“So? Spill. Was it good?” Amy giggles.
“No. No, it really wasn’t. I guess I was trying to see if I might grow to like him. He really liked me and wanted to be with me and I guess I wished that I wanted him back. But, truthfully, it just wasn’t right. Kissing him left me feeling empty. The more we kissed and the closer we got, the emptier I felt.”
Amy blinks. “Jesus. That’s the most honest thing I think anyone’s ever told me.”
“Yeah,” Aislin laughs. “That’s probably the most honest thing I’ve ever told anyone.”
“So,” Amy changes the subject, “So, who is your Jaxon? Who broke your heart?”
Aislin tells Amy the story of her and Ty—how they’d met and dated, become engaged and ultimately how things had ended. Though, she mentions, their recent dance and friendly exchange in Huntington while visiting Ella before she left.
“You miss her, huh?” Amy said, treading the nine feet of water surrounding them.
“Yeah. She was kind of like you. Not afraid to speak her mind, kind of naughty.” Aislin grins at Amy.
Parker and Gabe join them, attracted by their laughter.
Amy swims up to Parker and wraps her legs around his waist. He tries to push her off, but she clings tightly to him. “Damn it to hell, woman! Are you trying to kill me? Get off before I do something about it and scare Gabe and Mac out of this pool!”
Amy laughs and unwraps herself from her husband. Definitely trying to conceive. Aislin hates seeing Gabriel’s beautiful eyes wrapped up. Her heart drops just thinking that he might be blind for the rest of his life. That his denim blue eyes might never see her again.
The four eat a dinner of grilled steak, baked potatoes and skewered and grilled vegetables. Parker and Amy escort them out to their car to say goodbye. After Gabriel is safely tucked into the passenger seat, Amy approaches Aislin.
“Oh! I almost forgot! I need a last minute favor. The Barn is hosting an event to support a local food pantry and new domestic violence shelter that a friend of ours is raising funds to build. It’s next weekend and we’re having a bachelorette auction. And, since you’re a bachelorette, would you mind helping us out?”
“Sure.” Aislin agrees quickly before she changes her mind.
Amy jumps up and claps her hands. “Great! The theme is ‘masquerade ball,’ so I need you to wear a beautiful dress and mask, okay?”
“Okay.” Aislin laughs.
“Yay!” Amy claps and squeals!
†
Gabriel lounges on his bed the next morning, listening to Fox News on the television in his bedroom. Aislin leans against his doorway.
“Get up and get ready, we’re going somewhere.”
“I’m not in the mood, Mac. You go on.”
Aislin pushes off the doorframe and walks to the edge of the bed and sits down on it. She takes Gabe’s hand in hers and says, “Nope. I need my wingman. Besides, you need to get out of this house. Get some fresh air.”
He sighs heavily. “Fine. Lay out my clothes and I’ll get ready.”
Aislin nudges his shoulder with her own. “That’s the spirit.”
Frowning, Gabe asks, “Are you at least going to tell me where we’re going?”
Sweet sarcasm rolling off her tongue, Aislin replies, “Now, where’s the fun in that. It’s a surprise. Get ready. I’ll meet you on the porch.”
†
A half an hour later, Aislin pulls her CR-V into an empty field and parks. She orders Gabe to stay put while she unloads the trunk. Fishing poles, tackle box, bait, bucket, cooler. She takes the items down a steep, but short earthen embankment and then heads back for Gabe. The pair maneuver to the creek’s edge and she perches Gabe on a giant, flat rock.
She watches him feel the rock underneath his hand and the corners of his mouth curl upward slightly.
“Do you know where we are?” she asks softly, attaching a worm to the hook on his pole.
“The creek? Devil creek?” he asks, unsure of his answer.
Aislin laughs. “Yep. Here.” She places his hands on the handle of his fishing pole. “Go fish, big boy.”
He laughs. “Big boy?”
“Yep.” She giggles. He casts his line and the hook sinks into the middle of the creek. Just like riding a bike. The man can fish blindfolded.
An hour later, Aislin prepares their picnic lunch. It’s nothing as fancy as the one Jeremiah had prepared for her during their outing, but she made it and she believes sometimes the best things in life are the simple ones. She places a sandwich, pours each some chips and places strawberries on each plate. She hands Gabriel his food along with an ice-cold Pepsi.
