what she asked him to do to her. She touched her throat, remembered the feel of Eric’s hands on her, how her pulse raced when he said he still loved her.

  She called him again. She didn’t leave another message when it went straight to voicemail.

  She told herself she wouldn’t let it bother her. She’d experienced much worse than a man rejecting her call, but this was different. It felt like he had rejected a core part of her, a part Isaac had accepted as natural, a part she had taken years to accept herself.

  Sam wondered if Meredith was like her, craving pain.

  One thing she did know was that Meredith had a good reason to kill Isaac. A cup of coffee and a quick Internet search later, and she was on her way to Guthrie where Meredith now lived.

  She called in sick to work and planned to stake out Meredith’s apartment complex, but she wanted to see what Meredith was like while she worked. Unlike Sam, Meredith had her workplace listed on her Facebook page. Grandma Haylin always said a person could tell a lot by how someone works. Sam hated the satisfaction derived from knowing her life was better than Meredith’s. “Get off your high horse,” her mom was fond of telling her. Her mom had nearly guilted her out of attending college, as if Sam was going to forget where she came from by earning a degree. She could never forget their farmhouse, what happened there, even now with it torn down.

  She watched Meredith, who appeared to be a decent waitress. She was quick to refill glasses, unlike Sam’s server, and her smile, while never quite reaching her eyes, contained all obligatory friendliness needed for food service work. The more she watched Meredith, the less she could picture her as an innocent fifteen-year-old girl raped by Isaac Walker. She saw a capable woman. She saw herself.

  Service at the diner was so slow, a couple cursed their way out the door without getting their food. An hour later, Sam’s greasy burger arrived, lukewarm and nearly inedible. She ate a few bites, paid, and left, waiting in her car until Meredith exited the restaurant shortly after two-thirty.

  The distance to Meredith’s apartment complex wasn’t far, and Sam stayed well behind the woman’s dinged-up red Ford Focus. She thought of what Eric had told her the night before, Meredith the straight-A student before Isaac got to her. Plied with liquor, Eric went into a sort of trance when she asked him about what happened in Anadarko with Meredith and Isaac, some terrible memory paralyzing him. So many times, her own memories had done the same to her, but she pretended that those bad things happened to someone else, like she had watched a horror movie and simply had a hard time shaking it from her mind. She had to think that way or she’d probably be like Meredith—scraping by to support some addiction.

  Meredith parked and headed up a flight of rust-stained stairs to the second story of apartment units. Sam followed her, stepping over puddles left by the storms. She forgot everything she wanted to ask the woman, her hand glued to the stair railing. Meredith paused in front of a badly dented door and turned around. She looked directly at Sam, a half-cocked smile on her face.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Sam called up to her. “Could you tell me where the front office is?”

  Meredith shifted a messenger bag nearly half her size to her other arm. “You looking for a place?”

  “I might be.”

  Meredith slowly made her way down the narrow metal stairs. Up closer, the woman’s blue eyes lined with too much black liner were so piercing they looked as fake as her tan. She scanned Sam’s outfit, h
er expensive jeans and nice red blouse. “You want to live here?”

  “This place is as good as any.”

  “Sure.” Meredith smirked. “You know, it’s not working.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “This little act of yours. You think I’m slow? You think I don’t know?”

  Sam couldn’t disguise the surprise on her face. She stepped forward and her leather sandals sunk into some mud. The other woman laughed with pure venom. Sam looked up sharply at her as she pulled her feet out and found solid ground.

  She had an eerie feeling Meredith could read her mind and knew who she was and why she was there.

  “Isaac Walker’s dead. Did you know that?”

  Meredith’s lips tensed into a thin line. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

  Sam held the woman’s gaze. “Oh, I think you do.”

  “I don’t even know you, but you’re about to know me if you don’t leave me alone.” Meredith crossed her arms, her mouth tight, everything about her exuding clear hostility.

  “Isaac was my stepfather. Some…things happened with him,” Sam said, unsure of how to say it. “Bad things. And I know he hurt you too.”

