From That Moment

by Carrie Ann Ryan

  Pretending that the people I worked with didn’t hate me or think I thought I was too good for them. Because that wasn’t it, even in the slightest. That couldn’t be farther from the truth.

  Nothing I said would change things, so I rolled my shoulders back and told myself I didn’t need anybody.

  Even if that was the biggest lie of all.

  By the time I got to work, I had spread the lies so firmly over my body that I felt as if nobody could see under the layers. And that was fine with me. They didn’t need to know everything.

  I went to my desk, keeping my office door open because I didn’t want those who glared at me—mostly Benji if I was honest—to think that I thought I was too good for them by hiding myself away. I’d heard someone mumble that before when I just needed some time to focus on my work, so now an open-door concept was how I needed to get things done.

  I hated that I cared about what other people thought of me, but that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. If I wanted to do the best job possible, I needed people to be able to come to me if they had issues. Hiding from them wasn’t going to help my situation.

  And if I focused enough on work, I wouldn’t worry about the fact that my father was out of prison and could be here at any moment.

  It didn’t matter that I had a restraining order against him. In the end, it was only a piece of paper that other people would have to enforce. And it wasn’t as if, after all this time, somebody would sit there and watch me and ensure that I was okay. I couldn’t have security on me at all times—or at any time, for that matter.

  So, I would just have to get over it and live my life without fear.

  Or at least become better at trying.

  “Because that makes complete sense,” I whispered to myself.

  I sighed and then threw myself into my work, the project I was working on with Prior, something that made me happy. I liked Prior’s work. He was diligent, thorough, and always asked the right questions. Yes, there were bugs every once in a while, but finding them was my job, and he never complained when I reported them and opened defect reports. Sometimes, he’d get a little frustrated, but that meant I needed to be more specific in my questions and instructions for how to recreate the problem so he could find the spot in the code that needed to be tweaked.

  The fact that both of us could be so open about what we were doing was surprising.

  If I were honest with myself, I knew I had judged him from the first moment I saw him. And the second, and probably the third.

  I had judged him because of the way he acted with his brothers as if he were carefree. Only I knew that wasn’t the case. He reminded me of people at my job, of the man whose place Prior had taken. But that was all on me, not him.

  I was getting over it, slowly but surely.

  However, others weren’t.

  “Are you serious about this?” Benji asked, slamming the door behind him.

  My pictures rattled on my walls, and I looked up at him, my face stony, my jaw set. My icy armor was the only way to get through to him, or at least make it through my day.

  “Hello, Benji. How are you today?”

  “Don’t give me that.”

  “You’re going to want to watch your tone. Because I will report you to HR.”

  “You keep holding that over my head, and yet you do nothing. I want to know why you keep picking on this assignment. If you don’t think I’m good enough, then go to the bosses. You haven’t, have you? No. All you do is needle and nitpick, and yet look where you are. You’re still only the double-checker. Not a person with the brains to actually get shit done.”

  On the last word, he slammed out of the room, and I sat there, wondering if he’d have let me speak at all.

  Most everybody was already at lunch, something I hadn’t noticed because I had been working. I knew Benji had done it for that reason, on purpose.

  Not a single soul had been on our floor to hear him talk to me like that.

  I could go and complain, and maybe something would be done about it, but I knew Benji was good friends with our boss. They had known each other since they were kids, golfed together twice a week, and drank together three nights out of five.

  They were the good old boys, and I was the one left in the dark.

  “I’m fine,” I whispered.

  However, being in the dark had been the wrong phrase to think, because now all I could think about was the dark, and the last time I had been there. With his hands on my throat and the little girl screaming, who wasn’t me.

  And then there had been no more screaming, no more shouts, nothing. There had been silence: just a cold shadow and an icy void.

  “Paris?” Prior asked from the doorway, a bag in his hands, and a frown on his face. “I picked you up a burrito bowl because I saw you hadn’t gone for lunch. I can come back.” He paused, studying my face. “What’s wrong?”

  I shook myself out of my memories, knowing they weren’t important at the moment. They had never been because I couldn’t relive them every day and survive.

  I could only remember the good times. And I kept telling myself that, even though the good memories rarely came when I was sleeping.

  “A burrito bowl?” I asked, ignoring his other questions.

  “Yes. Hopefully, it’s what you like. I tried to remember everything you usually get. Though I’m generally so focused on how much extra guac I want on the side, that I sometimes forget.” He winked, but I knew he was studying my face, trying to see what was wrong with me.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Prior didn’t need to know everything. I didn’t want him to know everything. I didn’t want anyone to.

  The girls now knew that my father was out of prison, but they didn’t know every detail of what my childhood entailed. They didn’t know every single little scrape and hit and torture method I had been through—the same as my baby sister.

  They didn’t ever need to know those things.

  They knew I was scared that I had gone into some kind of shock, and that I had been with Prior when I heard the news about my dad. They were the only ones who needed to know. Perhaps Cross knew now because people who loved each other told secrets like that. I understood. As long as I didn’t see the pity on his face.

