by JM Darhower
“She's not here,” he said into the phone.
Dia sighed. “She's probably scared.”
“You think I don’t know that? She's afraid of me. Of me, Dia.”
He couldn’t get the image of her expression out of his mind, the fear in her eyes as she ran from him.
“She trusts you, Carmine.”
“If that’s true, why won’t she talk to me? Doesn’t she know that I understand how she feels? I lost my mom, too.”
“Yes, but you’re irrational when it comes to talking about your mother's death.”
Her words made his temper flare again. “Vaffanculo.”
“You’re proving my point,” Dia said. “Look, I’ll call you back. I need to check something.”
She hung up without awaiting his response. Carmine climbed back into his car and drove through the streets of Durante for a bit, stopping by the after-party when he ran out of places to look. He swung his car onto the driveway and got out, spotting Max standing alongside the house. He started to walk over to him when Dia called back. “Any luck?” he asked as he answered.
“She’s safe.”
Relief washed through him so fast he nearly collapsed from the force of it. “Where did you find her?”
“She’s down at the lake.”
He froze, grabbing the hood of his car as his legs went weak. Yeah, he was going to fucking collapse. “What do you mean she’s at the lake? Put her on the phone.”
“I'm not with her.”
“You’re not with her?” he asked incredulously. “She shouldn’t be alone, Dia. It’s dark, and she can’t swim!”
“She’s not alone.”
“What do you mean?” Dia didn’t respond, her silence all he needed for the truth to register. “Nicholas.”
“You should calm down,” she said before he even had a chance to get worked up. She knew him well, which meant she also knew her words wouldn’t work. Carmine’s anger spiraled out of control as his chest constricted.
“Calm down? I’m tired of this bullshit. I’ve given her everything, Dia, and she does this. If this is how she wants it to be, fine. They can have each other.”
“Carmine...”
“This is why I never wanted to fall in love. It’s not worth it.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Don’t fucking tell me what I mean.” Betrayal fueled his rage, and he threw his phone at the car, cursing as a lump formed in his throat. His vision clouded over as his hand clenched into a fist. He slammed it against the windshield, the glass on the passenger side cracking from the force of the blow. Desolation coursed through him as he did it again, the windshield caving as his fist broke through. Pain stung his knuckles, the jagged glass ripping the skin, and he pulled his hand away as he kicked the passenger side door.
A hand grasped his shoulder, and he turned around so fast that Max held his hands up, taking a step back. “Relax, man,” he said, glancing between him and the car. “Are you all right?”
Carmine flexed his right hand, blood seeping from his knuckles. “Do I look all right?”
“No. Neither does your car, for that matter.” Max grabbed his shoulder again. “Come on, let's get you a drink. Or a smoke. Or, after that, maybe you just need a fuck.”
Carmine picked his phone up. There was a crack in the screen, and it wouldn't turn on. “Do you have any blow?”
“Some.”
Max pulled out the tiny plastic bag filled with cocaine. Carmine took it and went straight to the bathroom to wash the blood off his hand before plopping down on a couch in the den. His chest still hurt, his mind continually drifting to thoughts of Haven. He needed to dull the pain before it got any worse. He pulled out his father’s American Express card and dumped some powder out on the table when Lisa and Meghan walked in.
Lisa smiled wickedly. “Didn't think I'd see you here.”
“Do you ever think? I figured you needed to have a brain for that.”
She rolled her eyes dramatically. Carmine lined up the powder as Meghan sat down beside him. “What's wrong with you?”
His irritation mounted. “What do you mean what's wrong with me? There's nothing wrong with me.”
“This isn't like you,” she said, eyeing the cocaine.
“It isn't the first time I've done this, Meghan,” he said. “Is it so strange that I just want to unwind?”
“Yes. The old Carmine would've done this, but this isn't you.”
“I'm still the same person.”
“No, you're not. I know my opinion probably doesn't count—”
“You're right,” he said, interrupting her. “You don't know a damn thing about my life.”
“I know you've been happy with... the girl,” she said. He stopped what he was doing, surprised she had the nerve to try to talk to him about it. “I know you never cared about me like that, but I always cared about you. You treated me like crap, I’m not going to pretend you didn't, but I put up with it, because I thought that was just how you were. I thought you were happy being that way, but then I saw you with the girl.”
“Haven,” he said. He was tired of people referring to her as the girl. She was more than just a girl. “Her name's Haven.”
She nodded. “You were different with her. Never once did you smile at me like you smile at the... uh, Haven. She made you happy.”
“She did,” he admitted, before quickly correcting himself. “She does. Usually, anyway.”
Meghan frowned. “You know, the part of me that cares about you doesn't like seeing you like this.” She motioned toward the coke. “But like you said, my opinion doesn’t count.”
She stood up, and Carmine felt guilty. He hadn’t done a single thing to deserve her kindness. “Meghan? Thanks.”
“You're welcome,” she said. “Besides, my father is a million times nicer when he isn’t stressed out from dealing with you all the time, so it helps us both.”
