by Lena Maye
“That’s okay too,” I say gruffly. It’s really not, but what else do I say? I’m not going to push myself onto her. But I don’t want to let her walk away either.
Being honest with her about my father, well, it felt like shit at first. But now, there’s no more secrets, and it feels peaceful. Even the anger I have toward him has dissipated.
Not entirely, of course. I’ll always hate him. But maybe I can finally get to some kind of place where it doesn’t have to keep tormenting me. I want that for her.
“I’m sorry—” she starts.
“Don’t be.” I drop my hand from her chin, and everything is confusing as fuck because she’s still in my arms, and she’s not moving away. So where does that leave us? Is it the tying-me-up issue? How do I get her past that?
She swallows, looking up at me. “I know you probably don’t want to talk about this right now, but there’s something else with your father.”
“Ella.” Her name is a warning.
“I won’t go back and talk to him again.” She lets out a breath. “But if I don’t talk to your father, then I need to talk to mine.” She looks up at me again, her eyes pleading. “There’s something I’m not seeing. A secret. Something that happened. Your father kept saying he deserved it. I want to know what he was talking about. I have to know.”
“He said that to me too.” My forehead wrinkles as I look at her. “Do you really want to dig it all up and live through it again?”
She reaches for my hand and pulls it up, setting it over her heart and holding her hand over mine. I was confused about where we stood before, but I’m completely lost now.
“I have to find out, Dean. But I want your help.”
I look into those wide, dark eyes. Regardless of whether she just broke up with me or not, that’s an easy decision.
35
Ella
I know I’m confusing him, but I’m also confusing myself. It’s not just fantasies. If he knew—if I actually told him my thoughts—he would leave. He should leave.
Especially because I didn’t tell him the worst part. The part where there’s this small chance my mother might actually be stepping out of her cell. I’m not sure why I kept that back. Saying it makes it more than just a far-off possibility. There’s way too many people between her and freedom, and they all have to see her for what she is. I’ve been texting with Carly almost daily, and there’s still nothing to report. Just an upcoming court date where my mother will be in front of the judge.
I grip Dean’s hand as we walk down the house-lined street. We pass suburban organization with hints of eccentricity. An interesting tree house. A picket fence painted purple. Bits of peculiarity in a polished world. He doesn’t let go of my hand when we reach the steps of the old Victorian house my stepfamily owns.
The sun is dropping behind the hills now, and the bakery is long since closed. So I know that Benny will be home. Inside, the familiar scents of herbs greet me. I find Benny in the kitchen, cleaning the counter with a cloth. It occurs to me that he must spend most of his time cleaning. Second shift at the bakery is mostly cleaning, and then he comes home and does the same.
He turns when we come in, eyeing our linked hands. I’m grateful for Dean being with me. I could do this alone, but I don’t want to.
I don’t let Benny speak first. “I need you to tell me the truth about my mother.”
“Ella—”
“I’m sick of everyone saying my name like that.” I take a seat at the kitchen table as a hint that I’m going to sit right here until Benny talks to me, no matter what he does this time. “You say it with all this hesitation, as if you know what’s better for me than I do. I went to see Charles. I found out about Mira Audet. I know that there’s something you haven’t told me.”
Dean pulls up a chair next to me. His closeness feels like encouragement. Like his strong, balanced presence is transferring to me.
Benny shoots a glare at him. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”
“Why not?” I blurt before Dean can speak. “I’m tired of all the lies, Benny. All the secrets and all the space between our words. Just tell me what happened. Don’t make me fight for it.” Desperation curls my fingers into a ball, and I set my hand on the table. I let it sit there—not trying to hide my anger. I’m tired of hiding.
Benny glances between Dean and me, and I can see his resolve flickering. Or maybe he’s as tired of the secrets as I am.
“We would go out in Cooptown all the time.” He sighs and sits down at the table across from us. But then pushes the seat a foot away from the table. Like he’s trying to keep his distance. “We’d drive to this pool hall. Laura loved to play pool. She was in a league.” He trails off and glances toward the window lined with herbs.
“I didn’t know that,” I say to keep him talking.
Benny shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. Your mother was always—vocal. Loud, one might say.”
“She’s always been full of words.” Like Anthony. Both of them never hesitate to speak. Maybe that’s why I always did—hidden between them like a shadow.
Benny reaches out toward Laura’s books, stacking them into a neat pile. “We were up there one time, and Mira got into it with a couple of guys. Jerks. They were making gestures when women leaned over to take a shot. It was disgusting. Mira said some things to them…”
“And?” I don’t want him to keep hedging.
“Your mother would get Charlie and me into these situations. She would start things, and then Charlie and I would get dragged into it. After you were born, I didn’t want to deal with it anymore.” He finishes with the books and rattles his fingers on the edge of the table. “You need to understand.”
“Understand what?” I ask.
“Why I left.” His fingers keep rattling. “I hated being dragged into things. And she wasn’t doing it because she was helping anyone. She did it to see what would happen. She was always reaching for something any normal person would run away from.”
“I get why someone would leave my mother, Benny.”