  The same emotion I had seen in Prior’s gaze for a moment before he blinked it away in the car. Before he did his best to care for me, even though I didn’t know how to deal with him.

  I wasn’t going to tell Prior anything because I didn’t want to see that pity again.

  “Paris? What’s wrong?”

  I sat up straighter in my chair and shook my head. And then I began. “Nothing’s wrong. I was working and forgot lunch, and now I’m starving. Want to eat in the break room?”

  “If you want. Or you can eat in my office. Or we can eat here. Or maybe outside on the balcony. There are a few tables out there.”

  “I don’t know. I mean, I think I accidentally invited you to lunch when you were just dropping mine off.”

  Prior snorted. “I bought extra lunch because I noticed you hadn’t left for your break. We can eat together or separately. It doesn’t matter.” Prior frowned. “I mean, it does matter because you’re my friend, but it doesn’t matter in terms of you deciding what you want to do. No pressure.”

  I let out a sigh and pretended that everything he’d said made sense.

  “How about you tell me what I owe you.”

  He looked defeated for a moment. “How about you just buy me a burrito later?”

  “With extra guac?” I asked him, and he smiled.

  His eyes brightened, and some of the tension he had been holding in his shoulders seemed to slide away.

  Tension about my reaction? Or something else?

  And why did I want to know? Why did I want to ask?

  “You know, I should get back to work. It’s been a slow day for me, and I could use the focus. Thank you for the burrito bowl. I’ll get yours next time.”

  He ha
nded over my lunch, studying my face. I did my best to blank any emotions other than peace. As I said, he didn’t need to know anything was wrong with me.

  Even though that was far from the case.

  I went back to work, having devoured my burrito bowl quickly, annoyed, and a little surprised that Prior had figured out exactly what I liked.

  The fact that I could likely tell him what he wanted on his burrito told me we probably had been working together for too long, even over the relatively short time period he’d been in my department.

  By the end of the workday, my shoulders hurt, my lower back ached, and I knew I was going to have a stress headache later. I had gotten tons of work done, but between Benji’s attitude and my nightmare, I’d felt like I was on the verge of throwing up or screaming for most of the day.

  I packed up my things and headed out towards the elevator to go home.

  Prior was already there, waiting for the lift. He smiled. “Look at us, on the same schedule again.”

  “Apparently.”

  “You don’t need to sound so excited about that.”

  “Sorry, it’s been a long day.”

  “Seems like. I got here a little bit before you because I had a couple of things to finish up, but we’re still the last people here.”

  I looked around, my eyes wide. “I didn’t even notice that. What is wrong with me?” I could have slapped myself for that thought because first, I did not want to think about what was wrong with me, and second, I didn’t want him to question it.

  “Probably because we’re both in the middle of a tough project. I get it, sometimes things just flow, and you forget about everything else. Which kind of sucks because I’m already late to meet Allison.”

  “Late again?” I asked, wondering why I felt a little clutch in my belly at the mention of her name. What was wrong with me? I was a horrible person. Completely horrible.

  “We have to talk,” he said, an emotion in his voice that I couldn’t quite name.

  “Like the talk? Or a talk?” I asked as we got into the elevator. There was an awkward silence then, even more awkward than a typical elevator ride, and I winced. “Never mind. You don’t have to tell me anything.”

  “No. I’m just figuring out exactly what the talk is going to be. I don’t think it’s going to work out between Allison and me, and I hate that. Because I feel like I failed.”

  Emotions swamped me, and I couldn’t quite figure out what they were. Sadness? Pity? Jealousy? No, it couldn’t be the latter. I didn’t even know him and Allison and their relationship enough to feel too sad or jealous about it. I was probably mixing up everything going on within me and couldn’t focus on what he was saying.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too. You know I’m good at a lot of things. But, apparently, relationships are not one of them.”

  “You’re talking to the woman who has had six horrible bad blind dates after years of trying to do it on my own. At least you had a decent run of it.”

  Prior winced. “I’m glad our scorecards look the way they do. I think Cross and Hazel are the only two that succeeded at any of this.”

  “Probably. We’re not going to tell the two of them that because they’re already going to have big heads as it is.”

  “Preach.” He smiled, shook his head, and headed towards his car. “I’ll see you on Monday?”

  “Sounds like a plan. Have fun with the boys this weekend.” I paused. “And I’m sorry about Allison.”

  He gave me a look, his eyes sad. “Me, too. Be safe.”

  Then he turned the corner, headed to where his car was parked, and I made my way to mine.

  I let out a breath, wondering what I was going to do this weekend. Organize my spice rack? Maybe go shoe shopping. Or perhaps start that new thirty-day yoga plan that I had been putting off for about eighty-seven days.

  I had just reached my car when something smashed down on the back of my head. It took me a moment to realize what had happened, but in the next instant, I was on the ground, my hands digging into the asphalt, and a shocked scream echoing from my mouth.

