by Teresa Hill
But I didn’t do that tonight.
No, I thought I had to warn Andie first, and then I lost my temper and yelled at Dana. I made her mad and left her there, when I should have told her everything.
Like that I love her, and I always will. That I need her and want to be with her. Nobody but her. That somehow, we’ll find a way to make it work if she wants me, too. If she ever wanted me the way I want her.
God, I’m so stupid.
I hate myself right now. If she’s not okay, I will never forgive myself.
* * *
12
Peter
I’m half-way down the stairs, my feet barely touching the floor, before I break out of the brain fog that hit me at the first faint, shaky sound of her voice. As it is, I still feel like I’m moving in slow motion. I can’t possibly get to her fast enough.
I come roaring around the corner into the kitchen and smack right into Zach. Shit, he’s solid as can be. All the men in his family are. Don’t let Zach’s suit and tie fool you. He doesn’t just sit at a desk all the time.
He groans, and I do, too, as we nearly knock the breath out of each other. It’s all I can do to hang onto my phone. I’m scared if I drop it, I’ll lose my connection to her, and I can’t do that right now.
“Where’s the fire?” Zach asks.
“No fire,” I say, then get back to the phone and say, “Hang on a second. Zach’s still up.”
“Don’t tell him—”
“Okay. Hang on.”
“What’s going on?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I lie. “No big deal. I just need to go out for a few minutes.”
Zach clearly doesn’t like that. “You’re leaving to go out at midnight?”
I nod. I don’t have a curfew, exactly. We’re still working under the deal where I don’t cause any trouble and they stay out of my way. If I’m not coming home for the night, I tell one of them, or there’d better be a text on my sister’s phone when she wakes up that tells her I’m in for the night somewhere else and all in one piece. Common courtesy, Zach calls it. I’m good with that.
But Zach has this way of looking at a person that says he can see right through him, and he’s giving me that look right now.
“A friend needs a ride,” I say, trying to control my urge to run out the door right this minute. “That’s all.”
He gives me a long, assessing look. “You seem like you're in a pretty big hurry for nothing more than a friend who needs a ride.”
I shrug. “It’s late, dark … you know?”
“No, I don’t know.” I think I’m in for more of an interrogation, but he finally says, “You get in over your head with this friend, you call me.”
“Yeah, I will.”
I stop inside the front door to shove my feet into some shoes, grab my keys from a shelf on the wall and grab a hoodie from a hook below the shelf. I’m still dripping wet, and it’s chilly at the river this late. The second I close the door behind me, I’m back on the phone.
“I’m outside, getting into my truck.”
“Okay. Thanks,” she whispers.
“Dana, you’re scaring me. Tell me you’re okay.”
“I am.”
“You sound like you’re shaking.”
“I’m cold,” she says.
“Swear to me that you’re really okay.” She says she is, but I don’t believe her. She never sounds like this. “Stay on the phone with me until I get there.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” I practically roar at her.
“My phone got wet. It shorts out every now and then. I think I should hang up, you know, in case I really need it to call someone else.”
Does she not understand? I need for her to be on the phone with me until I get there and can see for myself that she’s okay. And who else does she need to call? I’m on my way to get her. Does she not realize I’d do anything it takes to get to her?
“Why would you need to call someone else, Dana? And why are you whispering?” My mind starts going to all these crazy places, like she’s hiding and afraid, and someone’s looking for her.
“Because … some people are here, and I don’t want to ride home with them. I want to ride with you.”
“So? Tell them you have a ride, and I’m on my way.”
“Peter, please?”
Her voice is all weak and shaky, and I step on the gas even harder. “I’m on my way,” I say again.
“Thank you.” She says it like I’m doing something like giving up a kidney for her. “And when you get here, will you … I don’t know, blink your lights, so I know it’s you.”
Icy fear slithers through my veins, and it’s all I can do to keep the truck on the road. “What the hell is going on?”
“I’m okay,” she says again, “but my phone is dying. I’ll be here waiting for you.”
And then she’s gone. I yell at her to not disconnect the call, but she already did.
At least, I think she did it.
What if she didn’t? What if it wasn’t that her phone shorted out?
What if something happened to her?
What if someone hurt her?
It’s only been about nine months since her aunt, Grace, lost her husband.
In a friggin’ instant.
There and gone, just like that. It still spooks me, that stark reminder of how quickly everything can go bad.
The drive seems interminable, the scariest minutes of my life, and I went through some serious shit long before Dana came along and saved me.
* * *
Peter
When I get close to the party, I can see maybe six cars still parked along the road by the river.
I slow down and blink my lights three times. If I don’t see her coming toward me right now, all in one piece, I’m going to lose my shit.
About fifty yards past the last parked car, I spot a tall, willowy shadow, looking like it just appeared in the midst of the field of tall grass, and it slays me.
I know it’s her, and I know she’s been out there hiding.
Who the fuck is she hiding from?
