by Allyn Lesley
The silence stretched between them; across from him, the stubborn woman was drowning in whatever she held onto, if the small puffs of breath she couldn’t seem to catch were an indication, yet her lips never moved to speak.
“You stall, but your father’s answer came right away.”
Love of his life. Not a “fling”, as her mother used to characterize the relationship.
It was hard to hear anything else. Harry described her mother as the love of his life. The word slammed into Avi’s chest, robbing her of the ability to breathe or talk. Her father loved her mother. A man who hadn’t seen Ellie in over twenty-odd years still pined away for her, and held her in high esteem...even protecting the few things she’d left in his home.
Avi had left her mother high and dry when it all hit the fan, too concerned with her guilt to reach out for Ellie’s hand.
“I...” she started and stopped. She couldn’t share what was running through her mind, because everything and nothing was rambling in her head all at once. Noah sat there with questions she didn’t want to answer, because she truly didn’t know the answers...hadn’t bothered to investigate or dig that deep in the last three years.
“Avi.”
She mumbled out, “It’s complicated,” and hoped he never heard them, but that was wishful thinking. Noah heard and saw everything.
“Uncomplicate it then.”
Her brows knitted together under his harsh directive.
“Your mother’s in prison.”
Avi didn’t say anything.
“She was a drug dealer.”
She swallowed. These were no questions, just hard facts that were getting too close to home. She pinched her lips.
“You were driving her car, it got pulled over, and they searched and found all of that shit.”
Avi sat taller, squinting at him, feeling warm all over. How’d he know any of this?
“You were held until your mother came down and turned herself in.”
What could she say? He knew her whole life story; there was no reason for her to stick around for the sad end.
She stood to her shaky feet, needing to get away from the pin-prick sensations that were picking up speed in her heart as they always did when she thought of Ellie Linton. Plus, she had to hide from the relentless man and his questions in front of her.
“I’ve read Ellie’s letters to Harry.”
She cut her gaze from the table to behind his head. The wall was bare save his Diego Rivera painting called The Flower Seller. Ever since he’d seen the calla lily image at Harry’s home, he’d been fascinated by its duality. Noah didn’t know the depth of the meaning of the words below, but was drawn to the flower.
“I’m a paradox, like that flower.” He didn’t even know if she understood what the flower represented. “Very pretty flower, but also deadly.” It was one of the reasons he’d made it his product’s stamp. Avi’s sight never wavered from the wall. “When he was alive, Harry liked to think differently, but...” Noah shrugged.
Her body was half-turned away from him. Defeat radiated from where she stood stiff as a board with her hands rubbing her arms.
“All her letters to Harry—every single one of them—went on pages and pages about you. How she was worried about you. How she wanted Harry to watch over you, since she couldn’t. How she just wanted to speak with you.”
She plunked down onto the seat cushion.
“You’re her only child.” Noah knew another woman whose thoughts were bitter and cold toward the child in her home, yet Ellie was warm, open, and waiting for Avi. He didn’t understand. “From what I’ve—”
“You don’t get it.”
Three years. Three long years of cowering, hiding, and dodging. Three years of becoming giddy at the mere sight of her mother’s handwriting on letters that followed her everywhere, to being physically sick with shame when Avi spied Ellie’s new Florida address.
“Help me get it.”
“What’s there left to share? You seem to know everything. My life ended the day I was pulled over. The local newspapers splashed half-truths about us on the front pages. Neighbors I’d known for years pecked at our lives like fodder, and commented on parts of our existence as if they had a right.”
Her fingers curled into her palms. The nails digging into the soft flesh left a dull ache in comparison to the embarrassment of looking out the window at the reporters stalking her front steps or being followed to the bus station by them.
“Tell me what happened, Avi.”
