by Fleur Smith
Why would things be different now? The sunbird whispered to me. Clay put his letter in a place where he knew you’d find it.
I froze as the sunbird’s words reached my heart. She was right. It was clear Clay had intended for me to see the letter, and he had to know I’d read it, but he’d never once mentioned anything about meeting him at that address. That had been an assumption I’d made all on my own.
The more I considered it, the more foolish the assumption seemed. After all, the placement of the letter was evidence of just how in tune he was with my thoughts. Certainly he had to know me well enough to know there wasn’t any way I would blindly rush to any address that was left in the open, at least not without some sort of reconnaissance first. There had to be something else there that he wanted me to see.
“That’s it!” I exclaimed.
“What’s it?” Unnerved at my sudden exclamation, the kid had jumped at the sound, and his voice squeaked a little because of it.
“Breadcrumbs,” I said before rushing over to my backpack and pulling out Clay’s note. “It’s not a place where he wants me to be, it’s a breadcrumb.”
“What are you talking about?”
I ignored the question. There were more pressing things on my mind, inflating my heart with dangerous optimism.
“Do you have a computer?” Desperate to see whether my epiphany might be correct, I tugged the paper with the address out of the envelope and laid it on the counter. “I need to see what’s at this address.”
“Um . . . yeah, sure.” He raced upstairs and returned a few moments later with a small laptop.
Drumming my fingers on the counter impatiently, I waited for the computer to start up and then opened an Internet search.
“It’s not an invitation,” I murmured to myself. “He knows I wouldn’t just go to him, not the way things ended last time. It’s a way of communicating something to me that he doesn’t want anyone else to see. But what?” And why?
“You know you’re not making any sense, right?”
Maybe not to you, but it makes perfect sense to me. “I just need to find out what it is.”
I keyed the address from the letter into the search engine. As soon as the results came up, I clicked on the tab for available images. I pulled up the first photo and looked closely at it before moving on to the next image. “If I’m right, there should be something here that he wanted me to see,” I said to myself—to the sunbird.
“Who?”
I jumped as the voice came from outside my body. In my deep concentration, I’d almost forgotten the kid was standing beside me. “Just someone I used to know,” I said somewhat dismissively. Then I remembered that the boy had taken me in, fed me, helped me, and was lending me his computer so I could continue my search. All I’d offered him in response was rudeness and aversion. “I think he’s trying to get in contact with me again.” Under my breath, I added, “But why?”
Why leave a trail when he’s been hunting me so successfully? He found me in Charlotte, didn’t he? Why not just . . . do whatever he wanted to do then?
“What does he want me to know?” I muttered absently.
“Why doesn’t he just call your cell?”
I laughed. “In case you couldn’t tell, I’m not exactly a cell phone-carrying type of girl. Not anymore.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “So this guy, is he like an old boyfriend or something?”
I thought I detected a hint of jealousy in the question. I stopped my mad searching and glanced at Hightops again. His eyes drank me in, and his top teeth sank deep into his bottom lip. When he realized he was caught in my gaze, he stood a little taller. Watching him, I understood the motives of the kid a little better. His not-so-subtle once-over, inviting me in for a bite to eat, even his overly-polite manner were all just his way of flirting, slightly inadequate as it might have been.
His hormones were probably running rampant at the thought of being alone in his house with an older woman—and probably an assumed potential to score. He was totally misguided if he thought anything was going to happen, but I sympathized with him. I’d done many things that could be considered stupid, most much worse than letting a stranger onto my property, all in the name of love.
“Or something,” I said, mindlessly rubbing my fingers along the scar on my wrist. I couldn’t explain the delicate balance of life and death that made up my relationship with Clay.
“Okay,” the kid said with an absent nod, clearly pleased that I hadn’t said a definite yes. “Let’s figure out what he’s trying to tell you then.”
No matter how many times I scrolled through the available images, there didn’t seem to be anything about the business that related to Clay. It appeared to be a low quality ambulance-chasing law firm residing in a plain white brick building covered by years of graffiti and grit. There was nothing about the name of the street or the business that offered any obvious clues about whatever it was that Clay was trying to tell me. I’d resorted to enlarging every photo on the screen just in case it was some sort of hidden clue. Only one held anything at all familiar and, even then, whatever message it contained was hidden.
“So what are you looking for?” The voice beside me contained the same curiosity that raced through my veins.
“I’m not really sure, but I’ll know it when I see it.”
I clicked on another meaningless image but nothing stood out. I opened the location photo I’d viewed at least fifteen times and took another look. My instincts told me it was the photo I needed, but I couldn’t instantly see why.
In that one, there was a man standing in front of the plain white office block dressed in painter’s overalls, pinning an uninteresting poster onto the wall. He was only barely in the frame of the photo; his face mostly obscured and hidden in shadow. It was the shape of his profile that drew my attention back to the picture numerous times. It was so reminiscent of a silhouette deeply ingrained in my memory. I would recognize Clay’s jawline anywhere, but it just didn’t make sense in the photo or the context.
