by London Casey
“I’m so sorry, Maddox. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“I had to get out of here,” he said. “So, I did. I got out of town and away from the noise. I worked shit jobs, drank all my money away, and got into more fights than I care to admit. But if I got really drunk, I would draw. Go figure that. Blackout drunk and I’d wake up to drawings all around me. That’s how I got into tattooing. Picked myself up one day, but she’s forever gone. Nothing I can do about that. So, yeah, that’s the story. That’s the camera story. I got arrested once for punching someone with a camera. Guy just kept following me. Shouting things. I lost it.”
“You know if you released the letter…”
Maddox looked at me. “I’ve given up. I’ve decided that everything I know about time is a lie. I cannot be a prisoner to my own sorrows, my own doubts, in this hell that has overcome me. I will make excuses for my failures. For the pain I’ve caused to those around me. For the pain I caused you. I don’t know why I did what I did and why I did it for so long. You kept coming back. You kept showing me the light. I was the darkness. I would forever be the darkness. Nobody wants that. It started long ago. Long before you. You were my comfort. You gave me the last little bit of hope to keep going for as long as it lasted. But this is not you. This is me. It began with my father. It continued with my stepfather. And it ended with your friend. I can’t believe this. To let this happen…”
Maddox cleared his throat. He rubbed his jaw.
“That was…”
“I have it memorized,” he said. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read it. Trying to make sense of it. Trying to place the blame so I could find peace.”
“There is no blame,” I said. “Unless you blame your friend.”
Maddox slowly nodded. “Yeah. But no matter what, I’ll never know the answers. So that’s part of my life I just step over. That’s why the second I saw you, Hazel, something mattered again. And that guy attacked you. That guy broke your camera. I’m not buying my way into your pants. Or your heart. I just wanted to buy some time to make up for what I fucked up with Ava.”
Maddox blinked fast.
A man so strong, so beautifully built, the scruff on his face, the tattoos on his arms, and he was crying.
I touched his face and pressed my thumb to the corner of his eye, stealing his tear.
“I love you for wanting to save me,” I whispered. “But you don’t need to save me.”
“But I can’t let you get hurt. Not again, sugar. I can’t let someone make you feel any less than the beauty you are. I won’t allow it.”
“And I can’t let you get involved in a part of my life.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Maddox said. “My life? Your life? We’re tangled up now, Hazel. We’re like two pictures melted together by a flame.”
I let out a breath. “Maddox, nobody has ever talked to me like this. I don’t know…”
“You only need to know how I feel. I’m telling you how I feel.”
Maddox slipped an arm around me and pulled me close. We sat there on our butts, staring forward at the trees. I had his entire story. My heart twisted and ached as I imagined a young woman jumping to her death because she felt a pain. A pain that I understood. I wished I could have known her.
I caught myself choking up.
Then Maddox said, “Okay, sugar, I’m done here. I’ve spent my time. Let’s go home.”
Maddox stood and helped me to my feet. He hugged me, kissed me, pinned me to the front of his truck. The kisses were deep, wild, a crazy passion that I didn’t know could be real. He thrust at me, opening my legs, the force of his body pressing hard against mine. I lifted my left leg and wrapped it around his body. His hands grabbed my ass and picked me up. I felt his thickness getting thicker, harder, making me wonder if this was going to happen in broad daylight.
Crazy as it was, I would have let him.
Then he stopped. I sucked in a breath. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“What? Thought what?”
“You, sugar. You’re fucking everything to me.”
Maddox brushed his lips to mine and then left me dangling.
I got into the truck and he started to drive.
That’s when a question came to me.
“Maddox, if I ask something, will you answer it?”
“Try me.”
I stared ahead and felt a cold shiver go through my body. It was a little weird how twisted our lives actually were. Taking a different route back to Hundred Falls Valley meant going on a road that I refused to ever be on again. A road that changed my life. A road that held my biggest secret. A secret that I would eventually have to tell Maddox.
But first… this was still about him.
“Hazel?” he asked. “What’s your question?”
“Your friend or whatever,” I said. “The guy you called Night. Did you ever get closure with him about what happened?”
I saw his grip on the steering wheel tighten.
My heart raced.
“That’s the even more fucked up part, Hazel, because that same night, he died, too.”
35
HAZEL
YEARS AGO
I kept my phone under my pillow. It was the easiest way to hear my cell when it rang. Because if Lance called me in the middle of the night and I didn’t answer, things would get really bad. It was sad enough that Donna walked out of my life. Well, I walked out of her life, but still. What kind of friend was that?
Speaking of Donna: it was near midnight and she was calling me.
I jumped up and took the call.
She had called me a few times since our big fight over the makeup on my face, but I never answered. I didn’t need her pity. I didn’t need her worry. I sure as hell didn’t need her to tell me how to live my life.
