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Stranger

Page 20

by Robin Lovett


  I sit back on the cushions and try to remember how to breathe, how to control it, but can’t. My lungs burst with air then stutter in fits and starts.

  “It’s okay,” Layla soothes, running a hand down my back. “You’re all right. He’s gone now and you’re safe.”

  “But I—I was safe—w-with him.” Or I think I was. I thought I was. He was the one person who told me the truth.

  “That’s what he made you believe. He convinced you.”

  My heart constricts on itself, like a hammer pounding in my chest. “It was—real. He was real.”

  She kneels in front of me and holds my hands. “It wasn’t, honey. He lied to you. And he was very good at it. It’s understandable why you believed him.”

  But it wasn’t a lie. If last night was a lie, I . . . I can’t breathe.

  Layla keeps talking. I close my eyes and block her out. I cling to what I knew, what I felt, the part that was true, but my thoughts are tangled and I can’t remember where the truth starts and the lies begin. I mumble to myself, “It made sense. It all made sense. It has to make sense?”

  “Sh, it’s all right.”

  “It’s not all right!” I shake her hands away. “He knew things. Things that made all the other lies clear. He told me the truth, Layla. It wasn’t lies.”

  “Okay, okay. I believe you.” She pacifies me. “Maybe some of what he said was true.”

  “The stuff about Malcolm. He . . .”

  Layla brushes my hair off my face. “Maybe it was true, what he said your father did to his sister. Maybe that really did happen. But . . .”

  I squint my eyes shut. I don’t want to hear the next part. I don’t want to think about it.

  But she continues, “ . . . he killed your father, Penny. No amount of guilt on your father’s part makes that right.”

  I hold my breath, trying to keep it back, trying not to feel the flood of emotions those words make me feel. “But it can’t be true.”

  “Of course it can. Would he have told you?”

  And that more than anything makes me open my eyes and look at her. “No.” He wouldn’t have told me, but he had every reason to do it. He wanted revenge on my father in the worst way and deserved to get it. It was so obvious the whole time and I never saw it. Revenge against my father is all he’s thought about for years. Of course he killed him.

  It makes perfect sense.

  “It’s okay.” Layla hugs me. “You never have to see him again.”

  I cry harder, even though that’s the last thing he’d want me to do.

  Worse than the truth, worse than the lies, worse than the betrayal, I can’t imagine not having him.

  Something worse than grief or betrayal shatters like a dam inside me, and I flood with all the things Logan’s given me. The things I knew about and the things I didn’t know about.

  I break. Harder than hearing the truths about my father, harder than his death, harder than not being allowed home as a child.

  I remember being afraid Logan would make me into nothing.

  I was wrong.

  He gave me everything, and I don’t know how I’ll survive him taking it away.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  They let me go. They have no proof. No solid evidence. No fingerprints, no pictures, no concrete data on what went wrong.

  I knew they wouldn’t.

  The sunlight in the parking lot is blinding, so bright I can’t see. It burns away not just my sight, but the torrent of feelings ripping through my insides like a scythe slicing through grain.

  I have to shade my face from the light.

  Why can’t I cut off my heart from my brain?

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

  A shadowed figure stands leaning against a pickup truck. I know who it is before I see his face. I know the rust spots on the truck before the sun spots fade for me to see them.

  I hear the jingling of keys being tossed but can’t see them until they land at my feet.

  “Stay away from her and I won’t come after you again,” Blake says, his face still too shadowed for me to see it.

  I bend to pick up my keys. “Why should I believe that?”

  “Because I’m as glad he’s dead as you are.” I step close enough to see his face, empty of the anger that’s been a constant since I met him. Without his sister here under threat, his face is relaxed. Or maybe it’s because he’s finally getting what he wants. I know what that feels like.

  I stuff my keys in my pocket. “You’re so sure it was me?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t really care. As long as she’s rid of you, that’s all the matters.”

  “I didn’t hurt her.” I don’t care about the rest, but I care about that. It matters to me.

  “Maybe not.” He pulls a manila envelope out of his pocket and puts a pile of papers on the hood of my truck. “Sign here.” He points a pen at me.

  I step forward. “What is it?”

  “Divorce papers.”

  It shouldn’t bother me. It’s a piece of paper. No more than the marriage ever was anyway.

  The grin half tilting his lips, I want to smack it off his face.

  But my desire for revenge, the one where I would’ve fought for more, made threats, bargained for money—it’s gone. The only thing I can think is how I can make this easier for her.

  I take his pen and scribble my name where his finger points.

  “Excellent.” He stuffs the papers back in the envelope. “Well, it’s almost been nice knowing you.”

  “Wait.” My need for revenge may be dulled, but my need for answers is not. “Did your mother really die in childbirth?”

  He turns, the sun hitting his face for the first time. “Did he really rape your sister?”

  “I have police reports to prove it. Someone killed her to keep the case from going to trial.”

  His reaction is the opposite of so many. No questions, no denials, no anger. “I want to see those reports, but not here. Call my office. We’ll meet and talk more.”

  “I thought you wanted me gone.”

  “I want to know what you know.”

