William ~ Late September, Six Years Earlier
Almost two weeks had passed. To me they felt like a day. Time sped in a blur of laughter and kisses, in a haze of tender touches and even softer words. The grasses had been crushed and flattened from the countless hours we’d spent there, every second we could find to sneak away. For me, they had been the best two weeks of my life.
Lying on our backs, Maggie was nestled in the crook of my arm with her head resting on my shoulder. We stared up at the shelter of leaves partially obstructing the blanket of stars.
“I could lie here forever,” Maggie whispered into the night.
I pulled her closer, kissed the side of her head. “Me, too.”
Her palm rested flat across my stomach, my hand holding her firm at the hip.
“I can’t believe you have to leave in two days,” she said. Heartbreak flowed through each word. “I don’t…”
I looked down to see her mouth trembling as our reality took hold. Burying her face in the side of my chest, tears broke free, and she slid her hand to my side and clung to me.
“Shh…baby…don’t cry.” I only had one year of school left, but even to me, that felt like a lifetime. I couldn’t imagine being separated from her for so long, even though I’d come back to visit every chance I got. “Will you wait for me?” I murmured into her hair.
Maggie slowly shook her head through her tears, shifting so she could look up at me.
“Do you think I couldn’t? I…I—”
In her expression, I saw everything I felt.
I cut her off with a kiss, unable to bear the thought of being separated from this girl for so long. I couldn’t fathom how lonely my nights would become or how the worry for her safety would torture me while I was away.
I wanted to consume her, every inch, every day.
Maggie gasped when I abruptly tugged her on top of me, her eyes wide and surprised as I held her face. Those warm eyes were so beautiful, still so sad, but so different than when I’d first been plowed over by them from across the fire. Now they shone with love as she looked down at me. With a measure of joy. With the beginnings of life.
“Marry me,” I whispered urgently, increasing my hold as her eyes flooded with confusion before they grew wider with shock. She tried to scramble back, but I refused to let her go, said it again, “Marry me…let’s get the hell out of here. We can get a little apartment or something while I finish school.”
“Are you insane?” she asked, her hands flat on the grass on either side of my head, her hair falling around her face and down my arms.
I grinned. “Completely.”
She smiled, but shook her head. “William…” My name was the sum, in it how much she really loved me, how scared she was, the sadness that she believed the idea of us only a fairytale. “My mom and my little sister. You know I can’t leave them.” Loyalty and fear sogged her spirit and made her twitch in my hands.
My voice softened. “I’m serious, Maggie. Marry me. I love you, and I can’t stand the idea of being away from you, even if it’s only for a few months at a time. I can’t leave you here. I know you love your sister and want to take care of her, but what about you? Tell me what you want.”
Tears welled in her eyes, and she bit at her lip.
“You really are insane.” This time when she shook her head, she released a low, dubious laugh.
I smiled up at the girl I knew I’d never stop loving and asked her again, “Maggie, marry me.”
She threw herself at me, her mouth frenzied. I was nearly delirious when she murmured, “Yes,” against my lips. It shot straight through me, rushed as commitment through my veins where it grounded in my heart.
Yes.
We were laughing as we stumbled through the woods, a whirlwind of expectant hands and excited words. I pulled her into the shadows and pushed her up against the nearest tree. My mouth descended on hers, my spirit fevered and roused. Maybe I was insane, because I couldn’t focus, could see nothing but her.
“Oh my God, Maggie,” I murmured. “I love you. Do you have any idea how much?”
Her fingers burrowed deep in my skin, “Yes,” her only reply.
I smiled at the word again, slowed my movements, and kissed her softly. I ran my fingers through the length of her hair framing her face, and whispered, “Yes.”
Taking her hand, I snaked us through the hollows of town, along the sides of darkened buildings and obscured alleys. Hidden at the end of her street, I kissed her goodbye, and watched her sneak in the front door of her house one last time.
Tomorrow night, she wouldn’t go back.
I sucked in a deep breath of relief and overwhelming joy.
I tracked back the way we’d come and hopped on the sidewalk halfway home. My mind was with tomorrow when I noticed the truck trailing close behind. My feet slowed as hatred flared.
Looking over my shoulder, I was blinded by headlights that sprayed out from a truck not more than fifteen feet behind me. I squinted, nerves zinging as I prepared for a fight. It was after three in the morning, and the town was dead. I could only hope Troy was alone because I was going to be in a ton of trouble if he wasn’t.
Blake’s warning flared in my head. He will find a way to make you pay for what you did.
I braced myself. Like I’d told Blake then, I’d take anything Troy brought my way.
I jumped back when the truck accelerated and swerved my direction before it righted and sped down the street.
Fisting my hair in my hands, I watched the taillights fade in the distance, trying to get ahold of my pounding heart and make sense of what had just happened.
Shit. That was stupid. Maybe I should have given Blake a little bit of credit, laid low like he’d asked me to, instead of traipsing down the center of Main Street in the dead of night.
I climbed in bed, thanking God tomorrow all of this shit would be over with.
