by Jenna Mills
“Hi.”
Lost in all the ways I’d like to make Lexi suffer, I looked up—and froze.
“Did you get my flowers?
Chapter 4
The voice. It was slightly hoarse, quiet almost, the kind you felt more than heard. He stood there, on the other side of the counter, taller than I remembered, watching me with an intensity that had not been there before. But everything else was the same, the dark gold hair sweeping against his face and the green glitter to his eyes, even the white t-shirt.
“You,” I whispered.
“Austin,” he corrected.
Here. In the coffee shop. Which meant—
“You know who I am.” The words, the truth, scraped. Suddenly it was all so clear, the car across the street from my bedroom, the flowers identical to the ones in front of my house, the note. “You were watching me.”
“Zoe?” Emily materialized at my side. “Everything okay?”
I didn’t look at her, couldn’t stop looking at Austin.
“That was you at my house last night,” I said with a hard twist of my stomach.
His eyes. They were so, so green. But somehow they darkened, shifting from sunlit meadow to moonless forest. “I just drove by—I wanted to talk—”
“You picked my flowers—”
“No—”
“It wasn’t an accident, was it?” Dark thoughts crashed through me. “In the park. You were watching me then, too.” When he’d approached me, and asked for my camera. If L.T. hadn’t come along—
“No. Not like that.”
“Zoe,” Emily said, taking my arm. “You want me to call L.T.?”
Deep inside I started to shake, hard.
The guy—Austin—lifted his hands, as if in surrender. “Easy there,” he said. “No cops. I’m just a guy,” he said. “Just a guy trying to apologize.”
Emily pushed in closer. Running the other register, Cheryl, our manager, looked up.
“Apologize for what?” I asked.
“For yesterday,” he said quietly. The green of his eyes burned down at me. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
The front door kept opening. Customers kept pouring in. On some level I was aware of that and knew I needed to get back to work, but I couldn’t stop staring at him, couldn’t wrap my mind around what he was saying.
“So you figured out where I live and drove by my house at night, picked my flowers?” The realization made me sick inside.
“No,” he said, pushing closer to the counter. It was all that separated us. That, and the fact that I knew better than to believe him. “It wasn’t like that. I wanted to talk to you again. That’s all. But I couldn’t find your phone number, only your address—”
I couldn’t breathe. I tried to hide it. I tried to force it, but for a dangerous second, there was no breath…
“But I realized as soon as I drove up that me showing up might freak you out—”
“So you picked my flowers and left them for me at work instead?”
His eyes flashed. “I didn’t pick your flowers. I bought those this morning at King Soopers…because…because I thought if they were in your yard, you must like them.”
Once…words like that would have rocked my world. They still did, I realized, but not in a way I understood.
“I never told you my name,” I pointed out.
Steady, so, so steady, his eyes met mine. “It’s not that hard to find out who someone is.”
And with nothing more than that, the small coffee shop started to spin all over again.
“When I got home, I realized you were in a picture I took, so I asked around, if anyone knew who you were…”
In a picture he took. I just happened to be in it.
The thought churned through me.
He’d asked around. Found someone who knew who I was. Found me.
That thought churned even more.
“Don’t you think that’s a bit stalkerish?” Emily asked.
“I didn’t mean for it to be,” he said. “I saw a pretty girl. I wanted to see her again.”
And so now he stood across the counter from me. But it was different now. He was different. His eyes were different. Because he knew. He saw me now, not the me from the park the day before, but the me from the newspaper, from social media.
Because he knew. He’d read.
Swallowing hard, I put my hands against the counter to steady myself. To steady everything. “You shouldn’t have done that,” I said. “Just go, okay? You have nothing to apologize for and no reason to be here.”
The green of his eyes went so, so dark. “Zoe—”
“I don’t know who you are or what you want, and honestly, I don’t care. Okay? I just want you to go.”
But he didn’t. He stood there, looking at me as if he had absolutely no idea what I’d just said, or what he was supposed to say, lost somehow, lost in the middle of a loud, crowded coffee shop.
I wanted to turn away. I wanted to turn and walk away so bad, so I didn’t have to look at him anymore. Didn’t have to see the look in his eyes, as if I’d just punched him.
So I could breathe.
But I didn’t move, wouldn’t let myself, wasn’t about to give a stranger that power over me.
Only after he turned, only after he vanished through the glare of sunlight beyond the front door, did I slip back to the storeroom and wrap my arms around my waist, and squeeze my eyes shut.
Austin.
He knew who I was.
He’d found me.
Driven by my house.
Left me flowers.
Said he was sorry.
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe it was all innocent.
But I wanted a lot of things. That didn’t mean they were real.
The rest of the day swirled by. I kept myself busy, first with work, then with my camera. After several hours of random photography on Pearl Street, I wandered to Boulder Creek and followed the familiar, heavily used path toward a picturesque spot of stones and rushing water.
As usual I didn’t want to go home. But I didn’t want the familiarity of Chautauqua either. I didn’t allow myself to consider why.