  Meredith’s sudden laughter cut through Sam’s stomach with its viciousness. “You must be off your meds, lady, so I’m going to kindly ask you to leave before I call someone.”

  Meredith turned and started back up the stairs with her large bag.

  “Did you love Isaac? Is that why you didn’t turn him in?”

  Meredith turned around.

  She ran down the stairs so fast Sam feared she’d keep going until they collided. Meredith stopped right in front of Sam and slammed her messenger bag down.

  “I see you following me again, I’ll fucking rip every inch of that hair from your head. You understand?”

  Meredith looked ready to tackle her, and Sam stepped back. Eric was right. The woman was tiny, but she seemed plenty capable of murder.

  “I just want to talk,” Sam said.

  “Bitch, what part did you not understand? Get the hell out of here.”

  “Mom?”

  Sam turned to see a gangly teen boy walking up to Meredith, his backpack slung over his shoulder. He stopped and stared at Sam and then back at Meredith, worry in his sable-brown eyes.

  “Go upstairs, baby. I’m almost done here,” Meredith said to him, keeping her eyes on Sam. The boy didn’t move, anxiety plain on his face. “Now, Caleb.”

  “Jesus,” Sam heard herself whisper. She no longer listened the stream of threats running from Meredith’s mouth.

  Sam couldn’t stop staring at the boy, at his straight, determined nose and round sad eyes.

  The boy inching up the stairs could have been Eric.

  Chapter 17: Arrow, 1994

  Arrow leaned against the chicken coop, watching the birds peck away at the feed he sprinkled until the ground was bare and he scattered more. He looked up at the late September sky, the blue so bright it hurt his eyes. If nothing else, he would have good weather for his sixteenth birthday.

  Sam told him she had a surprise for him later, but he couldn’t get excited about it when he knew her mind wasn’t on him. When they were together now, she wasn’t herself. For one, she was too nice to him, never challenging what he said as she normally did. She never told him exactly what had happened with his father, but Arrow knew whatever his dad had done changed her.

  Sam wasn’t the only one acting weird. His dad would come around to his room each evening, asking him about school, attempting to rouse him to the idea of trying out for football the following year. He couldn’t figure out why his dad suddenly cared how he was doing, and he started to think maybe he was being paranoid. Maybe his dad had changed and nothing happened with Sam.

  “Boy, you keep overfeeding them chickens they’re gonna pop like ticks and I’m not cleaning up the mess.”

  He smiled at Grandma Haylin and glanced back down at his feet. She had been a lot nicer to him since witnessing his dad beat him, sitting down to talk with him about school every day, letting him lick cake batter off the spoon when she baked, and sneaking extra cookies into his lunch bag. He liked her looking out for him, especially since Jeri didn’t seem to know how to act around him. Grandma Haylin felt like a real grandparent, something he always wanted. His dad’s parents were dead, or at least that’s what his father told him. His mom’s mother was in some nursing home in Idabel, drooling on herself, and his mom never knew her dad.

  “You as shy at school as you are around here?”

  Arrow looked Grandma Haylin in the eyes. “No, ma’am.”

  She lumbered closer to him and took the feedbag from his hands. “I expect not. Probably a little lady killer with those dimples and puppy dog eyes.”

  “Not really, ma’am.”

  She raised her eyebrows at him. “Only eyes for one girl, huh?”

  He looked down at his feet again. “Maybe.”

  “You know how old Jeri Anne was when she had Sam?”

  Arrow peered at Grandma Haylin and shook his head.

  “Seventeen,” she said, tightening the string on the feedbag. “Too damn young, if you ask me, which nobody does. And that no-good sonofabitch who got her that way was no better than a baby himself. Wouldn’t even marry her.”

  Normally, he enjoyed it when Grandma Haylin tried to chat with him, but he felt the conversation going somewhere that made him want to disappear.

  Grandma Haylin came up next to Arrow and took his hand. She placed something in his palm, curled his fingers around it. “I don’t mean to raise great-grandbabies, you get me? Jeri Anne and Sam were more than enough for me.”