As Gabriel chews his first bite of sandwich, he cracks up laughing, mouth full of childhood. “Peanut butter and jelly?”
“Hey,” she feigns scolding, “Don’t knock the PB and J. It’s the best sandwich ever. I remember a certain young man who ate one every day after school, Mister.”
He laughed. “I remember a certain two someone’s who ate one with me.”
When their laughter fades, Aislin can see that Gabe’s expression has turned more serious. “Mac, can I ask you something?”
“You can ask me anything. Not promising an answer, but you can ask.” She nervously swallows a drink of her Pepsi and pushes her glasses up onto her head. Gabriel shifts and places his plate on the rock in front of him once he feels that there is a big enough surface to put it on.
“What happened?” He clears his throat. “What happened that day Dec took you out of that house?” Though is eyes are covered, his head points toward her and she feels as if he can see directly through her.
She swallows another big gulp. “Dec never told you?” she asks softly. She grabs a dandelion and twirls it in her fingers. Back and forth, it twists.
He shakes his head. “No. He just said that he had to get you out of there and that if you were taken back, he’d kill Rick Peterson. I knew Dec and he wasn’t joking. He was serious when he said it.”
Aislin took a deep breath. She had always known that this conversation would eventually take place between the two of them, but she hadn’t expected it today. “Well, you and Declan were at soccer practice. Remember, it was spring and the league had just started back up? Um, I came home. Edith had started making lists of chores for me to do each evening after school. They had been getting longer and longer by the day. If I didn’t get everything finished, she’d fly off the handle. I didn’t want to make her mad. I knew what was waiting on the other side of her anger. I didn’t want Declan to have to deal with her when he got home either. When I got home that day, I knew something was off. I mean, I’m sure you knew that Rick and Edith were drunk most of the time, but this was different. There were several empty bottles of beer and a couple of whiskey bottles scattered around the kitchen and living room. After I turned sixteen, something happened. Rick had started to notice me in a different way. He started calling me Princess and started brushing against me and touching me. Nothing too blatant, but it made me really uncomfortable.”
After a long pause, she composes herself and continues. “I went upstairs and heard a commotion from their bedroom. Edith was crying and screaming. I didn’t know what was going on, so I cracked the door and looked in. Rick was straddling her. His hands were squeezing her throat and he was screaming something in her face while he raped her. I mean, I know they were married, but she definitely didn’t want what was happening, you know. She was scared. I’ll never forget how she looked. Her eyes were bulging and her face was purple and mottled. I remember the sound of flesh smacking flesh. Her breasts flopped violently as he pounded her. The smell of whiskey and sex hit me like I’d walked into a wall made up of nothing but those smells. I remember gagging, which was a mistake. Rick heard me. He turned around and looked at me, angry at first, and then he grinned at me. He was so disgusting. I remember clamping my hand over my mouth and praying he would leave me alone.”
Gabriel stiffens. “Go on.”
“I fre
aked out. I slammed their door and ran to my room and closed the door behind me. He didn’t come after me right away. I didn’t hear anything else from their room, so I wasn’t sure what to think. I hid in my bathroom. I probably spent the better part of an hour in there. Declan would be home soon, so I started to relax. As soon as I opened the bathroom door, Rick stepped in front of me. He smelled disgusting, like whiskey, sex and body odor. I don’t know how he opened my bedroom door without me hearing it, but he had. He grinned at me and….” A tear spills out of each of her eyes. She sniffs. “Sorry, I’ve only ever talked about this a couple of times.”
“You’re doing fine,” he encourages, softly. “Come here.” Gabriel holds his arms out and Aislin sits down next to him on the rock and he wraps her in safety.