He emits a bitter laugh, not looking at me. “Yeah, I guess you would. So I went down the street for a drink. I ordered a beer, and they had to change the keg. It took so long.” His breath comes out in a hiss.
I stare at the edge of the table. It hurts to look at him. It hurts that in some part of me, I realize what’s coming. Because I had to live with the aftermath. When I was little, I pretended I didn’t understand why my mother would cry—arms slack as she slumped on the end of the bed. She would cry so hard that I would be scared to hug her.
Dean’s hand settles over mine, so warm and present.
“By the time I went back, it was over.” His voice wavers. “Mira was on the pool table. Laura curled in the corner. Those assholes were gone.”
I grip the table, Dean’s hand still covering mine. “They raped her. Laura too?”
“Yes.” Benny folds in on himself—arms wrapped, chin to his chest, sagging on his chair. “I shouldn’t have left. I…”
We’re both folding down into the smallest parts of ourselves. The chambers of my heart suck together, the blood leaving, the beat stopping. I ache for my mother in ways I never knew I could ache for another person. For both her and Laura.
Because I did love my mother. At times. I can love her and I hate her. I can let those two emotions wrap around each other like two twines twisted into a rope.
We are all so twined together. Violence and kindness. Hate and love.
I glance at Dean, and he’s watching me. His jaw tight, those blue eyes glassy.
He turns to Benny. “What about my father? He didn’t leave with you.”
“No.” Benny shakes—his hands, his voice. “He didn’t. I haven’t seen him since then.”
Dean’s hand solidifies over mine. It’s like tension is crawling over his body, running from his forearms to his shoulders and down his back. His father left my mother crumpled on a pool table. I close my eyes, my mind fighting
through wavering memories. Peeking out of the closet with my brother, watching what my mother did to Charles. Helping him out of that house.
Benny’s features drop into a slackened gaze that’s beyond sadness, his shoulders sagging forward. Lemon truths and buttermilk lies. So many things hidden.
I ache that she had to go through that. That it could happen to anyone. “What happened after?” I ask. “Didn’t you get her help?”
“She didn’t want it.” Benny rocks forward. “I tried so hard. To do the right thing—for her and for you. But there were no right answers.”
I remember sitting here with Laura. Everyone’s answers are different, she said. I thought she was talking about her medical condition. About me. But maybe she was talking about this too.
“How old was I?” My voice wavers.
“Almost two years old.”
The weight of what he’s saying hits, but I don’t want to believe it. “Renee?”
“She was born seven months later.” His face crumples. “Because she was early.”
I nod, trying to sort through the emotions. Dean’s hand squeezes mine, and it makes me realize I’m shivering. But when I look at him, he is face is drawn and sharp.
“I had to keep your questions away from Laura,” Benny says. “You understand that, don’t you, Ella? Asking her about it was like long-closed doors flying open. She doesn’t need to suffer through it again. And Renee doesn’t need to know.”
“I understand that you wanted to protect them.” There’s a hardness growing in me. It’s tiny at first, and maybe it’s just from feeling Dean’s anger next to me. But it grows, eating one cell at a time. I keep sucking in breaths of air, but I’m not letting any of them out. “What happened to the men?”
Benny shakes his head. “I don’t know, Ella.”
“What did they look like?”
“I can hardly remember after all these years. One had a blue ball cap on.”
“Was he tall or short? Fat? White? Green? What bar was it?” I try to push out the air, but it’s like I’m a trap keeping everything inside. Hardening into something past resolve. “I need details.”
“Why? Why are you doing this to yourself?”
“All this time, I thought it was random. The places we moved. The men she found. What if it wasn’t random? What if it was revenge?” I grip the table, not recognizing my voice anymore. “Tell me what they looked like.”
“Would that make any difference?”
“It gives a reason for what she did.” I pause, honesty coiling on my tongue. “A reason for my life to be different from hers.”
“Your life is different.” Benny stares at me with wide eyes as if he’s never really looked at me before. Then he drops his head into his hands. “I didn’t look at them before I left. I tried not to.”
My anger flares. He should have done more.
“How many?” A strength holds me up. One I didn’t remember I had. Maybe it’s from letting those emotions back in that I’ve kept out—anger, frustration—all the things I was scared would lead me to my mother. But I’m different from her.
“Six?” He stares at the table. “Seven?”
I bite my lip, tears forming between the anger. “Tell me more. Whatever you can remember.”
“I don’t know, Ella. I’ve tried not to think about it. One had a red button-down shirt. One had a dragon tattoo. It started below his ear and—”
“It wrapped around the back of his neck.”
I close my eyes and try to forget the tenor of his scream.
That’s why she did it. It was never random. We moved, but we always ended up in Maine, watching hot air balloons at the end of the summer. Dean has said there was a hot air balloon festival not too far from here.
Benny struggles to his feet. He sways, but he stands. “I’m so sorry. All of this—it’s my fault. Mine. Not Mira’s and not Laura’s. Mine.” He lets out an uneven breath. “I wish I could go back and change so many things. That’s why I was so happy when you came to live with us, Ella. I had always wanted things to be different. Having you here was like one little piece of something I could try to change. To give you what you should have had. A business and a life.”
“Everything except for the truth.”
