The Dirty South

by Penelope King

  I lower my gaze, ashamed. “I sort of did think that at first,” I admit. “But you were just Mr. Smirky the tow-truck guy! And I was seeing you everywhere I went that night. How was I to know?”

  “Well, if it makes you feel better, I was just as shocked to see a girl like you showing up here in a place like this. Still am.”

  I shake my head. “What do you mean?”

  He just looks away from me and back to the dancing fire. “And the other reason I’m telling you now is because when I went looking for you the other day, Sheldon mentioned something about you finding out and being surprised. Then I realized I’d never told you. And then this all happened… So now you know.”

  “Wait, I’m still confused… you were looking for me?”

  “Thursday afternoon, I stopped by to see if you wanted to grab lunch. To maybe talk. Sheldon told me that you’d gone out of town for some sort of emergency. What was it?”

  I just stare at him as everything comes rushing back.

  “I needed to see a friend,” I say coolly. Even though I now understand the part about him owning Magnolia Manor, it still doesn’t explain anything else… him shutting me out and sleeping with another girl. And from the sounds of it, he only told me the truth about the house because his hand was being forced. Not exactly the model of honesty.

  Willie died, and we are both really sad about it. But it changes nothing.

  “I hope everything is okay,” he says.

  “It will be.”

  He nods and looks down at his hands. “You gonna leave after the funeral?”

  I knit my brow. “What do you mean?”

  “You taking off? Going back to your real life?”

  I take a deep breath. Here we go. “I honestly don’t know yet,” I say quietly. “There’s a lot of things I’m still trying to still figure out… Like why you totally shut me out. Why you avoid me and act like you don’t want me around anymore. Like you don’t care at all. Why you won’t tell me what happened that hurt you. Why you say you’re responsible for your parents’ deaths, even though Sheldon told me you weren’t even in the country at the time.”

  Colton suddenly looks up and a haunted shadow crosses his face. Then he rises to his feet and runs his hand through his hair, as he paces over to the window.

  “Fucking hell,” he mutters under his breath.

  His back is turned to me, and he’s standing in the shadows, but I can see him clenching his fists. “This… this is why I don’t do this.”

  “Do what?”

  He turns around and glares. “This! This ‘sharing life’ shit. I keep it simple with women. No fuss, no muss. No questions, no obligations, no explanations needed.”

  His harsh words cut through me like poisoned daggers, and I jump to my feet. “That’s fine. Forget I said anything, or that I ever cared about you at all. I really hope you enjoy your muss-free life.” I hurry over to the door.

  “Wait,” he says. It’s more of a command than a request.

  Despite my desperate desire to get away, I hesitate, my hand on the doorknob. Then I slowly turn back around.

  He lets out a deep breath and crosses his arms across his chest. “My parents died… they were in the accident… because I wasn’t here. I should’ve been. I was supposed to be.” Then he turns his back to me and looks out the window.

  I’ve never seen him like this before, or heard this tone in his voice. I take a moment and choose my words carefully. “Just because you weren’t here when it happened, doesn’t make it your fault.”

  Colton spins back around, his face twisted. “Yes, it absolutely does make it my fault.” He lets out a deep breath. “They’d been begging me to come home for months, because my father needed me. But I was too fucked up, too pissed off at the world and life in general to care about anyone or anything anymore. I don’t know how I’m still alive. I honestly shouldn’t be.”

  He shakes his head and turns his back to me again. “I’m only telling you this because I know you’re leaving anyways. I always knew you would. Or even if by some chance you were gonna try and stick it out here with me for a while, you sure as hell wouldn’t if you actually knew the truth about me!”

  I take a tentative step closer, pained by the tortured anguish in his voice.

  “Tell me what happened to you,” I whisper.

  He clenches his jaw and stares down at the floor, his profile harsh in the shadows of the firelight. I can feel his torment from across the room.

  The air is thick with his frustration and regret. Finally he looks at me, and my breath catches. His expression is unreadable. But his bright blue eyes are hard and cold.

  “You should probably go,” he finally says.