  I nod, not excited, but interested. If you could call my state of indifference interest. “I have no phone.” I stop him. “I’ll come by your office tomorrow.”

  He nods and leaves.

  I’m left staring at my truck, not knowing where to go.

  There’s only one place to go.

  All my stuff is on the front seat of my truck, every piece of clothing I had in her house. She moved me out.

  It doesn’t mean I’m able to leave her alone.

  Maybe it’s over. Maybe I’ll never speak to her again, but I can’t pretend it never happened or that I’m the same.

  I go back to the one place I can return to: her beach.

  * * *

  I call off work the next morning. I was supposed to restart in the NICU.

  No way that’s happening now.

  His room is empty of his stuff. Layla must have packed up his things. His truck is gone too. But his sheets . . . she didn’t clean his sheets.

  He gave me the truth, the real truth, not just the bad things from the past, but the truth about my present. The truth of what I was missing, the truth of what it meant to have someone understand and know me. To understand another person and know him on a level I never knew anyone.

  Except—I don’t know if I really knew anything. I avoid his room, but in the evening, I eat leftovers from the dinner he made two days ago. I watch the sunset on the terrace with a bottle of wine for company.

  Maybe I didn’t know him. Maybe everything he told me was a lie. But the things he made me feel and believe of myself and find in myself—those were so real. I am more real now than I ever was before my father died.

  The possibility that those things, the new things I’ve learned about myself, are a lie too . . . it hurts like having a piece of me cut off. I can’t think it. I cling to those things—the new things that have to be true. They a
re true. I know they’re true.

  But what else did he lie about . . .

  He turned my world upside down. But I don’t want it turned right side up again.

  I down another glass of wine and refill my glass until the bottle is empty.

  The sound of my doorbell drifts in from the kitchen.

  It rings again and again, becoming a muted constant. Whoever it is will eventually give up and go away. I’m not talking to anyone today.

  “Penny?” A timid voice comes from the stairs to the beach.

  I make no sound. If it’s who I think it is, maybe if I don’t say anything, she’ll think I’m not here and go away.

  Her footsteps come up the stairs though, and when they reach the deck, she says easily, “Can I have a glass?”

  I can hardly see Amisha’s face, but her gentle voice isn’t as annoying as I thought it might be. “There’s no wine left.” I hold up the empty bottle.

  She walks past me. “But I know where there’s more inside.” She disappears through the door, and a moment later sits next to me with another bottle and a second glass. She doesn’t say a word, just opens the bottle and pours herself some.

  Her silence annoys me. “What are you doing here?”

  “I thought you could use some company.”

  “Layla called you.”

  “You’re not surprised, are you?”

  I turn to pour myself another glass of wine. Instead she puts a bottle of water in my hand. “Here, have this first.”

  I accept it and drink, acknowledging I already have a headache brewing.

  She watches the last swatches of pink fading on the horizon. “Do you miss him?”

  My response is reflex. “Yes. And spare me your judgment.”

  Her voice stays quiet. “I won’t judge. We can’t help who we fall for. It just happens.”

  “I guess.” I don’t know if it was something I could help, or if it was something I was ripe for. My brain is too fuzzy with alcohol to think. Maybe I only miss him for the sex. Maybe the only reason why my chest feels like a crater where my heart used to be is because . . . “He was awesome in bed.”

  She smiles. “That’s good. You deserve some hot sex.”

  “It was. Very hot.” The wine bubbles in my head, and I can’t stop my giggle. She giggles too. “I mean seriously, Amisha. This guy. Fuck.” I pound a fist on the chair. “He was an asshole, but when he touched me he was like a god.”

  She laughs. “I’m not sure I’d go for the asshole part but the rest of it sounds good.”

  “I friggin’ worshiped him.” I punctuate my words with a stamp of my foot. “I did every. Single. Thing he said. Why did I do that?”

  “Sounds like he knew how to make it good.”

  “Christ, yes.” My lip quivers. It was so much more than that. “It wasn’t just good. It was . . .” I try to breathe evenly, but it stutters.

  “How was it?”

  I have to close my eyes. “It was like he knew me. Like he could see inside me. Like what he wanted was the same as what I wanted. It was . . .”

  “Sounds like it was more than just sex.”

  I bury my fingers in my hair. “Even when I swore it was just hardcore banging it was like . . . Oh my God.” I muffle my words in my hands. “How did he do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “He would ask me if I wanted things, things that I didn’t know I wanted. And it was torture and it was horrible but . . .”

  “But . . . ?”

  “It was exactly what I wanted.”

  She takes a long sip of her wine. “Better you than me. I wouldn’t like that.”

  “But it was how he was with me. Like he saw through my fakeness and didn’t believe it. Like he only wanted the real me.”

  “Did you want the real you?”

  I close my eyes. “I didn’t. But I do.”

  She pats my hand. “Sounds like he was confusing.”

  “Dizzying.” That’s what I’m going for, with the wine, trying to be as dizzy as he made me. It hasn’t worked. “I don’t want to be stuck anymore.”

  “You don’t have to be. I didn’t like him, but he definitely kicked you out of your grief funk.”