“What truth? What I did to your mother that day? How I shouldn’t have let her take you away?” He shakes his head. “What good would that have done?”
“Knowing would have helped.”
But would it have? Because when I turn to face Dean, his face is this mask of tightly drawn muscles. This wasn’t just answers for me, it was answers for him too. Except maybe ones he didn’t realize he was looking for.
I set a hand on his forearm to catch his attention. And even though he looks at me, I’m pretty sure he’s a thousand miles away. I stand, pushing back my chair, and tug him up with me.
“I’m sorry,” Benny says quietly. “I don’t know how we find our way through. I probably should know since I’m your father, but I don’t.”
I clasp Dean’s hand in mine, and he squeezes my fingers.
“What happened in that bar wasn’t your fault, Benny. It wasn’t my mother’s fault or Laura’s fault. But being hurt doesn’t give you a license to hurt someone else. I get why you wanted to keep it from Laura and Renee,” I say, my voice steadier than it’s been in a long time. “But you didn’t have to shove a table into me to do it.”
36
Dean
My father might have raped Ella’s mother. Best case, he left while other men did it. There’s so much anger that sits in the bottom of my gut—I’m not quite sure what to do with it. I walk with Ella back to the Heroine, clutching her hand, my feet steady.
But nothing inside feels steady. Nothing feels real.
My father is a monster. More than I ever realized.
I cross the Harborwalk with her, pass by the ticket hut, through the gate, and down the ramp to the dock. I put my feet where I’ve placed them a hundred times before. This time feels different.
I stop before the ramp, staring at a sailboat. My mother’s sailboat. I wish she was here right now. That she could have met Ella. Although, she probably did meet Ella. But Ella wasn’t the woman holding my hand yet. This stunning woman who felt like two people.
Now she’s coming together as I’m falling apart.
The familiar sounds of the harbor surround us. The steady lap of water against the boats and the shore. The cries of some far-off gulls carried to us by the breeze. And beyond all that is ocean. It extends as far as I can see.
That asshole isn’t going to win. He’s not going to take anything else from me. But how can I have a future with her when this is our past? Maybe she was right to break up with me. Although, that’s not what I want. I want Ella.
I turn and tuck her against my chest. My arms wrap around her, and her hair tickles my neck as I lean into her, grasp on to her.
Instead of pushing me away, she holds on to me. Fuck, I just need that so much right now. I need her so much right now. My throat closes as I grip her, and I have to push out breaths. But I don’t want her to stay if she doesn’t want to.
I should let her go.
I force my arms to release and start to step away from her, but she grabs my wrist, her other hand sliding up my forearm to my shoulder. She pulls me down to her and into the sweetest kiss that I’ve ever experienced. An open-mouthed kiss that’s hardly more than a brushing of lips. She kisses me again, and her lips are trembling. She’s shaking, I realize. I pull her to me, letting my tongue slide across her bottom lip, and then it dances with hers. I savor her, tasting how sweet and soft she is. Cupping her cheeks—smooth skin that I want to sink into. Her warm, uneven breath and the little aching moan she lets out. I want to keep all of it—forever. As a memory if I can’t have more.
But this doesn’t feel like a memory.
Her kiss sweeps the anger out of me. Pulls me back to the present—to her. She grips my shoulder, bringing herself up and me down,
deepening our kiss. Her tongue folds around mine. Then she pulls back and nips at my bottom lip, and desire snaps through me—hard and fast—like a sudden crack of thunder. Jumpstarting my heart and racing hot through my veins, erasing everything except for my desire for this woman.
I drop my hands from her cheeks to her hips, scooping her up. I wait a beat for her to stop me, but her legs settle around my hips, my dick hard against her core. She tilts her hips and rubs against me, and my knees are about to buckle, but I manage to hold her up somehow. I walk us up the ramp as her teeth nip my bottom lip again, her breasts pressed against my chest, her hips under my hands. I pull her roughly against me, and she lets out a needy breath.
I stumble down into the hatchway and into my room, shoving her against the wall so that I can kiss down her neck before capturing her lips again. Her hands grab my shirt, pulling it up, and I lean back to let her pull it off. Her fingers run greedily over my shoulders and down my biceps, which are taut from holding her weight. She’s breathing hard, and her legs are tight around my hips. But her fingers still tremble. It worries me.
“Ella.” My voice is rough, so I clear my throat. “You can stop us whenever you want. Now or later. It doesn’t matter.”
She shakes her head, a smile touching her lips. It’s the first smile I’ve seen from her all afternoon. “Not now.”
“Good, because I was really hoping for later.” Or, you know, not at all. The thought of not stopping—of being inside of her—makes me let out a groan. The possibility makes me so fucking hard that I’m lightheaded. I take a few steady breaths, trying to regain a bit of composure.
Composure that lessens pretty quickly when she rolls her hips again. Fuck, she’s got to know what that’s doing to me. My knees do fail this time, and I stumble backward to my bed, falling down hard. She straddles me, pulling me up by my wrists so I’m sitting.
“That’s actually something we should talk about,” I force out.
She blinks at me. “Stopping? I, um…” She starts to move off me, and I grab her, dragging her back.
