by W Winters
Bethany
The very idea of leaving three hundred thousand dollars in the back of a car makes me want to throw up. People kill for this kind of money.
I can hardly even believe I actually have that amount. I didn’t count it and I don’t intend to. I don’t want to touch it. All I did was unzip the bag once and then close my eyes again, pretending like I didn’t see it.
Three hundred thousand dollars. I don’t know what Laura did to get this money, but maybe I can give it right back to her. I don’t think Jase gives a shit about the debt. A very large part of me believes it’s more than that.
I won’t know until I do this. Although sickness churns inside of me at the possibilities, I focus on the one thing I want to happen. I hand it to him, telling him honestly where it came from. He hands it back, telling me it’s not my money and he doesn’t want it.
“That’s what will happen,” I say for the dozenth time under my breath to no one. Maybe the dozenth is the trick, because I’m starting to believe it.
He wasn’t home when I got back last night and he wasn’t home when I woke up after only sleeping a handful of hours. He didn’t answer my texts. He’s nowhere to be found. The money was in the car while I paced inside waiting and waiting. I finally had to come out and make sure it was still there. I ended up getting in, just to kill time rather than pacing and pacing. I drove past the graveyard a few times, but I never got out of the car.
Pulling out the keys from the ignition, I stare up at the large estate, going over the dialogue in my head one more time.
The debt is paid. The time we had together was time I spent with you and nothing more and nothing less. That’s what I’m going to say to him. I can do it.
I’m burning up in the car, the sweat along my skin won’t quit. I know part of it is from the duffle bag in the back. I look over my shoulder once again, just like I have the entire drive down here last night and even an hour ago to make sure it didn’t magically disappear.
Part of this anxiousness though is because I don’t know what Jase will say or what he’ll do with me once the money’s handed over.
It’s not just a debt. I know that. It can’t be just a debt to him.
Opening the car door lets the cool air hit me and I relish in it. Calming down and shaking out my hands.
This world Jenny brought me into… I’m not fighting it anymore. I’m walking into it, ready for what it will bring me. It’s another step forward. I can feel it. Just like telling Laura everything. Maybe it’s a small step, but it’s one I’m taking.
My heels click on the paved path to his door. The door that I open on my own.
He could take that away, but why would he? The doubts swirl and mix with the fear that what we have is only about the debt. Maybe he likes holding it over my head; maybe he thinks he won’t have the upper hand if I pay it off.
That thought actually eases the tension in me. He’s never going to have the upper hand when it comes to me. He should know that by now.
Calm, confident and collected I walk into the foyer and then past the hall, listening to my heels click in the empty space. The clicks, the thumps, they all only add to the urgency to tell him. To get it off my chest and to get that cash out of the back of my car.
“Jase,” I call out his name, seeing the bedroom door open, but he doesn’t answer.
A chill follows me, bombarding me even as I stand in the threshold of the dark bedroom and see only the light from the bathroom.
There are moments in time when you know instinctively everything is wrong. You know you’re going to see something that you don’t want to see. It’s like there’s a piece of our soul that’s been here before. A piece that’s preparing you for what’s to come. Warning you even. And maybe if I was smarter, I’d take the warning and I wouldn’t step foot into his bedroom.
I’m not smart enough though.
With the sound of running water getting louder as I approach, I creep quietly to his master bath.
The water’s so loud I’m sure he couldn’t hear me. That’s what I tell myself.
Thump, my heart doesn’t want to be here. Thump, it wants me to stop. I test the doorknob, and it’s not locked. Something inside of me screams not to take this step. Not to go forward. It’s the wrong time, I’m not ready for it. I can feel it trying to pull me away.
But I’m already turning the knob and with a creak, I push the door open.
I catch sight of his clothes on the floor first; he’s still hidden from view from where I’m standing. The mix of bright and dark red splotches and smears wraps a vise around my lungs.
I can’t breathe, but I still move forward.
Blood. There’s blood on his shirt. That’s blood, isn’t it? Fear wriggles its way deeper inside of me, like a parasite taking over.
“Jase,” I barely speak his name while taking a small step forward. My gaze moves from the blood on his clothes piled on the tile floor, to his naked body seated on the edge of the tub. He’s covered with the way he’s sitting, and his head’s lowered, hanging heavy in front of him. I’m not sure he heard me the way he’s sitting there. Like he’s stunned, like his mind is elsewhere, lost in another place or another time.
Despair is crippling and I swallow hard. My trembling fingers reach out to pick up his shirt, wanting to believe it’s not blood. There’s not a mark on his skin, no cuts or bruises that are fresh. The cut I gave him is scabbed over.
The warmth of the air flows around me as I step closer and lift the shirt off the floor. It can’t be blood, Jase isn’t injured. Jase is fine.
But it looks like it. I don’t understand. There’s so much blood, in different patterns. Smeared and stained into the undershirt. I still don’t want to believe it. I wish it would be anything else. My head spins as I grip the shirt tighter, staring at it as if it’ll change, it’ll go back to being clean if only I look at it the right way. But it’s blood. There’s so much blood, my hands are wet with it.