But at midnight?
Nothing good could be waiting on the other end of the call.
“Donna,” I said. I was still waking up. “What’s wrong?”
“You,” she said.
The u lasted a few seconds.
Shit. She was drunk.
I sighed. “Donna, not tonight.”
“Why not? Huh? Are you with him? Is he smacking you?”
I gasped. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
“No. I’m not with him. I’m alone. I’m getting sleep.”
“I’m sure he already had his way with you. Right?”
“You know what? Screw you.”
“Screw yourself,” Donna said. “How could you do this to us? We’ve been friends since grade school.”
“I didn’t do a thing to you.”
“You hurt me,” Donna said. Her voice cracked. “You hurt me because I can’t help you. Don’t do this anymore. Don’t let this happen. Come with me, Hazel. I’m your best fucking friend.”
“Then act like it!” I yelled. “Support me. Be there for me.”
“So just shut my mouth? So you could end up in the hospital? Or dead?”
There was silence.
I got a feeling in my stomach that was uneasy.
“That’s where you’re headed,” Donna said. “He’s going to keep going until it goes too far. Then what? It’ll be too late. And if you’re dead, then it’s really too late. Better yet, what about the others? Huh? You think you’re the only one he’s done this to? Or doing it now?”
“He’s my boyfriend,” I said.
“No, he’s not. You don’t know anything about him. You are his toy. In more than one way.”
“You’re a bitch.”
“Yes, I am. An honest bitch.”
“You’re drunk.”
“Because I can’t stop thinking about you. I keep waiting for the call. Or have the police show up. I can’t lose you.”
“You already did,” I said. “Go sleep it off, Donna.”
I hung up the call.
My heart pounded. I tossed the phone to the nightstand.
Then I burst into tears. I hated
that Donna was right. I hated that I had this secret weighing me down. I hated that I felt like I had no control over it all.
He was bigger than me. He was stronger.
I needed a way out. A real way out.
Through tear-filled eyes, I stood up from my bed.
I looked down at the phone.
Then I looked at myself in the mirror on my tall dresser. I turned my head to look at a faint bruise on my temple. It was almost gone. That was nothing compared to other places on my body.
He’s going to keep going until it goes too far. Then what? It’ll be too late. And if you’re dead, then it’s really too late.
“No,” I whispered. “No. No. No.”
I wouldn’t go too far. I wouldn’t let him go too far. What we had worked. If I kept him happy, then it was fine. It wasn’t like it was an everyday thing, either.
I looked at myself again in the mirror.
My mind dared me to say what I just thought.
“It’s not like it’s an everyday thing either.”
That’s when it sank in.
Feeling pathetic. Low. Knowing what I had gotten myself into.
I stepped back and took off my shirt and dropped my PJ bottoms. I stood in nothing but my panties. I eyed my body, every place I could look. I thought about when it first started. That first initial shock. I chronicled every time it happened and where it happened. How it happened. What he said. What he did. What happened after.
I started to shake.
I hugged myself, my fingers touching my own skin. Wishing it was someone else holding me. Someone to come save me.
But nobody would.
I had pushed everyone away.
I looked at the phone again.
Half joking, mostly brokenhearted, I told myself I should kill him. So he wouldn’t hurt me or anyone else.
Then I made a deal with myself. If Lance called tonight, I’d kill-
That was the exact second my phone screen lit up - with Lance calling me.
I got into the car, knowing that fate was no longer a passenger in my life. I was the passenger in Lance’s car but I was driving my own life. For once. And maybe for all. I would go in order. A proper order. One day at a time.
“What’s up?” he asked me. “Why the fucking look on your face? Huh?”
He was jumpy. He was mad. I was his target.
“Nothing,” I said.
His right hand was like a viper. Attacking me. Somehow he got his hand on my jaw before I could take a breath. Squeezing, my jawbone threatening to just call it quits and shatter against his wild strength.
I felt the fear roll through my body. The fear that always left me paralyzed. The fear that made me become his property and feed into whatever thoughts were going through his mind.
“Don’t fucking lie to me,” he said. “You know what happens to liars around me.”
Lance forced my head to turn. Then he grinned when he saw the faintness of the bruise he had put there a week ago.
That was my warning. That would be my only warning. Some guys liked the appearance of control. They liked the verbal abuse. They liked the mental game. They liked to see how far they could push someone. Not Lance, though. He liked the physical part. He liked the instant control.
So even one warning could be considered a gift.
“I talked to Donna on the phone,” I said.
Lance let my jaw go. “That bitch? What’d she have to say?”
“Nothing.”
I saw his hand twitch.
I hurried to grab for it. “I mean, she just said she missed me. Whatever, right? She’s the one who pushed me away.”
“Fucking right,” Lance said. “Stupid bitch. She needs a man in her life to smarten her up. Fuck, maybe I’ll pay her a visit when I’m done with you.”