  I feel like I got punched in the gut. In a daze I turn and put my hand on the door handle.

  “I don’t just mean right now,” he adds, his voice flat and toneless. “I mean, you should probably find some other place to live. I’ll refund you whatever fees were paid up front. But you should probably go.”

  I don’t turn around, or even flinch as he throws the knives in my back. I simply nod.

  “I’ll leave right after the funeral,” I whisper. Then I walk back outside into the cold night.

  *****

  It’s strange how nostalgic I feel packing to leave a place I never wanted to be at in the first place. This was only a temporary stopover. Six months max. So it got cut a little short. So what?

  The funeral isn’t till tomorrow, and fortunately Colton took off early this morning, so I can sit in the gardens in peace one last time. He wants me gone, that’s fine. I’m out of here tomorrow. My flight is already booked.

  But I will really miss this place. Funny how in such a short amount of time it had felt more like a home to me than any other I’ve ever known— not just here at Magnolia Manor, but the entire town of Sweet Oak.

  Of course Stacia was thrilled when I’d called her this morning and told her I wanted to move in with her right away. But try as I might, I just couldn’t match her enthusiasm. The noises, the people, the commotion, the impersonal coldness of city life… I’m sure I’ll adjust after time. I can get used to new places and experiences. I got used to being here, didn’t I?

  But it’s not so much the new things I’ll have to get used to that saddens me, it’s the things here that I’ll miss… I’ll miss all this natural beauty, and being surrounded by charming old homes nestled amongst the moss-draped trees.

  I’ll miss Vivi. I would’ve loved to have gotten to know her better. I’ll miss The Dirty, and all the now familiar faces in town who always smile whenever they see me. I’ll even miss my job with Sheldon.

  Above all else, though, is the one thing that weighs particularly heavy on my soul. Finally, I’d done something that I was proud of with my paintings, and actually having my work be hanging in a gallery is something I’d never thought I’d see. Marko had given me an extraordinary opportunity to follow my dream. But he specializes in local artists doing Southern scenery. If I’m living in Brooklyn, and without the inspiration of the South right outside my window…

  But life goes on. Right?

  *****

  Abraham William “Willie” Brinksley was laid to rest on Wednesday the 24th of October at 11:00 a.m. surrounded by several dozen friends. I recognized many of the faces, and although Willie had been pretty reclusive, especially in the last decade or so when his eyesight got really poor, many folks from town stopped by to pay their respects. Maple stood in the crowd dabbing her eyes and blowing her nose. Dr. Dan was there with a woman I didn’t recognize, but she looked sweet and I saw her holding his hand. Vivi came with her fiancé, Freddy.

  Colton stands off to the side in a black suit with a gray tie, clean-shaven, his hair nicely combed, and wearing dark sunglasses. For all intents and purposes, he looks like he should be walking down the runway at the Hugo Boss show.

  But he’s here mourning the loss of his lifelong friend and confidant. And more than anything I wish I could comf
ort him, regardless of what went down between us. He and I came together despite the odds, despite the fact that we are two very different people from two very different worlds.

  So it didn’t work out. So he wants me gone. So my heart is crushed. It was really to be expected, I suppose. Live and learn.

  The pastor reads the eulogy, and soon Willie’s casket is slowly lowered into the ground. One by one we toss our handfuls of dirt in the grave, and the mourners start trickling back toward the Manor, where a buffet of food awaits.

  I start to follow them, but pause when I notice the lone figure still standing there.

  “Go ahead, I’ll catch up with you guys in a bit,” I say to Vivi. She nods and takes Freddy’s arm.

  He stares at the gravesite, his head low, his eyes hidden behind the dark lenses. From somewhere, I find the courage to walk over to him and stand by his side.

  I know he’s aware of my presence, but he makes no indication of it. We stand there in silence for some time, until he finally turns to me.

  “When are you leaving?” he asks quietly.

  I swallow hard to keep the lump in my throat down. God, he must really want me gone. “My flight is at six thirty. About five hours, I guess.”

  He lets out a breath, and slowly nods. “I guess it’s time to tell you then.”