Joggers ran in pairs and groups and solo. Moms pushed strollers and children ran and skipped. Tourists stopped to snap pictures. I walked among them, content to be part of the activity. Every now and then I stopped and captured a shot, water cascading over rock or the sun glinting through a pine branch, the Flatirons against the blue, blue sky, a child laughing. And when I sensed footsteps behind me or a shadow falling too close, I reminded myself to simply breathe.
Finally at my favorite spot, I veered off the path, out among the scatter of boulders of all shapes and sizes. Sunlight glinted off the water rushing and swirling around them—only a few weeks before, when the creek had been running fast from snowmelt—none had been visible.
Lifting my camera, I scanned the area for the perfect shot.
He stood by the side of the swiftly moving creek, near a tall, rounded boulder. He could have moved. One quick slip, and he would have been gone. Hidden. But he made no effort to hide from me, not even when he knew I’d seen him. He just stood there, watching me.
A quick rush went through me. Maybe I should have spun and walked the other direction. Maybe I should have grabbed my phone and called someone. I could have. It would have been easy.
Instead I lowered the camera, letting my eyes meet his.
There was no quick flash of a smile, like there’d been the day before. He stood in the fading light of early evening, but the shadows in his eyes came from somewhere else. Somewhere deeper. And even though this time I knew for a fact that he’d followed me, that he was watching me—the strangest calm settled around me.
“How long do I have before your bodyguard swoops in?” he asked.
My heart kicked. Whatever I’d been expecting him to say, to do, it wasn’t that. “I don’t have a bodyguard.”
He shrugged. “Call him what you will. Detective Cooper. That
was him yesterday, right?”
I swallowed. “You read the news reports.”
“I did.”
I didn’t think I’d ever get used to having complete strangers know intimate details of my life. It was like there were no more lines, that because something bad had happened to me, everyone else had the right to know every detail of my life.
“Does he need to show up?” I asked.
Ten feet of rock and racing water separated us, but it wasn’t enough to hide the twinkle that flashed in his eyes. “Only if you want him to.”
A soft breeze blew around us, bringing with it the cool breath of evening. All I had to do was reach for my phone and make that call, and I could make all this be over.
But something wouldn’t let me. Something held me there on top of the flat boulder, watching him with the same intensity he watched me.
“You followed me again,” I said matter-of-factly.
The twinkle died as quickly as it flashed. It was hard to deny the obvious. He didn’t even try. “I did.”
“Are you going to tell me why?”
“Because I wanted you alone.”
For a moment it was like everything stopped, the wind, the birds, the rapids, even the hard strumming of my heart, etching that one moment in time and holding us there…locking us there.
He wanted me alone…
There were a thousand reasons I should have broken the spell right then and there, and I knew every one of them.
But I didn’t.
I didn’t break the spell.
I didn’t…want to.
Because it wasn’t fear that I felt rushing through me, rushing with the same force as the water racing down from the mountain.
“Because I keep screwing up,” Austin said into the odd vacuum that surrounded us, “and I wanted one more chance to get it right.”
The urge to wrap my arms around my middle was strong, but I didn’t let myself move, wasn’t sure what would happen if I did. “Get what right?”
“I went to the park yesterday to clear my head…but then I saw you in the woods, and I couldn’t look away. You looked…I don’t know. At home. Like you belonged there and no one else did.”
The birds started to sing again, ever so quietly.
“But then you turned around and I saw your eyes, and it was like getting punched in the gut.”
My breath caught.
Say something, I told myself. Say something.
But there were no words.
It was all I could do to breathe.
“My mom does animal rescue work,” he said, still not moving, just standing there so, so still, as if he didn’t trust himself to edge closer, didn’t know what would happen if he did. “She took in this collie one time—from Louisiana. A Katrina dog, they called her, lost her home after the hurricane. She was so skinny you could count her ribs just by touching her. And I’ll never forget the first time I saw her, what I saw in her eyes. It was like the hurricane was still there, like she was still living it, over and over again, even though it was months and hundreds of miles away. But it wasn’t for her. The storm was still happening.”
With nothing more than his words I could see her, the starving collie who’d lost everything, and my eyes filled.
“We ended up keeping her. My mom couldn’t let her go. She said she’d already lost too much, and she couldn’t turn her back on her, too. We named her Meika, and my mom coaxed her back to the land of the living…but even years later, all it took was a clap of thunder or a really loud wind, and she’d go from happy and healed to terrified and hiding in a corner, like she was trapped in that hurricane all over again.”
My eyes burned.
“And that’s what I saw,” Austin said, as the branches of the old aspen shimmered around us. “When you turned and I saw your eyes, I saw a storm.”
Because it was still there. Because that night still lived. Because I didn’t know how to make what happened go away.
I looked away, looked away fast, toward the icy cold water rushing around me—
“You don’t have to do that.”
His voice was so, so quiet, but somehow it registered above the familiar gurgle.
“There’s no reason to try and hide it—not from me. I’ve already seen it.”