“Can we get a closer look at that?” I asked, pointing at the white rectangle. Beyond basic searches and credit card scams, I’d never had much use for computers, so I’d never developed my skills.
“Let’s see.” The kid opened the image with a different program and after a little bit of tweaking, we were able to get the details printed on the poster. A website.
Holding my breath, I typed the partial website into the search engine and received only a handful of pages of results.
The kid’s gaze burned my cheek as I brought up each website in succession.
“Let me guess,” he said with a hint of sarcasm as I clicked to the third page of search results. “You’ll know when you see it?”
I nodded and took a sip of the glass of water he’d poured for me while I was going through the images. Scrolling through the results again, I pulled up an amateurish website of a pottery place that sounded like a possible candidate.
“Bingo,” I said, tapping the screen as the heading across the website confirmed my suspicions.
“Charlotte’s hand-fired clay.” The kid read the business name aloud. “I don’t get it.”
Smiling at the fact that I’d worked it out, I said, “You’re not supposed to.”
Clay went to a lot of trouble for this . . .
Why?
Hadn’t he been in my motel room to scrawl his hate-filled messages on the wall? Couldn’t he have left some message then?
Reaching for a pen, I jotted down the address and phone number of the business I’d found onto the back of Clay’s letter. I wasn’t entirely sure what my next step was going to be. Should I continue to follow the breadcrumbs Clay had left for me. For however long it lasted, it would offer me a purpose.
I just needed to decide what to do with the information.
A sense of safety settled over me. He wasn’t trying to contact me directly. Maybe there was less of the Rain left in him than I’d thought. Maybe the prom
ises he’d made years earlier still held true. At least a little.
My heart inflated, and my lips turned up into a genuine smile.
Perhaps he still believed in the choices he’d made. Closing my eyes, and giving myself over to hope, I let myself believe it. The sensation was familiar—newfound hope tasted similar to my excitement when we’d been together in Charlotte so many years earlier. The moments of blind optimism we’d both shared flooded back to me. We’d thought that maybe we would actually be able to make it in the world, provided we had each other.
But then why had he followed me? Why did he graffiti the walls of my motel room with such hideous words?
Unless it wasn’t him.
My doubt over whether it was Clay who had been hunting me was enough to make me willing to risk the onward journey for as long as I could.
After double-checking the phone number I’d jotted down, I deleted the browsing history and shut down the laptop. When the kid left the room briefly, I wiped off each surface to ensure I removed my fingerprints. I shoved Clay’s letter back into my bag and got ready to leave.
“What do we do next?” Hightops asked from behind me, causing me to jump around in surprise.
“We?” I raised my eyebrows at him. “You go to school, get good grades, and spend as much time as you can with your mother. I’m going to go check this out and move on.”
Grabbing my backpack, I stole an apple from a fruit bowl on the counter.
“Thanks for the hospitality, kid.” I reached out to ruffle my fingers through his hair, like someone might to a child, and hoped that he’d call my bluff before I actually had to touch him.
He yanked his head away from me even as he scrunched up his nose. His eyes flashed with annoyance. I hoped I left him glad to see the back of me.
Knowing there was no point in subterfuge any longer, not now that I was going to be back on the road in a few minutes, I walked toward the front door determined to leave just like any other guest might.
“Just like that?” he asked.
“How else can it be?” I offered as I took a bite from the apple. “I’m not really a house-guest kind of person. It’s not safe for either of us.”
“You won’t hurt me,” he said.
“You keep saying that,” I said sadly. The statement was a reminder of something I’d once said to Clay. I’d been right and wrong—he’d never physically hurt me, but because of him my heart bore wounds that were impossible to heal. “And it’s true. I won’t. But that doesn’t mean you won’t get hurt because of me, especially if I stay here any longer. I’m not willing to risk that, and you shouldn’t be either. Think of the panic it would cause your mom.”
“Are you on the run?” he asked. “Is that why you wiped everything down?”
My mouth dropped open. I couldn’t believe the kid had noticed; he must have walked back in while I was finishing up. Recovering my bearings, I responded, “Something like that.”
“You really won’t stay?”
“Nope.”
“I’ll tell my mom you were here,” he threatened.
“And by the time you do, I’ll be long gone. I’m sorry, but this is just the way my life is.” I turned away from him before he tried to argue further.
“It must be lonely.”
I paused mid-step as his words hit their target. It had been refreshing to talk to someone else for a while—to have an actual conversation that wasn’t just me answering the voice in my own mind. I turned back and offered him a watery grin.
“Must be,” I said before turning away and walking out the door to the road before I could say anything to make him think I was willing to stay. With the Rain hunting me, I couldn’t risk it, even if I hadn’t minded the company.
Almost the instant I was in the open air, exposed by the bright sun, the threat invading my mind returned. The skin on my arms raised in a series of bumps as fire burned through my limbs. I turned back to look at the house, to see whether the boy was still watching me, but he was gone.
Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a shadowy figure lurking by the house, but when I twisted around to get a better look, there was nothing there. Glancing back around the area once more, and seeing no one nearby, I sunk into the depths of my hoodie.
“You really are going crazy.”
By the time I’d reached the road, I’d shrugged back into my usual aloofness. I couldn’t have personal relationships; I’d learned that the hard way. The harsh reminder of having to say goodbye to everyone I’d ever loved made my dreams of another reunion with Clay falter and fade. Despite the hope that the new details I’d found had given me, I was beginning to wonder whether it was even worth trying to contact him. Even if he had moved beyond his need for revenge, what could we offer each other that was any different to what had come before?
I had been so certain he was hunting me. But even if he wasn’t, it didn’t change anything. I hadn’t imagined the near-misses and close calls. Someone was two steps behind me, and if not Clay then someone else. Someone who would likely destroy what I loved to get to me. Someone who knew enough about me to know what had occurred in the past and could guess my actions.
Someone who might hurt Clay.
Despair trickled down my spine, rendering me unable to move another step. It didn’t matter what I did, the Rain would always be after me. Even if Clay had forgiven me, against all the odds, I wasn’t sure there was any place in the world where we could be together and left alone. That path just didn’t exist—we’d tried to walk it before, and it had ended in disaster at every turn.
Time and time again, everything I cared about was stripped away because of what I was. Even when I’d thought I could finally be happy, I’d been wrong. Wrong enough to turn me into an unwilling murderer. I rubbed one hand absently against my other arm, soothing imagined chills.
Without thinking, I headed south. I didn’t have an aim as I meandered along the streets. Instead, I just followed my instincts.
My thoughts were full of the past again, full of the mistakes that had pulled Clay and I apart, as a desire to try the contact information I had for Clay clashed with the need to stay away for both our safety.
“Even if it’s futile to think of a future together, surely it’s only polite to acknowledge his effort?”
You keep telling yourself that’s the reason.
“Well, what should I do then?” I threw my hands in the air in frustration, knowing that I would have looked completely crazy if anyone was watching.
You should try. Surely it’s worth risk? He’s worth it, isn’t he?
I found myself nodding.
But you have to be prepared to deal with the fallout if you’re wrong.
After a few hours of walking along the tree-studded streets into Winchester, Kentucky, I stopped at a tiny diner and pulled Clay’s note from my bag. I placed it on the table and tried to ignore my desire to follow up on the lead as I read over the diner’s menu.
No matter how hard I tried to stay focused, my gaze kept slipping back to the phone number I’d jotted down.
What if he wants to see you again?
It was tempting fate to make any type of contact.
What if he’s forgiven you?
It really was too dangerous to call.
What if he didn’t go back to the Rain?
There was someone following me—someone that could hurt Clay if it wasn’t him.
What if he can help you?
Shaking my head, I tried to clear the random questions and thoughts that smashed against each other.
“Why is it so hard to decide?” I asked aloud.
“It’s just a menu, honey.”
The voice with the thick southern accent startled me. I hadn’t realized I wasn’t alone. A motherly waitress—Rachael, according to the tag pinned to her apron—smiled warmly and poured me a fresh cup of coffee. She looked like she’d stepped out of a quintessential 50’s diner. Hers was a genuine look though, not the kitschy modern t
ake on the theme some restaurants employed.
Forcing a weak smile in response, I nodded. “I know. I just always have trouble choosing between the pie and cake,” I lied to cover up my real dilemma.
“Well, if it helps, our pie’s award winnin’.” She chuckled knowingly as she pointed to a sign stating that their pie won an award some time before I was even born.
“Pie it is then, I guess.” I forced a smile.
Offering her the menu back, my eyes dropped down to the note. I stared at the phone number until the digits danced teasingly in front of my eyes and the address I’d written had morphed into the words resistance is useless.
“Excuse me,” I called to Rachael across the empty diner.
“Yes, sweetie?”
“Do you know if there’s a payphone around here?” My heart hammered in my chest just asking the question. I tugged the end of my ponytail underneath my hood, hoping that I didn’t draw more attention to my hair with my nervous movements.
Are you really going to do this?
How can I not?
Rachael directed me to a payphone near the county courthouse, and I took a deep breath as I imagined actually making the call. What would I say? How would he respond? My stomach fluttered with the half-hearted beat of wings of butterflies I’d thought were long dead.
How wonderful will it be to hear his voice again? I smiled.
“Can I get that pie to go?” I practically screamed at Rachael as I pushed everything into my bag and raced over to the counter. Now that the decision was firm in my heart, there was nothing to stop me clamoring to contact Clay as quickly as I could.
She smiled and served up a slice of cherry pie straight into a take-out container.
“Thank you,” I said, dumping a fistful of cash and change onto the counter in front of her as I reached for the pie.
I was halfway to the door when she spoke again. “Anytime. Good luck with that beau of yours, honey.”