  I snort. More like killed my reason for grieving. “You could say that.”

  “Layla said there was some bad stuff he told you.” Her expression is so open, so honest, non-judgmental.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

  “You weren’t ready to. It’s okay.” Her smile is soft. “Any chance you might be ready now?”

  “What he told me was really awful stuff you probably don’t want to hear.”

  She lays her head back on the chair. “I’m going to be a doctor, Penny. If I can’t handle it, I should learn how. Tell me.”

  So I do. From the start of when he threatened me, through the evidence, including the stuff about my mother from Blake, ending with the detective suspecting Logan of my father’s death.

  By the end she’s turned her chair toward me, and rather than disgusted, she’s riveted. “Holy shit, your family’s a soap opera.”

  I laugh a little and then a lot.

  She hugs me. “He told you so much.”

  I sit back and hold her hands. “You’re not upset? Do you believe me?”

  “How could I not believe you? It’s too convoluted a story not to be true.”

  “No one else believes us.” I don’t miss the us and neither does she.

  “You need to talk to Blake. Like sit down and have a rational conversation with him.”

  “He’s been so angry.”

  She shakes her head. “Not if you tell him everything. He wants to know the truth you haven’t told him.”

  “He hasn’t told me the truth either!”

  “So you should start. Then he’ll follow. You both grew up so used to lies, you don’t know how to tell each other the truth.”

  I voice the fear that’s been niggling in my throat. “Do you think they put Logan in prison?”

  “No. Layla told me they let him go.”

  I expect to feel . . . something. Relief. Outrage. Upset. I thought my reaction would tell me what I haven’t figured out yet. But all I feel is the same hole, the same sadness of missing him. If he was released, why isn’t he home with me?

  Do I want him home with me?

  “We should sleep. Do you want me to stay with you?” Her face is so bright, full of fake excitement. She’s trying to cheer me up. “You’ve got that nice big bed. We could have a sleepover.”

  But I have other sleeping plans. I need to be alone. “I’ll be okay.”

  She hugs me again on the way out the door. “You’re going to figure this out.”

  “Thanks for listening. And for believing me. Layla didn’t.”

  “She’s been too involved in researching him. She’s coming around. Call me tomorrow?”

  “I will.”

  I close the door behind her. I feel better, relieved. A little less confused.

  But it doesn’t stop me from going to his room, curling up in his sheets, and falling asleep wrapped in the smell of him.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  I step into Blake’s office prepared to wait again, except there’s no receptionist.

  I’m back to my usual beach clothes. Since I’m camping on the beach, I can’t be motivated to put on a collared shirt and leather shoes.

  Coming here—it feels desperate. Desperate for some connection to her. So desperate I’ll talk to another Vandershall. It’s the closest I can get to learning how she is.

  Rather than wait, I knock on his office door and stick my head in. “I’m here whenever you’re—”

  My words are cut off by who’s sitting in the chair opposite his desk.

  Her face is soft, vulnerable, pained.

  Penny.

  I want to say her name, but it doesn’t come out.

  The look on her face is so open, like she’s happy to see me, needs to see me.

 
I blink fast. That’s wrong. There’s no way she could handle seeing me and all the darkness that lives in me. I lied to myself in thinking she could take it. She can’t. No one can.

  She should be revolted, turning the other way, screaming me out of here. The only reason she isn’t is because she’s back to her fake good girl habits.

  She’s back to denying everything I told her. She has no reason to believe anything I said to her now.

  I hadn’t thought of that until now. Everything that made me so relieved, that felt so good to have her believe . . . it’s gone. I’m alone again.

  I can’t school my face. The only thing I can do to keep the pain from showing is replace it with my usual mask: fury. “What are you doing here?”

  Her mouth pinches. “I’m here to see my brother. What are you doing here?”

  “He wanted to talk to me.”

  Blake stands. “Come back in an hour.”

  “No.” She holds out her hand. “Why isn’t he in prison?”

  Blake answers, “Because there wasn’t any solid evidence to hold him.”

  “So he didn’t do it?” Her voice is too tight to decipher if it’s with relief or disdain.

  Blake shakes his head. “I didn’t say that.”

  She stares at me. I wait for the question. For her to ask me if I killed her father. I don’t know how to answer that, and I’m grateful when she doesn’t ask.

  “Call me when you’re done working,” she says to Blake. “We have lots more to talk about.” She turns her glare to me. “Move.”

  I’m blocking her exit. I’m glad to see her out. I worried yesterday when her car didn’t leave her house, and she didn’t go to work. I was relieved to see it gone this morning, thinking she had gone to work. Except she came here instead.

  “Why aren’t you at work?” I ask.

  “None of your business. Out of my way.” Whether she goes to work or not doesn’t matter. She’s angry and doing something, not home and crying.

  I step aside but only just enough. She’s forced to brush me with her shoulder as she walks by. I restrain myself from caressing her back. I miss the feel of her next to me, against me, around me.

  I catch a whiff of her scent as she walks by. It’s ocean and . . . me. She smells like me.

  I’m left staring at the door after she closes it. Why does she smell like me?

 

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