I pressed the paper to my chest as if that could extract the pain that was clawing deeper into me. As my quiet tears fell, I buried my head in the pillows.
Chapter 15—Zach
The vomit lurking at the base of my throat hadn’t diminished during the night, mainly because the couple in the next room was going at it again. The paper walls of this shady hotel, along Highway1, couldn’t have been more than an inch thick. Hearing the woman moan and scream only made me miss Emma more. Thank God she didn’t make those noises when we were together. Those noises coming through the walls only fueled growing anger of knowing someone had violated my girl—somehow, somewhere. And she didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth.
Crying wasn’t really my thing but the thought of someone hurting her was excruciatingly painful. And if she was sexually assaulted, what I really wanted to do was find the son-of-a-bitch and kill him!
What happened to her? Who could have hurt her? And why was she trying to protect him? Was it one of the guys she knew? A thousand possibilities swam through my swirling thoughts as I imagined the worst. Could it have been Grant? Was he that desperate to have her that he actually pushed it too far?
If it was Grant, as much as I’d want to, I knew I couldn’t kill him. Disable him? Perhaps. No, I wouldn’t do that either. But I would beat the shit out of him…multiple times.
Who had touched her, clearly against her will? My eyes instinctively closed, trying to force out the thoughts of what possibly happened to her. There was the vomit again, starting to burn further up.
For about the ten thousandth time since I drove south away from her, I glanced at my phone. Not that I would miss the call. The volume was set as high as it would go and vibrate was on as well in case I dozed.
The clock read 10:15 am. Certainly she had to be awake. Certainly the letter was in her hands. And, certainly her heart was broken even more. I’d never felt more helpless in my life. Finally, a tear fell…
Chapter 16--Emma
It was after lunch when I woke up with a splitting headache. It felt like my eye sockets were made of sandpaper. My eyes burned with every blink. After dragging myself from the bed, I stiffly plopped down the stairs. As I made my descent, my parents’ eyes bore into me. I avoided their look.
“Honey?” My mom asked.
“Don’t Mom. I can’t talk about it.” The words choked out.
My dad flew out of his chair. “I knew this would happen Katie, with him being older.”
I didn’t have the energy to address my father but couldn’t let Zach take the blame. “Daddy. This is my fault…not Zach’s.” Tears filled my eyes again.
My mom reached out for my dad. “Matt. Leave her be.”
Once in the kitchen, I downed two acetaminophen and two ibuprofen at one time with some water. Then trudged back up the stairs. I opened my sliding glass door and the cool air was refreshing to my face. The lawn chair sat where we were last night. I tried to breathe in the salty air, but something seemed to block my air flow. At the edge of the deck, I saw Austin, Grant, Seth and Ryan talking on the beach. It only took a few seconds for them to see me and like clockwork, each of them casually turned around. I chuckled…there was nothing casual about it.
Grant stepped out of their circle and began to walk my way. Austin said something to him and Grant nodded rejoining the group, then Austin headed this way.
He smiled as he approached.
“Hey.”
I waved not returning the smile.
“Can I come up?”
I nodded then fell into the chair. He was talking to my parents and then within a couple of minutes, was there sitting at my feet but not before ruffling my hair. Instant annoyance.
“Do you have any idea how much I hate when you do that? I feel like your dog.”
A smile touched the corners of his mouth. “Point taken.”
“Did you draw the short stick?” I asked.
His brows rose. “The short stick?”
“I figured you boys drew straws to pick who had to talk to the broken-hearted girl?”
“Are you broken-hearted?”
I shrugged. “It hurts. But it’s my fault. I could have told him.”
He tilted his head taking in the occasional sun. “Why didn’t you?”
I shrugged again. “He’d want to hurt the guy.”
“So let him. We all want to hurt him. I pray I never see that asshole again or maybe I’d like to, I don’t know.” Austin was angrier than I expected.
I stared off. “You know…all I know is guys…I know how they think…I see their woody coming before it starts…and I didn’t see it happening with this guy. I never thought for a second when I offered to show him where the rocks were…that…” I closed my eyes.
“Em. You did nothing wrong. Paul…he was the…”
I winced when he said his name and plugged my ears with my fingers. “Don’t.”
He touched my leg. “I’m sorry…I”
“Just don’t say his name,” I interrupted.
“OK.” I heard him release a breath.
“Austin. You’re relieved of duty. Go play with the boys.” I crossed my arms.
“Is that why you think I’m here?”
“Just go.” My eyes started to tear…third time in hours.
“I’m not going anywhere. If you want to have a pity party…do it on your own time. I came to see when we could have our day?” He smiled.
It felt odd smiling. I was sure my teeth wouldn’t feel the air for days. “You don’t have to do this. I officially pardon you of your offer.”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to be pardoned Madam President. I want to do something with you. You promised in May. Don’t reneg on me. Tomorrow. I’m picking you up at 10.” He got up and started toward my door.
“I won’t be very good company.”