He laughed to himself. Good ol’ Jackass Rutledge. Carmine almost missed visiting him every day.
Graham staggered into the doorway then and called Meghan’s name, telling her to come play beer pong. She gave Carmine one last look before following her boyfriend.
Leaning back against the couch, Carmine tried to block out everything to clear his head, wishing the pain would go away. After a moment he stood up and walked away, leaving the cocaine spread out on the table.
He nearly collided with Dia at the front door of the house. She narrowed her eyes, blocking his path. “Why aren’t you answering your phone?”
“It broke.”
“It broke?” she asked with disbelief. “Did it break the same way your windshield broke?”
“Maybe.”
She shook her head. “What are you even doing here? I can't believe you're partying while your girlfriend's out there somewhere!”
“She's not somewhere,” he said. “She's at the lake, remember?”
“So instead of waiting for her to come back, you're just going back to this?”
“Christ, I didn't do anything. I'm sober. Yeah, I fucked up my car, but she's the one who walked away, not me.”
“You were never patient, Carmine, but you weren't a quitter.”
He sighed and looked away, realizing people were watching them. “I'm leaving,” he said, stepping out of the house.
Carmine headed to his car and was about to get in when Dia's voice stopped him. “You were right on the phone. You said out of everyone, you'd understand most what she was going through. That's true, so why don’t you understand? All the mistakes you made, all the people you hurt. You were my friend, and I never lost faith in you. So what happened to your faith in her?”
Carmine had no answer for that.
His stomach dropped when he made it back home and the Mercedes was the only car in the driveway. He took a deep breath as he went inside, his father greeting him in the foyer. The smile on Vincent’s face fell when he took in Carmine’s expression. “Did something happen?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Nicholas happened.”
“Dammit, Carmine! How many times do we have to go through this? You have to leave that boy alone!”
He shook his head. “Whatever. The Mazda took a worse beating than Nicholas did.”
“Your car? What happened tonight? Where’s the girl?”
“I already told you—Nicholas happened,” he spat. “And her fucking name is Haven. Haven. Use it sometime.”
Vincent just stared at him, taken aback.
“And if you wanna know where Haven is, find Nicholas. They’re down at the lake somewhere.” An idea hit him the moment he said that. “You are gonna go get her, aren't you?”
Vincent pinched the bridge of his nose. “Her life is her own, Carmine. She can have friends, and you should respect that.”
“After what he did to me, you expect me to respect him? I'm supposed to like this?”
“I didn't say you had to like it, nor did I say you should respect him, I simply said you ought to respect her right to make her own choices, whether you like them or not.”
“I do,” he said. “I'm not that big of an asshole. I tell her all the time to make her own decisions.”
“Well, then, you should see this as her doing just that.”
Groaning, Carmine pushed past his father and headed for the stairs. “How come no one’s taking my side on this?”
Vincent laughed, the sound hitting a nerve. “This isn't about choosing sides. I told you someday the real world would creep up on you, and it seems you've finally hit that moment.”
“Oh, I know it,” he said. “I knew it the moment she slapped me.”
Vincent stared at him, grinning. “She hit you?”
“What's so fucking amusing?”
“I'm just pleasantly surprised,” he said. “Not saying she should've hit you, but I'm shocked she'd let go like that. She may just make it out there in the world, after all.”
* * * *
“Ever heard of Stockholm Syndrome?”
Haven eyed Nicholas warily at those words. His legs dangled over the end of the dock, his pants rolled up and feet skimming the surface of the water. She sat cross-legged beside him, their discarded shoes scattered on the deck around them. “No, what is it?”
“It’s when someone gets mushy feelings for their kidnapper.”
She sighed when she realized where he was going with it. “I wasn’t kidnapped.”
“You weren’t? So Dr. D didn’t cut out letters from a magazine and glue them together to make a colorful ransom note for you?”
“No.”
“Huh, interesting,” he said. “It doesn’t really have to be a kidnapping, though. It’s when someone that’s being held hostage has mushy feelings for their captor.”
“That’s basically the same thing you said the first time. Besides, Carmine isn’t holding me hostage.”
“But you are being held, right?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t not say it, either,” he said. “And sometimes people in that situation get brainwashed into thinking the person is nice just because they don’t smack them around.”
“I’m not brainwashed.”
“How do you know? Because ‘I’m not brainwashed’ sounds suspiciously like something a brainwashed person would say.”
She shook her head. “You just don’t want to believe Carmine’s different now, do you?”
“Nope,” he said, “but stop changing the subject. We’re talking about you being kidnapped.”
“I told you—I wasn’t kidnapped.”
“I know. I thought for sure you were, though.” He shook his head. “I was banking on you having parents out there searching for you.”
Her chest tightened at his words. “My parents are dead.”
She could feel his eyes on her, his stare intense, but she didn’t dare look at him. After a moment he turned away and started kicking the water again. “My mom’s dead, too. She died when I was young. I still have my dad, but we don’t get along.”