“He said that I had become a beautiful woman and that Edith no longer fulfilled the needs he had as a man. He said I should take care of them. That I owed him, since he’d taken me and Dec in. There was no way to close my bathroom door again, because he’d slid into the doorway. So, I tried to unlock the bathroom door that connected with Dec’s room. I was stupid to turn my back on him. His grubby fingers grabbed hold of my hair and jerked me backwards. He dragged me across the floor. I remember trying to dig the heels of my Keds into the carpet, clutching at furniture, the hardware on my dresser, but he just kept jerking. My hair was on fire. It hurt so badly. I kicked and tried to punch him, but it was like he didn’t feel any of it. He pushed me down onto my mattress and straddled me, just like he’d done Edith and held my wrists over my head. I couldn’t get free. I tried. I bucked and kicked. I screamed and tried to gauge my fingernails into the hand that held mine hostage. When he tried to kiss me, I bit his lip so hard blood ran down his chin.”
Aislin sniffles and wipes away more tears. “That really pissed him off. He screamed and started yelling, ‘You little fucking bitch. You’ll pay for that!’ And, that’s when he went bat shit crazy. He tore my shirt open. I remember hearing the buttons hit things…the wall, the window, and then fall to the floor. I tried to knee him in the balls, but before my knee could connect, he backhanded me. He got me good. Blood flooded my mouth. He ripped my jeans open and started fiddling with his own, which he hadn’t bothered to zip after he was with Edith. I couldn’t get free, no matter what I did. I was crying and screaming and thrashing and trying everything I could think of to get him off of me. Dec must have come home and heard me because the next thing I know, Rick is flying backward and Dec is giving him the beating of his life. After a few punches, Dec knocked him completely out. Dec had gotten so buff with football training. He hadn’t fought back against them until that day and Rick had obviously underestimated his strength. I remember looking at his limp body as Declan rocked me. He packed our stuff as quick as he could fly through our rooms and we left that night and never looked back.”
Aislin is aware that Gabe’s shirt is now wet with her tears, but she can’t pull away. He kisses her forehead tenderly. “I’m so sorry, Mac. I didn’t know. I didn’t know it was that bad.”
Aislin let out a sort of half laugh, half sob. “That’s just it. It was worse. Rick and Edith were drunks. They hit Declan and me all the time. Edith was smart. She would hit me in the ribs and back, in places no one would see the bruises. With Rick, you never knew where his fist would land. Any place was fair game. Dec always tried to protect me from them. He would provoke Rick to get his attention off of me.”
Aislin let go and swiped away her tears. “I miss him so much, Gabe. I just feel so lost and alone without him.” She sobs into his chest as he holds her tight.
“You’re not lost, Mac. You’re right where you’re supposed to be. You’re with me.” He kisses her temple and rubs her back. Aislin can’t stop crying long enough to tell him he’s wrong. She is lost and feels more alone now than she ever has in her life. And, she isn’t really with him. Not how she longs to be. She never will be. And it is killing her.
†
Tuesday evening, after a quiet dinner of baked chicken, steamed broccoli and rice, Aislin washes their dishes and the glasses that hold the remnants of ice cubes and watery lemonade. Gabe sits at the kitchen table, hands clasped together and one leg bouncing furiously under the table. He had been at Parker’s since Tuesday night, only having arrived back at her house just before dinner. Aislin wondered what in the world had him so nervous. He’d bounced his leg throughout the entire dinner, shaking their plates and glasses and shimmying the hot pepper-shaped salt and pepper shakers from the center.
He clears his throat. “Mac, can I ask you to help me with something?”
“Of course,” she replies without hesitation. She turns to look at him.
“I hate to ask you, but I need help washing my hair and changing my bandages. My eye patches can’t get wet and I am not so sure I can avoid it if I do this on my own. It’d be easier if I could lean my head back and you could rinse it. If you don’t want to, I’ll have Parker just take me to a beauty shop or something…” he trails off.
Aislin giggles at his discomfort. What a silly thing to be nervous about! “Gabe, it’s really not a big deal. I’ll wash your hair and I’m confident that I can avoid your bandages. You don’t need professional help. Not with that, anyway.”
“Ha. Ha. Ha,” he replies dryly.
After she places the low-backed wooden chair from her vanity in front of the guest bathroom’s pedestal sink, grabs the shampoo, conditioner and a towel and the gauze and tape to re-wrap his head later, she guides Gabriel into the seat before her. She notices how he wipes his hands nervously down the legs of his tan cargo shorts. Aislin gingerly pulls back the tape from the gauze haloed around his head and unwinds it, layer by layer until only his eye bandages remain. He sighs.