“Ooh. I love a challenge.” He winked as he disappeared into my room.
I took a deep breath and the lump in my throat had shrunk. My poor brother’s friends. I wondered if he made one of them come up here. I closed my eyes.
“Here. This was buzzin,” Austin said sticking his head back out the door and tossing me something. The silver cell phone landed on my lap. I glanced up and Austin was gone.
I flipped open the cell phone. One new text.
U OK?
I snorted
What do you think? send
I held the silver phone in my hand for nearly two hours before I came to grips that he wasn’t texting back. Tears again.
Chapter17—The day
Austin drove faster than what I was used to up the coast. His little silver two door Audi sat low to the ground—tires hugging the road on the curves. After riding in the Jeep and truck, it felt like we were sitting on the road. The music was soft and there seemed no pressure to talk, which was nice. We were heading north past Seaside up to Astoria, an old town that sat at the mouth of the Columbia River. I’d been there twice with my parents. It wasn’t quite the tourist trap that Seaside was and it wasn’t near as charming as Cannon. But the history in Astoria was deep. I wasn’t sure what the plan was for the day. Mom and Dad literally shoved me out the door when Austin got there. They’d known his family for years and they had to have known he was nearly twenty.
But, they trusted ‘little Austin Falsone.’
He parked in front of the Astoria Column. I’d seen it from the road but never been in. I looked out the windshield and couldn’t see the top, but I knew there was an observation tower.
“Elevator?” I asked.
He shook his hand as he pulled the keys from the ignition. “Guess again.”
“Oh, Austin. You didn’t say I’d have to work.” I got out whining.
“Shut-it down. You’re more up for this than me. I see you running every morning.”
We met by the hood and I glanced up at the deck on top. “How many steps?”
He shrugged. “Let’s go count.”
At eighty-nine…w
e sat on a wide step for a breather.
“So have you done this before?” I asked trying to catch my breath.
“No. My mom says it’s beautiful at the top…so I thought we’d check it out.” He patted my knee and it felt odd…him touching me. “Let’s go.”
We stood and stared up the hole of the old stone spiral staircase, light visible at the top. I took a deep breath and we started to walk.
“One-hundred-sixty-four!” We sputtered out winded but in unison. He held a high five up in the air, and I slapped his hand. Once at the top, we went outside. The wind was cold but felt good to my warmed body. The mouth of the Columbia was right there and his mom was right, it was beautiful. More massive than I remembered. Broken clouds hung low, but the ships coming in were visible. And not just normal ships…but enormous cargo ships with hundreds of loads.
“Oh my God. There’s a river pilot,” he said excitedly. “I used to want to be one of those guys.”
I looked all around but didn’t see what he was talking about. Austin leaned over my back, his arm in front of me, pointing toward the gigantic boat.
“Tell me what I’m looking for. Is it by the big boat?”
“Big boat?” he questioned laughing. “See the little boat going next to the big one,” he said sarcastically. I elbowed him hard in the ribs. “Ow! Watch… the pilot’s going to jump to a rope ladder on the cargo, shimmy up the side and direct the boat in.”
We were far enough away that the pilot looked like a tiny little dot moving up the side of the boat. “Holy cow. That looks dangerous. What happens if he falls off the ladder?”
“He gets sucked under.”
I stared at him. “He dies?” I heard the shock in my voice.
He nodded. “I think so. That’s what I’ve heard. That mouth right there…is known as the graveyard of the pacific.”
My bottom lip jetted out. “That many die??”
“OK. This day is not supposed to be a downer. Let’s go. I’ll explain as we walk.” He pulled me toward the staircase.
I slowed our pace as we started down the first stair. “Why does he do that? The pilot?”
“The mouth of the Columbia serves a major point of entry into the U.S. Every ship that comes through, the river pilot climbs aboard and assists in directing it through traffic on the river. They say there are a lot of boats at the bottom where the ocean and the river meet.”
“Why?”
“It’s a hard place to navigate. That’s why they have the pilot. Early on, a lot of boats sank because it’s shallow except in one area. Everybody knows it now.”
I shuddered at the thought.
Going down the stairs was much easier though my ankle was still weak. “How do you know all this?”
“My Uncle Terry was a fisherman. Right here in Astoria. I spent a lot of time here when I was a kid. I always loved to sit and watch the river pilot.”
We were down and outside. It was funny the things I didn’t know about him. He’d always been the hot rich kid from Cannon. I thought about him spending his younger days fishing and smiled.
We were at the car, and he opened the door for me. “Where to next?” I asked before he shut the door.
“We worked up an appetite here. You hungry?”
I wasn’t. I hadn’t been hungry since Zach left me. “Sure.”
After lunch, we walked along the pier.
“Austin?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I ask you something?”
“If I say no, I know you, you’ll ask anyway.” He grinned.
Our pace was slow, casual. “Have you ever been in love?”
He groaned. “Next.”
I grabbed his arm near his elbow and yanked. “No. Not next. Tell me.”