“Bethany.” Jase’s voice catches me off guard and I scream, pulling the shirt into my chest out of instinct before shoving it away when I realize I’ve pressed the bloody clothes to my own.
I could throw up with the revolting disgust and fear that sink into my bones. The blood is on me.
“Whose blood is that?” The question tumbles from me as I take a step backward and Jase stands up tall. My hands grip the doorway and my fingers leave a trail of blood.
There’s a look in his eyes I will never forget when my gaze finally reaches his.
A darkness I haven’t seen before and the fear that accompanies it is all-consuming.
In sharp spikes, the chills take over and I take another step back. Out of the bathroom and away from him.
That piece of my soul that was warning me before… it wasn’t about the blood, it was about Jase. I know it to be true when he takes another step forward, so much larger than mine with his hands raised and he tells me to calm down.
If I could speak, I’d tell him he’s crazy to think I should calm down. If I could speak, I’d scream at him, demanding he tell me what he’s done.
But I can’t. Every syllable catches in the back of my throat in a way that feels like I’m choking.
“Let me get a shower and we can talk,” Jase states calmly, the savage look in his eyes just barely dimming.
My head shakes, all on its lonesome and I turn and run. As fast as I can, I run away from him.
“Fuck,” I hear him mutter as I bolt to the door, sweeping myself around it and crashing into the hall wall. I don’t stop running, even though I don’t hear him behind me.
Thump, thump, thump, thump. My heart pounds faster than my heels, ushering me away.
As I reach the door, I hear him call out. With my hand on the scanner, I turn around to see him with a pair of sweats, walking toward me, not running.
Maybe he thought that would keep me from leaving. Maybe he thought I wouldn’t be threatened or I wouldn’t be scared.
But he was w
rong.
So fucking wrong. The second I swing the door open, I hear him scream my name and start running. I slam the door closed knowing he’ll have to use the scanner too. It’s another second I have ahead of him. Only seconds.
Run!
I scramble to my car and to find my keys. With terror raging through me at Jase getting his hands on me and forcing me back inside, at not knowing what he’ll do to me or what he’s capable of, I shove the gear into drive and reverse out of the driveway. I’m senselessly speeding away with the sight of him swinging the door open the moment my car hits the gate. Crashing it open and denting the hood of my car.
Even as I scream, I keep my foot on the gas, not caring about the damage, just needing to leave as quickly as possible.
I need to run and never stop.
Run far away and not look back.
The car jostles as I go over a curb and then another, my tires screaming as I race out of the long drive and backroads to get to the busy streets.
My gaze spends too long in the rearview, waiting for his car to show. It doesn’t, but that doesn’t keep me from tearing down the road.
My grip is hot, my pulse fast. I need to get the fuck out of here.
It’s only once I’ve gotten onto the main road and I’m minutes away from my home that I let myself think of anything other than the need to go faster.
How could I love him? How could I want to love him?
Thoughts run wild in my mind, fighting with each other to be heard. There’s a pounding in my temple and I don’t even realize when I’ve run the red light until a car beeps their horn at me.
Fuck! I have to veer to the right to miss hitting the SUV. A wave of heat flows over my skin, far too hot as my tires squeal and I barely keep my car on the road.
That doesn’t stop me. I keep going. I don’t stop. I can’t stop. I need to go faster. I need to get away.
With my chest heaving, I catch sight of the blood. Oh my God, the blood.
I need to get it off. I need to get this off. Bile climbs up my throat and I have to swallow it as I pull into my driveway. It’s a reckless turn but I don’t care. I need to get inside and get this off.
Get this blood off of me. Get Jase Cross off of me.
It’s all I can think about as I slam the door shut to my car and run to the porch. The gust of cold air brings with it the white mist of an incoming storm tonight.
My hands are still shaking as I search for my key and that’s what I’m staring at when I hear Officer Walsh’s voice. “Bethany?”
The surprise and shock make me scream and drop my keys. They bang as they hit the ground and I stay perfectly still.
“Fuck.” The word is spoken faintly as I stare back at him on the other end of my porch as he gets up from the chair. Like he was waiting for me.
I know my expression is one of fear and guilt, a doe-eyed woman caught in the act of something awful and I can’t change it as our gazes lock.
“Is that blood?” he asks, standing straighter, but with his hand behind him as my feet turn to stone and refuse to move.
“No,” I lie and his head tilts as his hand pushes his coat back and his fingers rest on his gun.
“I didn’t do anything,” I spill the words out, pleading with him to understand. My pulse rages and I can barely stand up straight. Fuck, no. How did this happen?
“Tell me everything. I can help you,” he urges, but it doesn’t sound sincere.
“You have to believe me. It’s not me. I didn’t do anything.”
“Tell me whose blood that is.”
“I don’t know,” I practically shriek.
“It is blood then?” he questions. Immediately, I feel caught. I feel trapped. The bite of the air creeps in, cracking the heat that’s consumed me.
My lips part, but instead of giving him words, all I can do is swallow as my vision becomes dizzy.
“Tell me everything, Bethany; what happened?” His question comes out harder this time and he takes a step forward. I instinctively take a step back and my back hits the wall of the house.
