Silk

by Heidi McLaughlin

  “I’m going to fix this,” I said, trying to take a more diplomatic approach than I did during our last conversation. Though I had plenty more to say, I needed to escape.

  I turned to go, and he grabbed my arm. “No. You are going to do what I asked you to do two weeks ago and stay the hell away from her. I won’t let you near her again.”

  I shrugged my shoulders and ripped my arm out of his grip. “I won’t stay away from her.” I said, meeting his glare. “And don’t blame me for your mistakes. She should have dealt with this 10 years ago. If she had, she would have known who I was the first time she saw me. You decided to play God, and now we’re both begging for forgiveness.”

  I turned and walked away. I knew this was not the last that I would hear from him, but at least I’d finally gotten in the last word.

  I went back to Allie’s building. Before I had run into Garrett Harper, I’d had renewed hope that I would find her there. My hope had waned after our confrontation. I had a feeling that he would take proactive measures to keep me away from her. So I wasn’t surprised when she didn’t answer after I knocked. I stood and listened to the dead silence inside until Rubber Cat finally meowed back at me. I told myself I should let myself in to see if he’d been fed, but I couldn’t do it. She needed me to respect her privacy more than she needed me to feed her cat.

  I took the subway home. Despite my lack of sleep the night before, I had nervous energy to burn. I decided to go for a run and hope that Ethan worked a miracle while I was gone. I changed into a t-shirt and some track shorts and laced up my shoes.

  When I stepped out onto the street, the late summer afternoon heat hit me in the face. The still air mixed with the exhaust from the street. Normally, it would have felt suffocating, and I would have questioned the decision to run at this time of day. But, since I had been suffocating all day, I barely even noticed.

  CHAPTER 25

  Alexis

  I sat down on the bed and listened to the rhythmic sound of the running water in the next room. My eyes felt grainy from lack of sleep and crying.

  I hadn’t gone to sleep yet. I was afraid to. The nightmare would be so much worse now. Instead, I’d spent the night replaying it over and over in my head. And I didn’t know which was worse, the dream or the reality.

  For hours, my phone had lit up in response to Adam’s text messages and missed calls. I knew he was out there in the hall. It hurt to see him sitting there, slumped against the wall, but the thought of talking to him hurt me even more. Still, I was glad he was there. Even though I hadn’t been ready to face him last night, his presence was strangely comforting. I was a bundle of mixed emotions.

  It had taken several hours to run out of tears, but I did at some point. Only then did I pull out my computer. First, I searched the Internet for my name. All that pulled up was my profile on the firm web page and race results from a handful of 5Ks I’d run over the years. When I searched ‘Car Accident Highland Park Dallas 2001,’ I found what I was looking for. The first link was to an ancestry website that included a reproduction of a news article from the leading Dallas newspaper. The date was March 21, 2001. My stomach rose into my throat as I read the article:

  CHILD’S DEATH A BLOW TO UNIVERSITY PARK COMMUNITY

  On the surface, classrooms at University Park Elementary went on with business as usual on Monday. The children in the kindergarten class were too young to understand the death of their classmate and friend. However, their teachers and parents understood all too well.

  Joy Anne Hill died at the site after she was struck by a car while playing in her yard on Saturday, March 17. The driver, [xxxx], 17, of Highland Park, lost control of the vehicle at approximately 1:45 p.m. while traveling South on Douglas Avenue.

  Witnesses said the driver appeared to be distracted by an impending storm. Police said that the vehicle jumped the curb after passing through the intersection at Normandy and hit Hill before slamming into a tree. Hill was pronounced dead at the scene.

  The driver suffered life-threatening injuries and was taken to a local hospital, where she underwent multiple surgeries over the following 72 hours. The driver has not been released and remains in critical condition. Her parents have sought legal representation though no charges have been filed.