  Arrow opened his hand and saw a green ribbon of folded foil packets. Condoms. Some of the boys at school kept them in their back pockets like they were good luck charms, the small squares reshaping the denim of their jeans, badges of honor the girls blushed over. His dad had used them with Vickie when they lived with her, the tiny bits of torn metallic wrapper dotting the bedroom carpet like leftover confetti from a birthday party.

  He realized Grandma Haylin knew about him being with Sam, yet she hadn’t told their parents. “Ma’am…I, uh…”

  “Happy birthday, lady killer.”

  She tousled his hair and limped back toward the house.

  He stared down at the condoms in his hand, shocked and embarrassed, before shoving them into his back pocket.

  He grabbed the feedbag and headed back to the barn to store it away. The goats were out grazing, so the barn was quiet when he entered. He went to the back, put away the feed, and looked over at Maddie’s old stall. He expected it would remain empty for some time.

  A crazy image entered his head, and it made him sick. He imagined Sam in the stall, naked and tied up by her wrists, her eyes glazed over like a Jesus freak at Jeri’s church. Then he imagined himself pushing into Sam from behind, her bound and helpless, and his groin stirred.

  “Dreaming of that cake Grandma Haylin made, son?”

  His dad came up next to him and Arrow’s heart sped up.

  “Or, are you dreaming of something else?” His dad’s face was dead serious for a moment before he broke out laughing and slapped Arrow hard on the back. “I have something for you.”

  His dad placed his arm around his shoulder as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Arrow tried to relax his body, but his dad’s arm felt like a boa constrictor coiling around him tight, tighter.

  His dad pulled a slender box from his back pocket and handed it to him. Arrow opened it and saw it was a pocketknife, a nice one with an ornate mother of pearl handle. He thought he recognized it but didn’t know from where. He couldn’t guess how much it cost, but he knew it was too expensive for him.

  “Belonged to your Uncle Jobe,” his dad said, taking the knife from the box and switching the blade open. It was a three-inch blade and his dad pressed it lightly against his own palm. “
He left it to me after he got killed protecting this country. He was a true hero.” He turned it over to show Arrow the light glimmering from the iridescent handle. “Now it’s yours. Won’t be long before you can serve too.”

  Arrow would never join the military, but not because he didn’t want to serve his country or even to die for it. It was the possibility of not dying that scared him, knowing how his father came back from tours of duty a different person each time until Arrow wished he would never come back at all.

  Arrow carefully took the knife from his dad and ran his fingertips over it. He smiled. “Thank you, sir.”

  He looked at the silver blade again, at the beauty and detail of the handle. A strong hand came from behind him, wrapping around his hand and forcing the blade to his throat.

  “This is a real weapon, son,” his father growled into his ear, his breath hot on Arrow’s neck. “This isn’t that stubby dick knife you’re used to.” His father pressed the cold blade harder against his throat, just under his left ear, before releasing him. “Learn how to use it. Maybe someday you can serve your country too. Be useful.”

  He backed away from his father fast. He touched his neck and didn’t see blood on his fingers. He held up the knife and thought about using it right then on his father. Feeling it sink into his dad’s stomach.

  His dad laughed, shaking his head. “Oh, Lord. You should see your face.” He grabbed the back of Arrow’s neck and squeezed hard, pushing his head down a little. “I’m just messing with ya, son. Happy birthday.”

  Arrow slowly closed the blade, swallowing the fear and rage quaking up and down his body.

  His father strolled to the barn exit.

  “Next time you wanna mark up the loft with little hearts and such, I suggest you skip the stubby dick and use that one instead.”

  Chapter 18: Sam, 1994

  Sam didn’t know what bug had crawled up Arrow’s butt and had babies, but he barely touched the chocolate cake she helped Grandma Haylin make for his birthday. She kicked him under the kitchen table and smiled, and he barely glanced at her before going back to smashing his cake into tiny bits with his fork.