With a trembling voice I whisper, begging him to let me go. “I can’t,” I tell him. “I don’t know.”
My inhale is ragged as he takes another step closer and I have nowhere to go.
“I wish I didn’t have to do this.” Pulling out the cuffs from behind his back, he tells me, “Bethany Fawn, you’re under arrest.”
A Single Touch
A Single Touch
Book 3 of Irresistible Attraction
Prologue
“Past is a nice place to visit, but certainly not a good place to stay.”
- Anonymous
Bethany
My calculus grades are slipping. The large red D scribbled in Miss Talbot’s handwriting stares back at me. One look at it shoves the knot in the back of my throat even deeper down my windpipe. My bookbag falls to the floor in the nursing home with a dull thud as I whisper the word, “fuck.” With my hand rubbing under my tired eyes, I let out a heavy sigh and stare at the ceiling in the hallway.
There’s no way I’m going to be able to stay in college if I don’t pass. There’s no coming back from this. My grades didn’t slip like this last year when Jenny was here with me every day at four o’clock on the dot. I only have one more year to go, but this class is a core requirement. I’ll never need to know how the hell derivatives work in order to be a nurse, but I can’t fail this class. I can’t fucking fail.
“Bethany?” The soft voice belongs to Nurse Judy. She told me exactly how she got her degree and that I could do it just like she did. She’s the reason I changed my major sophomore year to pursue a nursing degree. Just as she creeps into the long hall, I shove the test into a notebook while stuffing it into my worn leather backpack, listening to the sound of the zipper rather than what she’s saying.
I’ll fail calculus, lose the scholarship that’s paid for more than half of my college education, and be left with even more debt and no degree to show for it. Perfect. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Other than work a nine-to-five at whatever minimum wage job I can get. If they’ll even hire me.
“Did you hear me?” Nurse Judy coaxes me out of my downward spiral and it’s then that I see the worried look in her dark brown eyes. “Your mother had a relapse.”
“A relapse?” The confusion leaves a deep crease on my forehead.
“We don’t know what caused it, but she’s with us, Bethany. Mentally aware.”
“Aware?” All the air leaves me with the single word.
“She woke up, not knowing what happened during the last three or so years. But she knows time has passed. She knows you and your sister have been on your own and that she has Alzheimer’s.”
“I don’t understand how that’s possible.” Fear is something I never expected to feel in this moment. I’ve had so many dreams come to me in the middle of the night where my mother would be lucid. Where she’d tell me it was okay, that she was back now. Back for good and that she remembers everything. They were only dreams though. It’s only ever a dream.
I can barely swallow as I stare past Nurse Judy and walk forward without conscious awareness. “Is she okay?” It’s the only thing I can ask. I can’t imagine what it’s like to wake up one day to have lost years of time. To wake up and find your children look different and everything’s changed.
The oddest thing in this moment is that I hope she still loves me. I just want her to love me still.
Even if I’m failing. Even if I’m no longer her little girl. It’s been years since she’s been lucid and this is what I want most of all.
“She’ll be better when she sees you,” is the answer Nurse Judy gives me. With each step, I know I’ll always remember this moment. It’s like something flipped a switch in my head and a voice gives me reassurance. This moment will never leave you. This moment will define you.
“Are they here?” my mother’s voice calls out. Echoed in her voice, I can hear the strain of past tears.
“Did they get your messages?”
My answer drowns out Nurse Judy’s as I round the corner to the living room in the home, my steps picking up pace just as my throat tightens. “Mom,” I croak.
She’s frail and thin, as she was yesterday and the day before. Somehow I thought when she came into view, she’d look like she did the last time I held her hand and she asked me again who my sister was.
She had her makeup done perfectly although she didn’t need it. Mom used to say she’d never grow old. Even joked about it that day as she brushed her blush up to her temples. That was the day we took her to the hospital. She’d forgotten who my sister was and it took me a long time to realize she’d forgotten who I was too. She thought I was her best friend from high school, the girl she named me after. A girl who had long since died.
My mother squeezes me harder today than she did back then and the tickle in the back of my throat grows impatient as I hold my breath and squeeze her back just as tight.
I don’t cry until her body wracks with sobs against mine. “Sorry,” she tells me. “I’m so sorry,” is all she can say over and over.
As if she chose this. As if she wanted to forget the life she had and let the memories fade and die. That’s what forgetting is, it’s the death of the life you had. It doesn’t just kill you though. It kills everyone else as well.
I only pull away from her for a moment, just to tell her there’s nothing to be sorry for, but the words are lost when she looks into my eyes. Her own are gray and clouded with a gaze of sorrow.
“Mom?”
Her expression changes in an instant. Confusion clouds her face, where just minutes ago there was clarity.
My mother is in there, or she was, but the moment is gone.
“Who are you?”
“Mom, come back,” I beg her, feeling my chest hollow and then fill with agony. “Where’d you go?” I ask her, not giving into the fear this time, only the loss. “Mom!” Hope is undeniable. “I’m here, Mom; I’m here!”