Aislin stifles a giggle. His hair is pushed straight up on the sides from the gauze wrapping’s pressure. He hasn’t looked this human to her since they were awkward teenagers. Though Gabe had always been handsome, when he and Dec were seniors and she was a sophomore, his body looked quite different. Though his height had not changed at all, he had definitely bulked up. Now his muscles bulged under the arms of the red t-shirt he wears. Aislin had felt his chiseled abdomen and chest when they had kissed. Definitely different. Like her brother, Gabe had dated in high school and college. Nothing too serious, but both were good-looking guys and kept a steady stream of girls ebbing and flowing from their social calendars.
There was never a steady stream of guys for her though. The ones that showed interest in her were either chased off by Declan and Gabe or didn’t interest her. No one had held her interest until Ty. In all honesty, she had been scared that if she got close to anyone, they might discover what happened behind the Peterson’s closed doors. She couldn’t fathom being separated from Dec if someone found out, so she had spent much of her high school years alone or with her brother and Gabe. She had one girl friend, Kristen, whom she ate lunch with every day and with whom occasionally took in a movie or the two would go shopping. Kristen was shy and soft-spoken and never asked many personal questions, so the relationship had been okay with Aislin.
Gabe clears his throat. “Um, Mac?”
“Oh, sorry! Lean back and I’ll guide your head to the sink.” Heat creeps into her cheeks. She’d gotten distracted by her memories and lost touch with reality.
Her fingers gently guide his head backward and adjust him so that his neck leans against the porcelain sink edge. She turns the water on and lets it flow over her fingers until it warms. She adjusts the temperature to what she hopes is acceptable to him.
“I’m gonna put this towel over your eye bandages, okay?” she asked.
Gabe grunts and nods lightly. Aislin gently drapes the navy hand towel over his eyes and pulls it up to cover all of the tape that extends onto his forehead. She uses a measuring cup to dip up the water and pour it gently over his head.
“Too hot?” she asked.
“No. It’s perfect.” He said, gravel threading through his voice.
; She pours some shampoo into her hands and begins to work it through his hair. Gabe groans in approval when her fingernails begin to massage his scalp lightly. She knows it had been a few days since he’d been wrapped up and wanted to make him comfortable and thoroughly clean. She would want the same if it were her in the chair instead. She carefully rinses the suds from his short hair until the water runs clear in the sink. She repeats with the conditioner, earning more groans of approval to which she responds with giggles.
Shutting off the water, she asks Gabe to hold still while she grabs a bigger towel to dry his hair with. She hadn’t thought about that part. She would need to dry his hair very thoroughly to avoid water dripping down onto his bandages.
The linen closet sits opposite Gabe’s chair and unfortunately, that doesn’t leave Aislin much room to maneuver.
“Gabe, can you like, spread your legs so I can open the door to the linen closet?” He complies and she pulls the door open. The shelves are set back further than she can reach, so she stretches her legs across and steps between his legs and grabs a towel. She shuts the door and starts to climb back across him, when he interrupts her. He grabs her waist and pulls her toward his body. Standing between his legs, pulled up against his torso, her breath stills at the same time her heart leaps into action. Strange how both can occur simultaneously.
She swallows nervously. He hasn’t touched her or shown any interest in her since he told her kissing her had been a mistake. The words pierce through her mind. Her hands shake lightly as she pulls the towel forward and begins to dry his hair. She rubs the towel from the front of his head to the back, over and over, hoping to move the water downward with the pull of gravity. When she is confident that no water will drip onto his bandages, she stops and pulls the towel back.
“You should let your hair dry completely before we wrap it again.” Gently, Aislin moves the towel through his wet hair.
“Um-hmmm” he replies. His fingers burn through her skin. She is on fire. Set ablaze by his touch and the aching she feels for it. She wants him. It might just be criminal to want someone so much. If only he felt the same. He doesn’t move his hands, but pulls her closer until the stubble on his face grabs the thin cotton of her hunter green tank top stretched over her stomach.
Devil Creek Page 11