  I glance up at him. “Tell me what?”

  He angles his face toward the cloudy sky, and I wish more than anything I could see his eyes right now.

  “Tell you how fucked up I really am, and why you’ll be good to be as far away from me as possible.”

  Chapter 31.

  Colton starts to slowly walk away from the fenced-off area that marks the family burial grounds. There are close to three dozen crosses and headstones erected over the acre lot, some dating back to the early 1800’s, and up to as recently as his parents, and now Willie.

  Together we walk down the path leading toward the Manor. I can’t remember a time when I’ve had to concentrate so hard on keeping my breathing steady.

  “Willie was a smart, stubborn sumbitch,” Colton mutters. “He made me make him a promise, and I’m going to keep it. I don’t want someone else I care about being disappointed in me.”

  He stops and turns to me. I can plainly see he’s struggling. “I don’t want you to think that I was just messing with you, that I didn’t ever care,” he says softly. “But when I saw how you’d look at me… what it all meant… I just couldn’t—” He shakes his head.

  “Couldn’t what?”

  “I couldn’t let you fall… I couldn’t let you love someone like me. You deserve better. You deserve your Prince Charming and your fairy tale. You don’t deserve a lying killer.”

  I feel the blood drain from my face, and I’m not sure I heard him right. I pray to God that I didn’t.

  “You mean because you feel responsible for your parents’ deaths?” I whisper.

  He pauses and shakes his head. “No. Because of what I did the year before they died. What I did to Annalise Meyers.”

  My face feels numb. “Who is Annalise Meyers?”

  He turns away from me again.

  “I’d just turned twenty-two and was in Europe competing in the pro circuit,” he begins, his voice low, hoarse. “I was fresh off a big win in Glasgow and was soaring. Everything was happening for me. I had the money, the success, the celebrity, the girls… it was all coming together. I was young. I was cocky. And I thought I was invincible.”

  He looks up at the sky again, and then back at me. “I’d met this girl, Annalise, about a month before. She was so sweet, studying to be a school teacher, and had the kindest heart of anyone I’d ever met. She was from a small village, and was fairly innocent of the ways of the world. To me she was everything, and I fell for her fast and hard.”

  I listen, quietly, trying to calm the flurry of nerves in my chest. His face is so dark, so tight as he remembers.

  “One night she and I were out celebrating. I’d had to convince her to go, as bars and pubs weren’t her thing. She’d never even been drunk before, but I’d begged her to come out with me.”

  He lets out a deep breath and jams his hands in his pockets. “We ended up at some out of the way place, one of those dive bars where the real action is. Dirty and loud, lots of energy. I was drinking a lot, but I don’t think she really was, even if she pretended to. She was like that, always keeping an eye on me.

  “So I was pretty plastered… not totally wasted and out of control, but I was feeling it. Feeling like a king. Like I was the man.”

  Then he stops, and shuts down so completely I’m afraid he won’t continue. His jaw is rigid and tight, and I don’t have to see his eyes to know how dark they are right now.

  “What happened?” I ask softly.

  He shakes his head and looks back at the ground. “There was this other guy, and he’d obviously been drinking too. We bump into each other, and he was kind of a jerk about it. He was smaller than me by a head, but he raised his arms and said, ‘Watch it, mate.’ And so I said, “Fuck you.’”

  Colton clenches his fist and turns around. “Two words! Two goddamned words!” he shouts, and I catch my breath.

  He looks away again and takes a moment to regain his composure. “Nothing happened right away… some words were exchanged, some macho posturing. And he went back to his friends, and I went back to the table where Annalise was waiting. I thought nothing more of it, and we enjoyed the rest of our night. But later as we were leaving, we turned down a back alley to take a shortcut to my hotel. And that’s when they got us.”

  “The guy from the bar?”

  He nods. “Him and three of his friends. They came up so fast, I didn’t even realize what was happening until it was too late. They had knives, and one had a gun.”

  “Oh my God…”

  He pulls at his tie, as if trying to make it easier to breathe.