William ~ Present Day
Fatigue pinned me to the forest ground, chained by confusion and the unknown, by the memories of what had been created in this place. I ran my palm over the cool grass. Maggie and I had shared so much here, my greatest joy and the worst heartache I’d ever known. I didn’t know how much of this I could take. All I wanted was my family, wanted them safe. I sagged further as the emotional exhaustion took me over, curled onto my side. Wished I could go back six years and she would be here.
A flash of blond streaked in the moonlight, disappeared in the shadows. William lumbered over the earth, a tangled web, a snare underfoot. “Wait,” he called, reaching into the shadows, grasping at nothing at all.
Despair clung to him, clawing it his skin, burrowing itself deep. He pushed forward, lost in the thicket and haze of night.
William stumbled when he came upon a clearing.
Beneath a tree, the boy rocked himself, soft cries buried in his knees.
“Jonathan,” William whispered.
Startled, the boy looked up. William gasped for air, the boy’s face covered in blood. “My daddy is so mad.”
I woke up gasping for the same breath, gripping my head.
On my hands and knees, I pushed myself onto my feet. I jogged back through the forest trail, materialized on the edge of Main Street of the sleeping town. Chills rolled down my spine as I forged ahead. I passed Blake’s street, rushed across the road, and took the third right down.
There was no other place I could go.
I stood in the middle of the road, staring. It was a tiny house, painted a dingy blue. Night wrapped it in silhouettes. I crept forward, light underfoot, slinked along its outer walls. I placed my hand flat on the side window. I felt the sadness within those walls, the ache of a home where no joy lived. It lit a seizure of emotion, anger and hurt and an old devotion I’d hidden deep.
The boy’s face swirled behind my closed eyes.
I lowered the gates and let the anger well.
By the time I forced myself away, I was swimming in it, in the same fury that had overpo
wered me six years before, the same that had wanted to see him die. I waded through the storm, fumbled my way back to Blake’s house, and collapsed onto the unmade bed.
Chapter Fourteen
Maggie ~ Present Day
With the snap of my wrists, the blanket unfurled, billowing out in the wind before it settled to the grass floor. Just a mild chill still hung in the air. I lowered myself onto the blanket and drew my legs up under me.
The children ran to the playground. Amber’s two small children toddled out over the field and to the sand. Jonathan trailed awkwardly behind. He looked back over his shoulder, as if asking for guidance. I gestured with my chin for him to go on.
I hated he was always this way, shy and unsure.
Amber climbed down beside me with a big, bulky camera in her hands.
“God…they are just incredible, aren’t they?” she said as she focused the long lens, snapping picture after picture of the kids as they played. A shrill cry of giddy laughter rose up from her eighteen-month-old daughter, echoing over the play yard. “Sometimes I still can’t believe they’re mine.”
Jonathan flashed proud brown eyes back at me and a timid smile crept over his face, but it was one that spoke of joy as he cautiously found his footing on the jungle gym and wove his way to the top. Incredible didn’t begin to describe the way my son made me feel.
I moved to hug my knees, before I looked over at my little sister who continued on in a constant barrage of clicks.
I couldn’t help but smile.
My sister had escaped.
Amber caught me staring, her mouth twisting up in a little half smile as she blew back a thick lock of brown hair that had fallen in her face.
“What?” Her dark hazel eyes were wide and playful.
“I’m just happy for you,” I said.
Amber had a husband who loved and respected her and two children who were—just as she’d said—incredible.
Amber glanced over the kids, before she turned her attention back to me. “It’s because of you, you know.”
I knew what she was saying, and I bit at the side of my bottom lip and shook my head. “That’s not true, Amber.”
She scowled. “You think I’d be here right now if it wasn’t for you? Do you really think I would have survived?”
I was suddenly back in our little room, and I knew she was too. The fear. How it had crawled thick and menacing along the walls and hung heavy in the air. Suffocating and pressing down.
I could almost feel the little girl climbing into bed beside me, the way Amber would bury her face in my side when I wrapped her in my arms, could feel her shake as she cried. I could almost hear myself whispering to her that it was going to be okay.
I hugged my knees closer and looked away.
“I survived and you didn’t.” Amber’s presence beside me was overwhelming, the urgency in her tone, even though the words were said in no more than a whisper.
Forcing a smile, I turned back to her. “I’m still alive, Amber.”
“Only part of you.” Her face was sad. I was sure mine was too.
That small flame that had lived inside of me had burned out that night—the night when the fantasy William had painted and I’d been foolish enough to believe was shattered when my reality came crashing down. I’d been…nothing. Empty. Dead. The only evidence my heart still beat had been the ache William had left behind.
Only Jonathan had set it aflame. Now it smoldered somewhere deep, kept hidden with the memories of the treasure I’d let slip away.
“You were strong enough for us both.” Amber glanced in Jonathan’s direction. His hair whipped around his face as his younger cousin chased him. He laughed, stumbling through the sand on unsure feet.
“Do you really think you’re going to be strong enough for the both of you to make it through again?”