“Why not?”
“He always expects the worst from me,” he said. “So I figure, what’s the sense in trying to do right when he’ll never see it? He only sees what’s wrong. But it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m eighteen now, so I may as well move out and get a job. Start over somewhere new, where people don’t hear the name Nicholas Barlow and automatically think ‘that degenerate asshole’.”
She gazed at him. “You think people look at you that way?”
“I know they do,” he said. “It’s even worse now that Carmine’s…”
“Now that Carmine’s what?” she asked when he didn’t finish his sentence. “Now that he’s different?”
He didn’t respond, and that was answer enough for her. Smiling, she turned back out to the water. It was quiet for a moment, the only sounds being water splashing and crickets chirping in the night.
Nicholas cleared his throat after a few minutes. “Did I tell you the joke about the butter?”
“You mean the butterfly one?”
“No, the butter one.”
“What butter one?”
He groaned. “You’re screwing up my punch line here. Let’s try it again—did I tell you the joke about the butter?”
“Uh, no. I don’t think so.”
“Then I butter not tell you,” he said. “You might spread it.”
He cut his eyes at her, grinning, but she just stared at him. “Spread what?”
Shaking his head, he looked back away. “Even if it’s the last thing I do, I’ll get you to laugh at one of my jokes someday.”
* * * *
Standing in the library by the window, Carmine stared out into the backyard. He wondered what Haven thought about as she sat there night after night, or if her mind was just as vacant as the blackness. He could faintly recall those months after his mom’s death, so in the grips of heartbreak that even attempting to hold a conversation took too much effort. It was like the life had been sucked out of him, his insides a bottomless pit of grief.
He spotted the book lying on the small table and grabbed it, surveying the blank cover before flipping it open. Sloppy handwriting covered the withered paper, confusion hitting him when he realized it was a diary. Sickness brewed in his stomach when he flipped back to the front, seeing Maura DeMarco written inside the cover. Closing the book again, he nearly lost his breath. She’d seen his mom’s diary. After everything he'd done to protect Haven from the truth, she stumbled upon it anyway.
He dropped the diary and sprinted out of the library, pulling his keys from his pocket as he flew down the steps two at a time. Once he hit the second floor, his father stepped out of his office, the sound of frantic footsteps drawing his attention.
“Carmine, wait!” he said, taking a step toward him, but Carmine didn't stop. He went straight out the front door and to his car, unlocking it just as his father stepped onto the porch. “Don't you dare go there!”
Carmine hesitated briefly before starting the car. Haven had been gone for well over an hour, and there was no way he could let it go for another minute. He headed down the driveway in a hurry and gunned it once he hit the paved road. Speeding down the highway in the darkness, he held his breath as he flew past the Aurora Lake sign, knowing he'd reached the point of no return. He swung around a curve and slammed the brakes when he caught a glimpse of the Audi. The Mazda skidded to a stop in the gravel lot, and he jumped out, heading down toward the water. He walked along the shore for a moment, searching for some sign of her, before he spotted them sitting on the dock.
Nicholas's eyes fell on Carmine as soon as he approached. Haven must've sensed him too, because her head snapped in his direction. She jumped up and recklessly took a step away, nearing the edge of the dock. Her foot skidded, almost sending her tumbling, but Nicholas grabbed her before she fell. “Whoa, what did I tell you? I'm not going in the water after you.”
Carmine held up his hands. “I'm not here for a fight.”
/>
Nicholas looked at him suspiciously. “What are you doing here? You know you aren't allowed.”
“I know,” he said. “You can press charges if you want, I don't give a shit. I just need to talk to her.”
“Don’t you think if she wanted to talk to you, she would’ve gone to you? You can’t give her some space?”
Carmine ran his hands down his face in frustration. “It’s important. I’ll leave, I will, I just need to talk to her first.” He focused his attention on Haven. “Please, hummingbird? Just a few minutes.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“You know you don’t have to,” Nicholas said. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
Carmine glared at him but kept his mouth shut as Haven nodded. “I know.”
Nicholas glanced between them before gently rubbing Haven's arm. ”Take care. You know how to reach me if you need me.”
She smiled softly and nodded, her eyes nervously flitting to Carmine as she said goodbye. He started toward Haven after Nicholas left. “I know what you found.”
A horrified expression flashed across her face. “Oh God.”
She looked like she wanted to run from him again, so he reached out to stop her. “I already knew it all.”
“You knew?”
He nodded. “I’ve known for a few months that it was you.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I was trying to protect you.”
She gaped at him. “You were trying to protect me?”
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” he said. “It wasn’t right to put you through that shit. I didn’t see the point.”
“Your mama died because of me, and you didn’t see the point? I destroyed your life, Carmine!”
“Christ, you were just a little girl. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
She shook her head as tears started falling down her cheeks. “I took your mama from you.”
“No, you didn’t. The person who pulled the trigger took her.”
“You’re wrong.” She wiped her tears away. “How can you even look at me? How could you ever love me after that?”