  “Joy was just that ... a joy to everyone who knew her,” said Katherine Wheeler, kindergarten teacher. “It’s hard to believe that she’s not going to walk through the classroom door tomorrow. She was just such a beautiful spirit. We will miss her every single day,”

  The story was written to protect the minor driver, but I knew who she was. I’d looked at her in the mirror every single day for the past 10 years without knowing that a monster lurked within.

  The picture accompanying the article had undone me. It was the same one that I’d seen in Adam’s wallet that very first morning. It wasn’t a formal school portrait. Instead, the photographer ... probably a family member ... had caught her standing among shreds of wrapping paper, and her eyes gleamed with excitement at a small bicycle with a bow on the handlebars. Her long blonde hair was pulled back with a pale pink headband that matched her pale pink shirt. A perfect smile revealed that the tooth fairy had recently stopped by. I’d stared at the smaller version of Adam’s eyes and lost it all over again.

  My heart hurt. All these years, I’d thought I had been the victim of bad luck, bad timing, and bad weather conditions. I’d undergone three surgeries and thousands of dollars worth of therapy to try to make me whole again. Now I knew the truth. My injuries were nothing. I hadn’t been the victim at all. My victim’s name had been Joy.

  Joy. I thought about the tattoo on Adam’s chest. It had been right in front of my face and yet I remained oblivious to the pain that I’d caused him.

  By the time, I’d replaced the air in my lungs and stopped crying, it was after one in the morning. Not at all concerned about the time, I picked up my phone. There were people who owed me explanations. The first on my list was my parents. My mom had been groggy and alarmed when she answered. By the time I hung up, they were both wide awake. Naturally, their response was to immediately jump on a plane to Manhattan. My dad had spent several hours this morning trying to convince me that I needed to stay at the Plaza with them while we sorted through this together. But that wasn’t what I needed or wanted. They had betrayed me. It was time to do things on my own.

  The second thing on my list ... well, it was still up in the air how that would turn out.

  Adam

  I shut off the shower and reached for a towel. The run had been cathartic. While my feet had pounded the pavement, my head had been a million miles away. I’d replayed every moment I’d ever had with Allie and some from way before. All the things I’d done wrong over the past four months outweighed all the things that I’d done right. But after more than 10 miles, I felt a little calmer. I’d bought myself a couple of hours of patience. As I wrapped the towel around my waist, all I could think about was checking my phone for a message from Ethan. Maybe the run hadn’t been as cathartic as I’d hoped.

  I was disappointed but not surprised when there wasn’t a message. I still wasn’t 100 percent sure that he was pitching for my team. Time would tell. I hated that I was relying on him, but, if I wanted to avoid another confrontation with Garrett Harper, he was in a better position to find her than I was.

  I stepped out of the bathroom and was momentarily startled. She was sitting on my bed, watching me warily. Her eyes were puffy to the point of being almost swollen shut. There wasn’t a lick of makeup on her face, and her hair was thrown back in a loose, messy ponytail. Her tank top and knit athletic pants looked like they’d been slept in though I doubted that she’d slept at all.

  She was the most beautiful sight I’d ever laid eyes on.

  I sent a mental thank you to Ethan, and then I was at her feet. I knelt down in front of her and rested my head on her lap. To a casual observer, one would think that I was the one in need of comforting, but I knew better.

/>   Allie pulled me up so that I was standing on my knees. She ran her fingers through my wet hair and tugged longingly on it. I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could say anything, her lips were on mine. It was unlike any kiss we’d ever had. Hell, it was unlike any kiss of my life. I could feel her desperation and pain as if it were my own. Her arms wrapped around my neck, and she pulled me toward her. She pressed against me like she couldn’t get close enough. Even then, I wanted her closer.

  My mind went to a million different places. I wanted her to pull my hair harder. I wanted to kiss her forever. I wanted to throw her down and lay on top of her so that she could never leave again. But I knew better. Even though I could feel what she wanted from me, I knew what she needed. She needed answers.

  I pulled against unseen forces until I was sitting beside her instead of on top of her where I wanted to be. I’d never exercised so much self control in all of my life. I took her hands and looked at her. The tears threatening to spill from her eyes brought me back to reality.