She walks slowly toward the edge of the road, looking oddly vulnerable and small in the glow of my headlights.
I skid to a stop maybe twenty yards from her and try to breathe. I’m out of the truck before the engine has a chance to cut off completely, scrambling toward her, telling myself she’s in one piece. She looks a little pale, her hair flying every which way, her arms wrapped around herself, but I don’t see any obvious injuries.
I grab her and hold her at arm’s length in the beam of my headlights so I can look her over. Her shirt is dirty, and there’s something else about her clothes that seems off. No blood. I look at her face, finally, afraid of what I’ll see, and she looks pale, all big, dark eyes. I think she looks scared and determined, maybe a little bit mad.
Okay, mad is good.
Mad is so much better than hurt.
I pull her close for a moment, because I have to. I haven’t been this close to her in what seems like forever, and I miss her. It’s an ache that never goes away.
“Tell me again that you’re okay.”
“I am. I’m so glad you’re here.”
She sounds like she really means it, like she’s scared and I’m the one she wants. I want to be the one she wants, the one she trusts and needs. It’s supposed to be me.
Her face is pressed against the front of my hoodie, and I realize she’s shaking even harder than I thought and I smell beer. I run my hands up and down her back to help her get warm, and find out her jeans and the bottom half of her shirt are soaked.
“You fell into the river?”
“Yes.” Her voice is oddly small and tentative.
I think there’s more to the story, but first I need to get her warm. I let her go, take her by the hand and lead her to the truck. I open up the passenger side door for her, but she just stands there.
“I’ll make a mess of it,” she says finally.
“I’m wet and gross. There’s mud all over the back of my jeans and sand everywhere.”
“I don’t give a shit about the truck, Dana.”
Then I see how wet and heavy her jeans are. She looks so cold.
“Maybe I left my gym bag in here.” I dig around under the passenger side seat, because sometimes it gets pushed up under there, but find nothing she can change into. No towel, no shirt, no gym shorts.
She’s got her arms wrapped around herself again, and I can’t stand it. I peel off my hoodie and hold it up to her. It’s long enough to hit her at mid-thigh.
“Take off your wet clothes.”
She flashes me a look of surprise and then … I don’t even know what.
“You’re never going to warm up in those wet clothes. Put this on.”
She glances around to make sure no one’s looking, and eases farther in between the open door and the truck. As her hand goes to the bottom of her shirt, I turn around and stand between her and anyone who might be looking this way through the darkness.
I can’t help but think that, of all the ways I imagined getting her naked, this is so completely not what I had in mind. Which is a really shitty thing to be thinking right now — that she’s right behind me, taking her clothes off — but it’s better than wondering if she’s really okay.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see her top hit the ground beside me, hear the rustle of her jeans as she pulls them off. Shit. She’s still moving around, doing something, and I wonder, Is she soaked all the way through to her little pink bra and her panties? She’ll have every bit of herself, bare as can be, inside my hoodie. All that pretty skin pressed against fabric that until a minute ago was wrapped around my body.
I’ll never be able to wear that thing again. I’ll imagine her naked inside it every time I try to put it on.
She tugs my hoodie out of my hand and a moment later says, “Okay, you can turn around.”
Her clothes are bundled in her hand, and her hair isn’t quite so messy. My eyes roam down, and I see that the hoodie, thankfully, does come almost half way down her thighs. So the sight of her legs shouldn’t be any more difficult to take than when she’s wearing a pair of shorts.
But it is.
It so is.
Maybe because she’s wearing something of mine. Maybe it’s not knowing exactly what she has on under it. Whatever the reason, it’s really hard to look at her right now and not think things I should not be thinking.
Then I spot her feet.
They’re bare, pale white skin with glittery-pink toenails. Lizzie’s idea, no doubt. Lizzie loves glitter.
“Where are your shoes?”
I think maybe she took them off to get her jeans off. But then she says, “I’m not sure.”
“What do you mean, you’re not sure?”
“I mean, I’m not sure, Peter. I guess I kicked them off around the bonfire at some point,” she says, her voice stronger and sounding more like hers.
I look her in the eye, remembering how strong the smell of beer was on her. I thought she’d gotten a little sloppy-drunk, not drunk-drunk, but now I’m not so sure. It’s not just the beer. When I hugged her, I caught a hint of rum on her breath, too. “How much have you had to drink?”
“Not nearly enough—”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I’m sober enough to know I’ll remember everything about this night, and I’m wondering if I should have called someone else. Because so far, all you’ve done is yell at me and order me around, when all I want to do is go home.”
She’s right. I know it, but I’m so damned scared I don’t have it in me to handle this well. Still, I try not to look too mad or too freaked out when I grit my teeth, get right up in her face and say, “You get in trouble, I’m the first phone call you make.”