A tear dripped down into her plate. “Tell you?” She laughed. It wasn’t funny, none of it was, but she couldn’t help the empty, dry sound that left her lips. “I was hounded. If I took a step, the reporters were right there. First time I went to visit my mother, they were there, cameras in my face and lights shining so bright I could hardly see in front of me. They were there when I ran out like a chicken too.” She paused. The following day, the local headline was: Heartbroken Girl Leaves Guilty Mom. “But everyone had it wrong. Mommy wasn’t guilty. She didn’t do shit.” Her hand flew to her lips, willing the curse back into her belly, where the rest of her story should stay just as buried.
Avi beat at her chest. The pangs inside her chest cavity were about to swallow her whole. “Guilt? What the hell does that even mean? Sure, she was the one dealing or whatever. But it was me.” She held up her hands, knowing what others didn’t see that she did. “My fingerprints are all over those packages just as much as hers, if not more.”
Should I tell him?
She felt cold, even dead inside. The hot air leaving her mouth and the distant thumping sound inside her breastplate were reminders that she was still alive. But Avi yearned for the day when death would come, when she could finally be judged for her crimes and be at peace.
She had to get away. She was on the move as soon as the thought entered her consciousness. She didn’t get far. Noah was right there, face looming large and arms caging her, pinning her back to the dining room wall.
“Tell me,” he growled.
Noah’s low words made her lungs constrict. She shook her head. She’d never tell. She couldn’t. Guilt had been her constant companion for so long. If she let go of it now, what would she have? Nothing. She had no father—a murderer made sure of that—and because of her stupidity, no mother. Avi was a crap daughter. She knew it. Her mother knew. And God help her, her late father knew. Everyone knew.
Her breathing came out ragged and short. Her lungs worked too hard. Her heart beat too loudly. Avi wanted to fade away, to return to simpler times when names like Harry Manning and Noah Adams meant nothing to her. When it was just her and Ellie.
Just my mom and me.
Tears streaked her cheeks.
Her lips moved on their own. “I’ve worked hard to rebuild my life. Things have only gone as well as they have because I’ve changed.” Controlling her actions, her decisions, and herself were the only ways to keep past mistakes from repeating themselves. The only way Avi could keep herself from falling apart was to not let anyone in.
“It’s the only way,” she said more to herself than Noah.
But now, he wanted to break down all the walls she’d worked so hard to construct.
He gripped her chin, bringing her face up. She saw him searching—for what, she didn’t know. She didn’t plan on saying anything else. Her tongue was tied with her truth, and her lungs wheezed and groaned under the pressure that had been building for more years than she cared to count now.
“What the fuck did you do?”
She almost jumped out of her skin, forgetting his presence entirely. “She’s my mother,” she said through clenched teeth. “I answered your question. Now get the hell out of my way so I can leave this godforsaken place.”
What didn’t he understand? It was already hard watching her father die before her eyes, but to see her mother’s handwriting on letters addressed to Harry, handwriting on letters she’d ignored for three years...
She swa
llowed down her anguish. Avi covered her mouth, hiding the sound behind her cold, nerveless fingers that did little to quench the fire blazing on her cheeks. At his continued silence, her hand flopped to her side.
“Did you leave her there, Avi?” His fingers dug into her chin, but she welcomed the slight pain. “Did you?”
Her back caved under his censure. Her nails clawed at the concrete behind her, wanting to chisel a hole through it so she could disappear. Instead of the rubble she wanted to feel, her nails kept sliding against the wall’s smoothness, only giving off a grating sound.
“Did you?” he asked, releasing her chin.
She covered her ears, slumping down to the surest place—the floor she’d like to sink beneath. Avi tried her best to wish him away, to make Noah go away, but there he stood, uncompromising and riding her for answers. She focused on his black shoes that gleamed under the lights.
“Yeah.” But it was too low, because she’d never admitted this. The few college friends she had disappeared once she withdrew from Florida State. Her neighbors treated her like a pariah. She faced her tormentor, rocking back and forth. “Yeah. I left her. I abandoned my mother,” she yelled to shut him up.