That sent icy chills up and down my spine. Because knowing Lance, it was true. I thought about what Donna had said. That he had other women in his life.
I looked at him as he drove. I saw what looked like dirt and sweat on the side of his face, in his hair a little. Actually, everything about Lance seemed off. Not that he was a suit and tie kind of guy anyway, but tonight he looked like he had just come from work. There was the faint smell of booze in the car, which was normal for him. I traced lines on his hand, hoping to keep him calm. Then I saw scratch marks on his forearm. There were three, side by side by side, almost too perfect.
From a hand?
Lance turned his head to look at me again and I saw the right corner of his mouth had a small cut.
“Hey, what happened to you?” I whispered.
“Excuse me?”
“I mean, you look tired. You have a cut on your face and your arm. Did something happen?”
“Who the fuck are you to question me?” he bellowed. “Huh? You’re lucky I fucking called you. The shit I could do. Please.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means what the fuck it means, Hazel. What’s with you tonight, huh? You think you’re some tough slut now? I could pass you around to my buddies and you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself. You’d be begging for me to take your sorry ass back home.”
I took my hand from his.
Mistake.
“Oh, is that your move?” he teased. “You’re not going to hold my hand? That’s fine, Hazel. We’re going to pull over soon and I’m going to take you into the backseat. You know I called you for a reason. Question me about scratch marks on my arm? Where the fuck do you think they came from?”
Then Lance started to laugh.
The car sped up.
I looked forward at the dark road and knew whatever was going to happen tonight, it wasn’t going to be good. How much could I take? Honestly. How much could one person fucking take?
“You have other women?” I whispered.
“I know what I want,” Lance said. “And I get it. Deal with it, Hazel. It’s not a fucking surprise. It shouldn’t be.”
“I thought you were different,” I said.
“I am different,” Lance said. He reached across the seat for me. “Now come over here and show me what that mouth can do besides saying stupid shit.”
As his fingers touched my hair, something broke inside me. I swung my left hand up and smacked his hand away.
There was a moment when I felt like time stopped. That the car started floating in slow motion. That the road became choppy ocean waters.
I slowly turned my head, realizing the magnitude of what I had done.
Lance didn’t like no and Lance always liked a fight.
I’d just satisfied both of those sick needs in him.
Lance moved his right hand down and then nodded.
“Lance, please listen to me. You cannot-”
His hand came up. I saw it coming but did nothing to stop it. I shut my eyes at the last second and braced myself for the impact and the explosion of pain across my face. It was as jarring as the first time it happened. The second blow followed a few seconds later and then I was able to move my hands and protect myself.
I huddled against the door of the car, half considering opening the door and rolling out of the car. I’d take whatever bumps the road would give me because I knew they would be temporary and the road would forgive me with freedom.
Lance grabbed me and pulled me toward him. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
If I licked the air around him I could get drunk on whiskey.
That’s when the idea popped into my head.
My fuse had gone. If I was going to go down for good I didn’t want it to be at the hands of someone like Lance. I didn’t want to become my mother any more than I already had.
“Lance, please.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Beg me. Keep begging me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Lance moved his hand away from me.
My face throbbed. My eyes hurt. My head hurt. I was probably already concussed. Confused. Angry. Knowing that the road in the dark was m
y future if I didn’t act now made me cry. Lance hated when I cried. He said crying was weakness and worse yet, an admittance of guilt.
I turned my head.
I knew what my face looked like.
That mix of tears and blood.
I’d seen the look on my mother’s face for years. When she’d tell me to go into the closet. I’d run, hide, hug Wink, cover my ears, pretend the screams were that of happy kids at an amusement park. Or I’d hide in the master bedroom, flipping through the picture books, staring so long and hard, my eyes would burn. My eyes would wiggle, desperate to blink, but letting them wiggle would make it seem like the pictures were moving.
“You fucking women are going to learn,” Lance said. “All of you. Second time tonight I had to do this shit. And all I want is a little relaxation time. Is that so wrong? You fucking have no idea what I’ve been through already.”
“You were with another woman tonight?” I whispered.
“Again, Hazel, where the fuck did I sign a contract with you? Huh? You’re not something special. You’re not worth being committed to. We both know that. So, take what you can get. And when I’m done, you’ll know.”
“You going to kill me then?” I asked.
“What the fuck did you just say to me? You haven’t learned your fucking lesson, have you? I hope you go see Donna after tonight, Hazel. Show her what her little fucking phone call did to you. Because when I get my hands on her-”
There was a quick flicker of lights. Straight ahead. The way the road turned a little. I saw the tree and the idea suddenly came to life. See, I figured if Lance was like any other bully in life, he wouldn’t expect someone to stand up to him or know what to do about it.