It wasn’t as if I didn’t know this. Understand it, even. Every day, I imagined my escape. What it would be like to finally be free. Every day, it seemed just a fantasy, just like William holding me was every night. I knew something had to give. Cracks only deepened, widened, and eventually buckled. One of us was going to fall.
I just prayed to God it wasn’t me.
“You have to do something, Maggie. I can’t watch you live like this anymore.”
“It’s not that bad.” The words came naturally and without thought.
Amber tilted her head and shook it sadly as if she couldn’t believe I’d just said what I did.
She suddenly twisted her head around and rested her chin on her shoulder.
“God, that guy is such a creep, isn’t he?”
I followed her line of sight to the black SUV parked directly on the other side of the street.
That hidden flame burned, though my stomach clamped in apprehension. My eyes flicked to Jonathan then back to him, gauging William’s purpose.
I shouldn’t have been surprised he was here. Since seeing him in front of Amber’s last night, I’d caught him following me twice, once after dropping Jonathan off at kindergarten this morning and again when I was leaving my mother’s house. Part of me was terrified of his intentions, of what he may be planning, while another part of me felt safer under his watch than I had in years.
Amber was too young to really be able to remember William, the years apart leaving them with no connection.
Just like me, William had become a rumor.
I stared back at him. Protective affection radiated in his posture as his eyes left me to find my son.
An old comfort rose.
The same affection had been there in his unwavering gaze when I’d walked into the restaurant on Thursday, even when mine had fallen. It had been even stronger last night when I’d stood in front of my sister’s house, again lost in William, staring at what should have been.
“Apparently, he didn’t get the memo that it’s kind of weird for a guy to just sit in his car alone and watch kids playing in the park,” Amber said as if a joke, though the strain in her voice belied her true unease. “Did you know he moved into his brother’s guesthouse down the street on Friday? I’ve seen him a few times, and he always just…stares.” She exaggerated a shudder.
I was unable to look away from William when I spoke. “He’s a good man, Amber. You don’t need to be frightened of him.”
I sensed the pause in my sister, the trip in her thoughts.
“You know him?” Amber asked.
I glimpsed the confusion on her face.
William.
My secret, my heart.
The beautiful man I’d lain with for hours under the stars, our lives poured out in a torrent of stories and words. The way he held me while I shared the ones that hurt me the most. How he touched me, the way he made me feel incredibly safe. How that hold had escalated from safety to ecstasy as the soft pads of his fingers would dance across my lips when he locked himself to me, the perfect weight of his body, the expression on his face when he came.
The heartbreak in his eyes when I told him goodbye.
I knew it all.
“Yeah.” My voice was soft. “I know him.”
I waved from the driver’s seat of my van as Amber pulled out onto the street, the tranquil spring day drawing to an end. Our kids had played the entire afternoon while we watched over them. I had savored the time. It felt amazing to see my son run and soar on the swing on his belly, laughing uninhibited. For a few short hours, he was free. I’d basked in the warmth of the new sun, the cool breeze its perfect companion.
And I reveled in him. Even in the whirlwind of emotions his reappearance incited in my life, William’s light was inescapable.
He sat there for close to an hour, and I wondered if he could feel it too.
Did I wrap him up in comfort, like a familiar embrace? Did I stir him up, a welcomed chaos that stole his breath? Did he feel himself just on the cusp, that churning intuition that things were about to change?
Did it scare him, the way it scared me?
But
God, I wanted it.
Fairytales had begun to knit themselves through my heart and mind, ones that no longer seemed so distant, now only just out of reach.
I looked back over the playground to its edge, to where the trees grew tall and tangled. Our sanctuary was buried just inside. I hadn’t been there in years. I’d gone once, seeking refuge in its seclusion. Without him there, I’d never felt so alone. In six years, I’d never gone back.
Now…
I shook my head from the dangerous thoughts and glanced at my son in the rearview mirror.
I knew my judgment was skewed. I’d lived in step with the fear, surrendering to its demands. I’d done it believing I was protecting Jonathan and protecting myself. The hardest to swallow was the reality that part of my reasoning was true, but our situation was never going to change until I did something about it.
Shifting the van into reverse, I slowly backed out onto the street and headed to the house. Troy’s truck was parked in the carport. I pulled in beside it and took the key from the ignition.
During the short trip, Jonathan had fallen asleep in his car seat after the long day of play, his head lolling to the side. I smiled as I quietly unbuckled him and picked him up.
He felt so good in my arms, like everything that was right. I nuzzled my nose into the hair that hung over his ear, his breath thick on my neck.
That internal chaos quivered and rose.
I jerked to look behind me. Craning my head, I squinted my eyes, scanning the empty street.
Comfort surged and wrapped me tight.
Shaking myself from it, I forced myself inside, glancing once more over my shoulder before I shut the back door behind me.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Troy demanded before he tipped a can of beer to his mouth. I knew his tone, filled with accusation and blame that was never mine, as if I were to blame for how miserable he was inside. He sat at the table, shirtless, his eyes scrutinizing as they looked me up and down.
When We Collide Page 17