He was a blurry mess of tears in front of her.
“Why would she want to see me? Huh? When I sent her to prison. Me.” She stabbed a finger to her pounding chest. “Me. I did it.”
The truth leapt off her tongue, landing at his feet. Nothing moved. She clutched at her shirt, willing her beating heart to just stop so she could die like she needed to. The truth was out.
Now he knew how evil she was. That calla lily had nothing on her.
When he dropped down to a knee, Avi stopped rocking. When one of Noah’s large palms came into her view, she scurried away. Her shoulder blades and the back of her head slammed into the wall.
She winced at the pain, but still tried to dodge his seeking hand.
But he was faster than her. The back of his hand grazed her face before falling away. “Avi.”
The way he whispered her name was like his caresses, comforting and light. The need to escape was real. It prickled her skin. Goose bumps raced on top of her flesh. The tone of his low voice arrested her. Soft, placating, pleading almost. Her heart picked up speed.
She couldn’t look his way.
Her eyes remained hidden from him.
Noah reached for her shoulder, but she flinched away again. She didn’t need his touch, but he needed hers. He stood up then took a few steps toward her. When she made no comment or showed no outward movements, he sat down.
Her hair hung like a curtain between them. Noah’s hand moved her shield from the side of her face. Her wet cheek and pursed lips greeted him. His hand dropped from her shoulder to her lap, capturing her small, balled fist. She tugged, but he was stronger—in weight and determination.
He waited for her just as he’d done these last five days, and hell if he understood why. His focus trained on her so he wouldn’t miss anything, not a word, a sigh, or a tear.
Head bowed and back stiff, she didn’t have the guts to face him.
She just knew he’d have the same look of disappointment in his eyes, like her mother had when Avi had lost her scholarship. She knew Noah would wear that same incredulity as Ellie when she’d backed out of the visiting room, where her mother sat behind plexiglass holding a phone, waiting for Avi to come closer.
He had no clue who she really was. Noah had been redeemed, with Harry’s help, and escaped a life of crime and violence. There wasn’t enough penance in the world to atone for her sins.
“Get it out.” His voice hung just above a whisper.
“Noah, please.” Why should she have to say anymore? She was already exposed. Her mother had found her father and told him all about Avi. She just wanted to die. Her guard was slipping, and she couldn’t afford that.
But he was right there, unmoving, and gripping her hand as if she was his lifeline. She lifted her sight from the floor and focused on the buttons of his shirt. Her hand relaxed in his; she sought the strength he represented. She was so tired.
“I-I’m scared.” The words barely made it past her quivering lips.
Letting go of her hand, Noah’s fingers grazed the softness of her cheek. She gasped when he pulled her on top of him. He thumbed the sides of her face. Noah couldn’t get enough of the silky feel of her or the way her warm breath teased his chin. His arms engulfed her, dragging her closer to his upper body.
“Hey.” Noah eased her away to arm’s length when she began to sniff. Such an innocent. “Look at me.”
She shook her head.
“Don’t do that.” He tipped her chin, bringing her gorgeous, tear-streaked face up. “Don’t hide from me.”
“I already hate myself. My mother does too. I-I can’t have you hating me.” Her lids fluttered closed.
That wasn’t what he had read in Ellie’s letters. Hate was being around a drunk who never hid her dislike, who considered Noah a burden to be rid of. The motherly love that leapt off the pages of Ellie’s letters baffled him and pushed him for answers. “No one hates you.” His gaze never wavered from hers.
He swiped away a tear from her cheek.
“No one.”
Another tear rolled down. Her breathing was labored.
Noah nestled her into him. “I’ve got you,” he said above her head.
His words rumbled in his chest; she heard them and became hopeful for a split second until reality told her otherwise. His steady heartbeat did nothing to calm her.
“Noah...”
He didn’t know how awful she was, and when he did...