He scratched his cheek. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”
I tried to see his eyes but he looked away. He’d been hurt. A girl had hurt him. “What was her name?” I whispered.
He placed his hands on my shoulders and stared at my eyes. “What don’t you understand about me saying no?”
I tried not to look like a pouting nine year old.
“Why do you want to know?”
My shoulders came up and back down. “We’ve all been hurt. Some us more recent than others.”
He chuckled. “So if it’s more recent, then it’s more painful?”
“Then it was painful?” I raised my brows.
He inhaled deeply and sighed. “Libby.”
“Libby?”
“Her name was Libby?”
“I caught that. I just haven’t heard that name…well maybe ever? Hmm. Libby, Libby, mo bibby, fee, fi, fo fibby….Liiiibby,” I sang then fought the smile that came.
He laughed. “Two can play at that game. Zach, Zach, mo back…fee, fi fo fach…Zaaaaach.” He shoved me teasingly.
“Whatever. At least you know my story,” I accused.
He pointed to an ice cream store and we went in. “I don’t know your story,” he whispered. “I know you’re in love with a guy that I helped make jealous a few months ago. That didn’t go well. Then he comes to visit you, here, and that didn’t go well either. Is that your story, cause that’s all I’m aware of.”
I put my palm to his face. “Whatever. You know the history with the website, the girls, the whole virginity thing. And I’m sure you can speculate as to why he left me?”
It was our turn to order. “I’ll have the peanut butter ice cream in a cone.”
“Nothing for me,” Austin said and handed the cashier a bill.
I grabbed some napkins and sat at a table in the corner.
“It’s none of my business why he left.”
“He left because he knows I’m lying about what happened on the beach,” I volunteered. “He touched me the other night and I came unglued. That creep’s face flashed before my eyes and the red dragon on his arm.” I shivered just thinking about it.
He rubbed my back. “Zach’ll come around.”
“Did Libby? Did she come around?”
Austin grabbed my throat like he was strangling me, then let go.
“Just give me the cliff notes version of what happened.”
He held his hand out to me so I took it. “Come on. Let’s go for a drive.”
I wiped my mouth and tossed the rest of my cone in the trash.
We were heading across the bridge into Washington. He hadn’t spoken since we’d left the ice cream parlor. He was angry…or frustrated…I wasn’t sure which.
“There’s a cool beach up here,” he said looking up the coast.
“OK.” I sat quietly and decided I wasn’t bringing up Libby again.
When we arrived, he was right, the beach was cool. It was small and we’d have to hike down to it. I had on my flip flops.
“There’s a little trail over here. Come on.”
I followed him down the steep rocky terrain, sliding in the mud a couple of times. He helped balance me. My toes were muddy by the time we reached the bottom.
The beach was more private than other beaches I’d been on. The smaller waves washed over my feet replacing the mud with sand.
“Elizabeth Faith Fairbanks.”
I glanced his way. “What?”
“Libby for short.”
I realized where he was going, and I sat on a piece of driftwood.
“She was two years younger than me. We only dated about eight months, but God did I like her.” He paused tossing a stone in the water. “We had sex, only three times, and she was on the pill so I didn’t use protection. I was stu-pid.” He shook his head trying to get rid of some thought. “Anyway. She thought she was pregnant. I bought a test and congratulations were in order. Suddenly I see my future crumbling before my eyes. I see myself being eighteen with a newborn. She tells me she wants to have it, and I told my folks. I would have married her because it was the right thing to do.”
His dark brown eyes locked on mine. I had no words.
“Because of our money, my father wa
nted a paternity test pronto. She refused. I questioned that, then she questioned why I didn’t trust her. Out of the blue, she decides she wants an abortion and needs the money. Doesn’t want the baby. It all happened so fast. I take her there and after it’s over. The doctor says we were lucky since she was approaching the second trimester. Now by my calculations, the three times we’d had sex were in the last forty to forty-five days. So I speculate that I just paid for an abortion that wasn’t my child to begin with. The worst part was, for three days after she decided to go through with it…I had to live with what we were doing.” He stared out at the water. “Then to find out it wasn’t mine.” I heard the pain in his voice.
I moved over to him and touched his shoulder. He flinched and looked at me like he forgot I was there. “What did she say?”
“That she wasn’t sure if it was mine. She didn’t know how far along she was.”
“So you broke up?”
“That’s what was nuts. She wanted to go on dating like it was nothing. I was like…nope…game over. It’s over. Thankfully, I guess.” He still sounded hurt. “But you wanted to know if I was ever in love. I guess that was the closest.”
If Austin’s Italian complexion could have blushed, I think it would have. He was embarrassed by the story.
“Austin. You did nothing wrong.”
A laughter roared deep in his chest. “Thank you, Dr. Freud. Maybe you should listen to your own psycho babble.”
I popped him in the shoulder with my fist. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Finally...One Summer (Just One of the Guys) Page 11