  “Allie, we need to talk. Before we do anything, we need to talk. I need you to understand.”

  She looked at her lap and then looked up at me with renewed strength. “I do understand, Adam. I really do. I don’t blame you for hating me. I would hate me, too.”

  I moved my hands to her face and wiped away her tears. She didn’t understand anything. Now that I knew her, I could never hate her.

  “I don’t hate you. I’ve done nothing but worry about you for the last 24 hours. Did you know that I slept in your hall last night? I couldn’t make myself leave.”

  “I need to touch you,” she said, dismissing everything I’d just said. I wanted to touch her, too. God, I wanted to touch her. But I needed her to hear me.

  “I do, too, Allie.” I ran my hands up and down her arms, hoping it was enough. “But there are things that I need to tell you first. You may hate me when I’m done, but I’m through lying to you. I won’t lie to you any more.”

  She nodded resolutely, and I started at the beginning. For the second time that day, I told our story. Her reactions were exactly what I expected. She looked at me with sympathy when I talked about my mother’s history with mental illness. Her eyes filled with tears as I explained how much Joy had meant to our family. At some point, I could tell my words were hurting her, but I didn’t stop. I had to explain what Joy meant to me so that she would understand what had happened later.

  I didn’t want to talk about the accident. It was funny. For so long, the details and consequences of the accident had eaten me alive. But now it all took a backseat to balancing what I thought Allie needed to hear with what I thought she could handle. Instead I decided that, at this moment, she needed to hear how I felt about her.

  “I know how it looks, but I never really planned this. When I saw you at The Library that first night, I recognized you, of course, but I hadn’t come looking for you. It wasn’t like that.”

  I took a deep breath, knowing that the next words would make or break me. “But when I saw you laughing with your friends and looking so perfectly happy, it made me crazy. A switch flipped. Your dad’s money had never been enough for me. When I saw you that night, I wanted you to pay, not him.”

  She flinched. I hated it, but I went on, “It was just supposed to be the one night. I didn’t plan on ever calling you again. But you didn’t even give me your number. You didn’t ask me to call you. You were so different from what I expected. I was drawn to you. I couldn’t stay away.”

  “You couldn’t stay away?” she asked. “What do you mean, you couldn’t stay away?”

  “The deli ... the Italian restaurant ... those weren’t just coincidences.” It was the first admission of many.

  “You followed me?” she said. I thought she’d be mad, but all I heard was sadness. Gut-wrenching sadness.

  “Yes.”

  “But ... in the deli ... I ran into you ... literally ran into you,” she said.

  “Yeah, except for nearly landing on my face, that couldn’t have worked out better.”

  “I don’t know what to say, Adam. I feel ... I don’t know how I feel. I finally agreed to go to dinner with you because it seemed like fate was pushing us together. But it wasn’t fate at all.”

  “Fate did have a hand in it,” I said. “Fate brought me to The Library.”

  “So all of this was your plan?” she asked gesturing between us.

  “No. This was definitely not my plan. Initially, I just thought you’d fall for me, and I’d leave you. But, even in the beginning, I was a little mystified by you. You didn’t make it easy. I could tell you liked me, but you kept pushing me away. Then when you finally gave in, you acted like you didn’t deserve me. I couldn’t figure you out. The Allie I knew in Dallas was never like that. I kept coming back for more because ... I think a part of me wanted to know why you were different. I hoped it was Joy who had made you different. At some point ... and I don’t know when exactly ... I wasn’t with you to hurt you, I was with you because it hurt not to be with you.”

  “You knew me in high school?” she whispered.

  “I went to Highland Park High School, too. You were a sophomore when I was a senior. I saw you around the halls, but we didn’t know each other. I was in my second year at UT when Joy ... when the accident happened.”

  “How could I not remember you? How could I not remember Joy?” She put her head in her hands.