She tried to hold it in, but her burden was too heavy. Guilt stepped down on her chest, crushing her resolve. She had to get it out.
“It was my dumb fault. I acted like a fool, like my mother didn’t raise me right. She sent me to college to get an education, but all I did was manage to lose my scholarship. I-I messed up, Noah.”
She was still a mess. He rubbed her back, but she didn’t want his sympathy. She didn’t deserve it. Avi pushed out of his embrace, her hands too small to hold in everything, so she settled on holding her midsection. Nothing she did caught the falling pieces of the wall she had erected.
“End of my sophomore year, I was kicked out of school. We didn’t have the money. Heck, we barely had money to cover the bills at our rented home. But somehow, my mom kept the lights on and the water running.” Tears rushed down her face. She couldn’t look at him. She didn’t want to see the disgust in his eyes. “So I should’ve known better. I should’ve remembered her sacrifices. Instead, I went there like I had no goals I wanted to achieve.” She shook her head; even now her immature decisions made her angry.
“I got kicked out. My mother refused to talk to me. I had no way to get myself back to the university, let alone get into any community colleges. That summer, Noah, that summer was the worst. Working at a job I hated. My whole future stared at me. This was it. The possibility of leaving vanished before my eyes. I had no one to blame but myself.” She’d cried daily...yelled out her apologies at Ellie’s closed bedroom door. “But at the end of that summer, my mother walked in with the first semester’s check for me to start my junior year. I was selfish. Too happy to be able to go back to college to ask where she got the money.”
It just never dawned on her to consider the lengths her mother would go to. “I’ve been working overtime.” Since 2010, she’d replayed Ellie’s words, and wondered how she had missed the lie. Regret clawed at her insides.
She hung her head. “It’s all my fault. I didn’t know. I went to Florida State a whole year and didn’t know what my mother did to keep me there.” The words strangled her. She shivered from the cold, hard truth. “It all ended in her car. I didn’t know.”
Noah tried to pull her to him, but she backed away.
“I can’t even tell her how sorry I am. I-I can’t look at her. I can’t even write to her. What the heck would I say?” All I want i
s to tell her I’m sorry. And that wouldn’t be good enough. “The guilt is eating me alive.” She tapped her heart. “That’s why I moved. I-I guess when her letters weren’t delivered, she got my new address from the post office.”
Ellie had been at Lowell Correctional for three years. Her mother wrote, but Avi didn’t have the heart or the guts to read her mother’s words. They had to have been filled with anger and blame. If they weren’t, they should have been.
“She’s all I’ve ever had. Her and me against the world, and I sent her away for a very, very long time,” she whispered.
She couldn’t see her mother caged up like that.
“Tha-that’s what I’ve done. This is the kind of woman I am,” she muttered.
She tried to wiggle free of his hold. Brushing her sweaty hair off her face, he was lost in the darkness of his irises and the self-conviction that thinned her lips and puffed her cheeks.
“I told you I wanted more than one night. This doesn’t change anything.”
Her snort told him she didn’t believe him.
“Look at me. You think I’d let you leave?” He brushed his mouth across hers. Her warmth drew him to her. He wiped her wet cheeks.
She sniffled. “I’ve never told anyone.”
He figured as much.
“Thanks for not judging me.”
A niggling sensation worked its way into his chest. Her guilt-riddled decisions were easily forgivable, while the things he’d done...
“I told you I’ve got you.” More was on the tip of his tongue, but this was all new to him, the feelings she stirred up and his willingness to want to stick around.
“Never thought I’d say this out loud, but I-I’m glad I met you,” she said.
Her head felt good in the middle of his chest. “Me too,” he whispered.
They stayed like that for a long time until he heard soft snores. He roused her as quietly as he could, helping them both to their feet, then lifted her into his arms. By the time he lay her on his bed, she was asleep again. He fitted his body behind her. He held her tighter, falling asleep.