She stands there looking up at me. I forget sometimes how small she is compared to me. I’m over six feet now. She’s tall for a girl, but I’m nearly a head taller, and right now, she’s somehow drawn into herself, and she seems even smaller and slighter.
It makes me think about Tripp, who’s not quite as tall as I am, but he’s bulkier and heavier. He could really hurt her if he wanted to.
“Dana, what happened?”
“Not now. Please, just take me home.”
Part of me thinks that’s the smartest thing to do. It gets her away from here and somewhere safe. If Tripp’s still there, it puts some distance between me and him, too. If he hurt her, I’ll want to kill him. But I don’t even know for sure Tripp did anything, and if I’m going to destroy him, I should be sure, and I should know exactly what he did.
Plus, Tripp’s not going anywhere. Dealing with him can wait.
“Okay,” I tell Dana.
I take her arm to help her step up into the truck, and the hoodie rides up. Holy shit — I think I see the beginning of the curves of her sweet little ass, until she tugs the material down. I close her door and swear under my breath all the way around the truck and to the other door.
I start the truck, turn the heat on and aim the vents toward her. I remind her to put her seatbelt on as I put on mine, and then I start to drive. She huddles against the door, as far away from me as she can get, and I hate that. She’s staying away now? What the hell? She called me for help.
There was a time when she told me everything, and I told her more than I’d ever told anybody else. I trust her more than anybody. I believe in her, and she’s always believed in me in a way I don’t think anyone else ever will.
Does she still believe in me? Does she still trust me? I have to get her to tell me what happened tonight.
I drive slowly, thinking about how to ask without sounding pissed off or like I’m demanding to know, hopefully without giving away how scared I’ve been since I heard her voice on the phone. Even after I got there and got my first look at her, it was all I could do to hold it together. I thought I did pretty damned well, not yelling any more than I did, but obviously she doesn’t think so.
Finally, I reach out and take hold of her hand. It’s cold and seems so small in mine, but she lets me hold it as I drive her home.
“I’m sorry I yelled,” I say finally. “You sounded so scared when you called.”
“I know,” she says. “I’m sorry, too.”
“Dana, please tell me what happened.” I say it quietly, almost pleading with her.
“Nothing I couldn’t handle. I fell into the river and ended up with beer all over me. At some point, Becca left and I didn’t realize it until later, so I called you.”
I turn my head and stare at her for a moment, and she looks away. She’s still not telling me everything. I know it, and we’re almost to her house. She’s going to get out of my truck, and then we’ll go back to the way things have been lately — her not confiding in me, not letting me help her. I can’t let that happen.
What if she hadn’t called me tonight? What if she’d gotten into a car with Tripp, because she didn’t want to call me? Anything could have happened to her. I can’t take care of her if I don’t know what’s going on with her. She has to let me back into her life.
Frustrated and not ready to let her go, I park three doors down from her house and across the street. We end up in front of a house shared by a pair of little old ladies, cousins, who go to bed around dark and get up before the sun every day. I know because I had a paper route one year, and I could never get their paper to them before they woke up.
I park and cut the lights, but keep the truck running for the heater, because she’s still cold.
“What are you doing?”
“You were hiding from someone, Dana. You were hiding in the grass like you were scared someone was going to find you. Who were you hiding from? Tripp?”
“Like I said, you made me promise not to get in the car with him. I was doing what you made me promise I’d do.”
“Yeah, but if you didn’t want to get in the car with him, wouldn’t you just need to say so? That sho
uld be enough. Did he try to make you get into his car?”
“No. It wasn’t that.”
“Then what was it?”
“It was nothing. I handled it—”
“Handled what?”
“This is none of your business,” she yells, looking both hurt and mad.
“What do you mean, it’s none of my business? Somebody scared you. I want to know who did it!” I’m yelling again, but I can’t help it.
“No! You did this,” she says.
“Did what? I came to get you and brought you home, Dana.”
“You and me. You did this to us. You made things this way between us, and we’re not … We’re not the kind of friends we used to be. We haven’t been for a long time, because that’s what you wanted. So don’t come at me like this, acting like you have a right to know anything about my life.”
Ahh, shit.
I see tears glistening in her eyes.
This is what she wants to talk about? What I’ve been trying not to talk about for the last seven months? After whatever happened to her tonight? I still don’t know exactly what that was, and she claims she handled it, but I don’t believe that. But she wants to talk about me and how I’ve treated her?
“You’re right. I did that. I put this distance between us, and I’m so sorry.” I undo my seatbelt and slide over to the middle of the bench seat, closer to her.
She turns her head toward the door, won’t even look at me. “And you wouldn’t even tell me why. Why, Peter? What did I do?”
“You didn’t do anything—”
“I must have, because everything changed between us, and I don’t understand. I keep trying to figure it out, and I can’t. It doesn’t make any sense. You were my best friend for so long, and then, all of a sudden, you started acting like I was some weird stalker-girl who wouldn’t leave you alone—”
“No, that’s not it—”