  “Bitch!”

  Then someone kicked me in the ribs and stomped on my foot. There was a slap and a kick, and I couldn’t tell from which direction they came. Everything was spinning, and I rolled on my back, trying to fight off whoever was there, but I couldn’t.

  I couldn’t see.

  There was something over the attacker’s face, but then I saw double, and I couldn’t tell up from down anymore.

  Then I couldn’t do anything.

  “Paris?” someone yelled, and then I heard the sound of shoes on pavement as someone ran towards me. The shadow above me cursed, and I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman.

  I was so dizzy. I wanted to sleep.

  And then I rolled over and tried to crawl away. I had to do something.

  Someone was calling me, reaching for me, and I cringed. I wanted to go home. Wanted this to end.

  I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong.

  As I dug my fingers into the pavement, my fingertips bloody, and my lungs burning, a strange thought entered my mind.

  I had started my day waking from a dream of death, pain, and screams, unable to breathe.

  And now I would end it the same, only in real life.

  Chapter 7

  Prior

  Bile coated my tongue. I tried to swallow it down, but I couldn’t. There was nothing I could do. I sat in the waiting room, my hands shaking as I looked down at them, trying to figure out what the fuck was going on.

  Paris was hurt. Damn hurt. And there was nothing I could do about it. I wasn’t even sure there was anything I could do. I’d gotten the ambulance to her. I’d tried to see who had hurt her, but I hadn’t been able to do anything. If I had left Paris to go chase after who had hurt her, she would have been there alone, bleeding and in pain.

  I couldn’t have done that.

  Instead, I called 911 and prayed. And now I was sitting in the waiting room of the hospital, trying to figure out exactly what had happened. The cops had already come and gone, though I knew they would be talking to me again. After all, Paris had been hurt, and I was the only witness. And probably a suspect at this point, I didn’t know, but my mind kept going in a thousand different directions.

  So, here we were. Me trying to figure out what the fuck I was going to do and waiting to hear from the doctors. Even though I wasn’t sure they were going to let me know what was going on with her because I wasn’t family or her emergency contact.

  As if I had conjured her, Hazel flew into the waiting room, Cross right behind her.

  “Have they said anything?” Hazel asked, her face pale, and her eyes wide. There was a determined set to her face, and I was grateful for that. She would be able to get answers since she was one of Paris’s emergency contacts. Paris didn’t have any family, so she had put her group of friends on her list.

  Did I even have my entire family on my list? Or just Cross? After Cross and Macon had been shot, I’d told myself I’d make sure that all of my affairs and contacts were in order, but I wasn’t even sure I’d done that.

  I was on Arden’s list considering that my little sister was constantly in and out of the hospital thanks to lupus. The others? I didn’t know.

  “Hey, snap out of it.”

  I blinked up at Cross, who glared down at me, even though there was still worry on his face.

  “You went off in a different direction mentally. Answer the question. Any word?”

  I shook my head. “No, and I probably wouldn’t hear anything anyway. You guys needed to be here. Or at least Hazel.”

  Cross gave me a tight nod, understanding flickering across his face.

  Hazel was the one who spoke. “Because you’re not family, or on whatever list they have. Okay. I’m going to go see what I can find out.” She hurried off, and Cross stood in front of her, his g
aze burning holes into me.

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?” he asked, and I swallowed hard, then looked up at my big brother.

  “We were getting off work, heading to our cars. I went one way, and she went the other since we didn’t park on the same side of the building. Then I heard a scuffle or something, and her scream, and I ran towards her. But I was too late. I didn’t see who it was, just someone wearing all black and a hat, which doesn’t help at all.”

  “You got her here. That’s all that matters for now,” Cross said, and I shook my head.

  “It doesn’t feel like it. It feels like I should have been there. Should’ve waited until she got into her car and drove off. Instead, I left her alone.”

  “You had no reason to think she was going to get attacked in your parking lot. You can’t blame yourself for this.”

  “Can’t I? I said I’d make sure she was safe.”

  “You’re doing that now.”

  Cross paused, and I looked up at him. “What?”

  “You think it was that guy at work that pisses you off?” he asked, and I blinked. The idea hadn’t even occurred to me. I’d had my head so far up my ass that I hadn’t gotten past my own guilt to think who could have done this.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. Hell. I don’t think Benji would get violent. Jesus. I didn’t even tell the cops that he and Paris had an issue. I will. I’ll tell them right now. She would. Right?”

  “Unless she doesn’t want to make waves at work.”

  “Fuck. You’re right. She hates being seen as weak. Feels like she can’t be anything but strong, and with some of the people that work there, I can see that actually being an issue.”

  Cross stared at me for a minute, and I blinked.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You seem to be spending a lot of time with Paris these days.”

  I flipped him off, ignoring a gasping sound from the woman next to us.

  “Here? This is where you’re going to have that talk with me?”

  “Sorry.” Cross closed his eyes and let out a breath. “It’s just bringing up memories again. You know?”