The words settled around me like the gentlest of embraces, bringing with them the stunning urge to…look up. Look back. Not at the night.
But at him.
“Hiding doesn’t make bad things go away,” he said. “And pretending they didn’t happen doesn’t erase the memory.”
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“I know what your storm is,” he said as the water kept rushing, rushing. “I know what happened. And if I had five minutes alone with that bastard…”
I swallowed hard.
“But I don’t. And you need to know that the harder you fight against whatever happened in the past, the longer you keep it alive. You have to let go,” he said, and this time his voice was louder, firmer. Stronger. “You have to step forward.”
The laugh just kinda happened, a soft little sound breaking the uncomfortable stillness. “Now you sound like my shrink,” I said, glancing back at him.
“Then your shrink’s a pretty smart guy.”
I grinned. “He thinks so.”
Never looking away, Austin slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper. “I want to see you again,” he said. “But not like this. Catching you when you’re not looking—not giving you a choice.” Squatting, he put the paper on the ground and slid a small rock on top of it. “You’ll always be able to find me, if you want to.”
His eyes held mine a heartbeat longer, then he turned and walked away, leaving me standing there on the boulder in the fading light of early evening, with the cold mountain water rushing around me.
I watched him. Watched him walk away. Watched him return to the path and vanish among the trees, until there was nothing but the lengthening shadows. Only then did I move. Only then did I slip to the spot where he’d stood and reach for the paper he’d left beneath the rock. Only then did I look down, and read:
If you want me,
I’m only a phone call, a text, away.
Austin
And his phone number.
I stared at the note a long time before opening my hand to the cool lift of the breeze.
Cars crowded both sides of the street when I got home a little after nine, an old Cadillac completely blocking my own driveway.
I almost kept driving.
But this was my house, and I wasn’t going to let my mother’s loser friends chase me away. I was tired of letting others dictate what I did and didn’t do.
After parking a block away, I made my way toward the blaze of lights and blare of music, stunned none of the neighbors had called the cops. The rest of the street was trying to sleep.
Of course, maybe they were just used to mom’s parties.
The closer I got, the smell of smoke—cigarette and the more organic kind—gagged me. I strode up through the carport and yanked at the screen door, making my way into the kitchen—dirty, again, as usual.
Strangers leaned against the walls and hung out at the kitchen table. Sometimes I didn’t get how it could always be strangers. You’d think after awhile I’d recognize somebody. But it was always strangers.
Maybe because mom changed boyfriends like most people changed sheets.
I could feel the eyes on me, but I didn’t look, knew better than to acknowledge them in any shape or form.
That didn’t stop them from acknowledging me. “What’s your hurry, darlin’?” a tall guy in a black cowboy hat and boots drawled.
“Why don’t you come see what I’ve got for you, sweet thing,” called a bald, heavily-tatted guy from the counter, where he was mixing drinks. “You’ll be feeling better in no time.”
I surged past them, into the family room. More people I didn’t know. Louder music. More smoke. A man and a woman getting it on
fully clothed on the sofa—the sofa that had once been where I watched television but that I hadn’t touched in years. A few heavily-blinged-out ladies laughing and crowded around a guy with long blond hair in the corner. The back door flung wide open.
I found my mom draped around Kent on the back porch.
She lifted her head from his shoulder, long, curly dark hair sticking to her sweaty makeup. “There’s my pretty baby,” she cooed.
I thought I was going to be sick. “What are you doing?”
Kent propped her up. “Zoe, babe, we’ve got some jello shots in the kitchen—”
“Are you out of your mind?” I asked, reaching for my mother. “You know she shouldn’t be drinking.” Not with the painkillers she was taking for her back. “Come on, Sheila—”
She twisted away, staggering as she flung herself back into his arms. “Your mama knows what she’s doing,” she said, like she always said. “Don’t make a scene.”
And something inside me broke. Something inside me just…broke. “Don’t make a scene,” I repeated, not quietly, like I’d always done before. But loudly. As loudly as I could. A shout. A scream. “I come home to find my house full of drunken losers, and you tell me not to make a scene?”
Her eyes widened. “Baby girl—”
“Don’t call me that!” I tried to breathe—couldn’t. Tried to think. Couldn’t do that either. “You promised,” I shouted. “You freaking promised me that this would never happen again. After what happened before—after what happened with—” My voice broke. Shattered. I couldn’t even say his name. “After what happened—you promised this would never happen again.”
Her ridiculously lined and smeared mouth dropped open and hung there, like a fish gasping for air.
“I’m done,” I said, quieter this time, quieter because I was tired of shouting. Tired of beating my head against the same brick wall. “I don’t need this.”
Not trusting myself to stand there one second longer, I spun away and stalked toward the door.
“Zoe Anne!” I heard her blabber. “Zoe Anne!”
I didn’t stop. Didn’t even slow. I kept right on going, through the nauseating family room crowded by strangers, to the hallway, back to my room. There I fumbled for my keys and let myself into the little ten-by-ten space that was supposed to be my sanctuary.