  “I was older, and we ran in different crowds. There’s no reason for you to remember me. As for Joy, I don’t know. I’ve thought about that a lot the past couple of days. And I don’t have any answer for that. Maybe your head just didn’t think your heart could take it. Someday, if we meet Dr. Phil, we’ll ask him.” I smiled weakly at her, and, for the first time, I saw the hint of a smile.

  “Allie, some day soon, we need to talk about the accident, but not today. You’ve been through enough. Honestly, we both have.”

  I wiped away her tears again, and instantly there were more. I desperately wanted her to stop crying. Her tears left me feeling powerless. They made me have serious doubts about myself and whether I could fix this.

  “Allie, I love you. I want you. I’ve never wanted anything more than I want you. This situation that we’re in is awful. I mean, it’s really fucking awful. No one should have to endure this, but it doesn’t have to be the end for us. There’s a reason that this has happened. There’s a reason that I ran into you that day. There’s a reason that we are sitting here right now. I’m sure of it. My feelings for you are more important than our past.”

  Allie looked at me with wide eyes. Her voice quivered. “How can you say that? I killed your sister.”

  It was my turn to flinch. No matter how I felt about her now, there was still an open wound when it came to Joy. The wound was healing, but it hadn’t sealed up all the way yet.

  “No. She died, Allie. It was an accident. Whatever your part was, I’ve already forgiven you.”

  “But how? I’m a monster.”

  “You are not a monster. You’re a wonderful, giving, selfless person. You made it easy for me to forgive you. It was just an awful, horrible accident.”

  She looked down at the floor like she wasn’t willing to accept that answer. I ran my finger down her jawline and tipped her chin up so that she would have to look at me. “Allie, I have to ask for forgiveness, too.”

  “For what, Adam? For leading me on in the beginning? For having less than honest intentions? I killed your sister. I think you are more than forgiven.”

  I shook my head. I really wished she’d stop saying that. It was like a knife to the heart for so many reasons.

  “There’s more,” I said. Unlike my earlier talk with Ethan, I told the whole story this time. I told her about the email that I’d deleted when she went to take a shower the first night I was in her apartment. I told her about the document that I’d taken out of her bag while she was sleeping. I told her about the virus that I’d put on her computer. With each admiss
ion, her eyes got bigger and bigger. I could see the light coming on as she assigned my name to every bad thing that had happened to her during the past four months. I waited for her blue eyes to turn to ice, but they didn’t. She even blushed when I brought up the picture that she’d sent me. However, her expression changed and her face paled when I told her how close I came to ruining her.

  “Why didn’t you do it?” she asked quietly. “It would have wrecked my life. My career.”

  “I came close. We hadn’t been dating that long. But, when it came down to it, I just couldn’t do it. I think I already knew then what you would eventually mean to me.”

  “I’m sorry, Allie. Can you forgive me? I’ve never wanted a do-over so much.”

  “I’m the sorry one,” she said, turning away from me and sitting on the edge of the bed with her back to me. “All I can think about is how sorry I am. I’m sorry for what happened to Joy. I’m sorry for what I did to your family. I’m sorry for making you hate me ... because you are good, Adam. You are so good. To do the things you did, I know ... I know how much you must have hated me. But it’s not enough for me to be sorry. I can apologize every day for the rest of my life, but it will never be enough.”

  I didn’t want her to feel sorry any more. I sat up behind her and wrapped an arm around her waist, tucking my head into the middle of her back. “Stop apologizing. I don’t want you to be sorry any more.”

  She stiffened against me. “Really? How can you say that? How can I ever stop being sorry, Adam? How are you going to explain ‘us’ to your mom? Have you even told her about us?”

  An exposed nerve seared in response to her question. She was right. I hadn’t told my mom or dad anything about her.

  She wrapped her arm over mine and weaved our fingers together. “She won’t forgive me, Adam. She shouldn’t. We can’t get past this, and even if we could, the people that we love can’t. You may think now that you can forgive me, but what happens a year from now when I do something stupid and piss you off? How easy will it be for you to hate me again?”