  “They told me later that I was stabbed eight times, and shot three times. I remember the first several slashes, but I must have lost consciousness before they shot me and left me for dead in that alley. The doctors told me later I’d been worked over pretty good, it was nothing short of a miracle that I was alive.”

  “Oh my God.” I take a breath and brace myself for what I know is coming next.

  He looks at me grimly.

  “They found Annalise’s body in a dumpster three days after they found me. She’d been brutally raped and shot in the head.”

  His words hang heavy in the air as he grows silent. Tears fall unchecked onto my black mourning dress, and I move to sit on a thick fallen log. Colton paces in a slow circle.

  “Everything was a blur after that. They’d robbed me so I had no ID, and at first I was just a John Doe at the hospital. People in my life were so used to me coming and going and taking off without saying anything, no one even knew I was in trouble. I didn’t have any races for a few months, so my manager figured I was just partying, and my friends assumed the same.”

  “So no one knew you were hurt and in the hospital?” I ask.

  He nods, then shrugs. “Yeah… but that’s how I wanted it. I was barely alive. My career was over— no way would I ever be able to race again with the injuries I sustained. I’d just gotten an innocent young girl murdered in the worst way imaginable –”

  “That wasn’t your fault!” I interrupt, jumping to my feet. “You didn’t get her killed!”

  Colton shakes his head. “Two words. If I’d just said ‘excuse me’, or ‘I’m sorry’, or even a, ‘good evening’, none of this would have happened. But I said ‘fuck you’, and as a result three people died.”

  “How three people?”

  “I was in the hospital for a long time, but I eventually healed. At least my wounds did. I kept the truth from everyone, including my parents. But they knew something was wrong with me, and after I got out of the hospital I was nearly mad with guilt and rage and grief… I wanted to kill the guys who did it, and I wanted to die.

  “You hav
e no idea how unbelievably awful it is to wake up in the morning and have your first thought be how you’re the asshole who got someone killed… to live with that knowledge every single day. My career was over. I went into a downward spiral, and I went down hard… smoking, drinking, snorting, fucking everything I could get my hands on. Anything to escape the reality of my life.

  “My mother was begging me to come home. My father hadn’t been feeling well and they needed help around the Manor. They were still relatively young, only in their mid-fifties. But my dad had some health problems.

  “The night of the accident, his tire blew out. If I’d been there, I would’ve seen that it needed replacing. He just didn’t notice. And he shouldn’t have even been making the drive out to Charleston to get supplies in the first place – that should’ve been me. My mom went with him to keep him company, so when the tire blew and the car spun out of control, they both died.”

  Colton stops his pacing and turns to face me. Then, to my surprise, he takes off his glasses, revealing his broken soul.

  “So you see, I’m not muss-free. I’m fucked up. Two goddamned words that got three people killed and ruined my life forever.”

  I wipe the tears from my cheeks and move closer to him. “You can’t possibly blame yourself for that! You didn’t know that was going to happen!”

  “But I do blame myself,” he says quietly. “The guilt eats away at me every day.”

  We stand there quietly for a long time, and I rack my mind trying to think of the right words to say. But I know there aren’t any. What can ease the burden of guilt he’s placed upon himself?

  I look at the ground, then back to him. “You blame yourself for what happened in the bar that night,” I start, my voice steady and low. “But people talk shit in bars all the time. People say fuck you all the time. People get drunk and bump in to people all the time. It doesn’t usually get them killed. You had no way of knowing what would happen.”

  He shakes his head, and I place my hand on his arm. “Colton, they were obviously completely evil psychopaths. You just had the bad luck to cross paths with them that night. You had bad luck. That’s all. You got a shitty, rotten deal that night, and you’re taking responsibility for all of it. What if you’d gone to a different bar? What if you hadn’t won your race and needed to celebrate? What if Annalise had a headache that night and couldn’t go out? There are so many infinite possibilities and variables that all led to what happened. There was no malicious intent on your part. None. You don’t even know that it’s what you said that actually caused you to be attacked. Maybe they were just planning on robbing you, ever think of that? Maybe the guy recognized you or something…”