Control

by Laura Marie Altom

  Right. That was my cue to leave.

  “You’re leaving?” The asshole dogged me out into the hall. “You’re hurting my feelings, Mr. Stone. It’s not every day a guy like me meets a guy like you. How much are you paying our Miss Willow—if that’s even her name? Is this like an hourly thing? Or do girls like her charge by the—”

  I punched him.

  And then about eighteen cops cuffed the shit out of me. I didn’t care. Was beyond caring.

  Two uniforms were escorting me to my own damned elevator when from behind me, I heard, “Someone call the paramedics! We’ve got a situation!”

  34

  Julie

  “Nathan…” We’d spent Christmas morning sleeping late and the afternoon at Yvonne’s, with her husband and two grown kids and friends and the few other part-time employees who made up her extended family. She’d roasted a duck and we’d sung carols around a cheery fire. If only for a little while, it had been nice to forget the circumstances that had led me to be thousands of miles from everything and anyone I’d ever known—especially Liam. But in his case it wasn’t distance keeping us apart, but an emotional chasm I couldn’t bridge. Now that it was Christmas night, I sat cross-legged on our lumpy living room sofa, turning Nathan’s tiny, red-foil-wrapped box in my hands. “You weren’t supposed to get me anything. I thought we were saving for tuition?”

  “We are. But I saw this, and it made me think of you.” His hopeful smile broke my heart. He’d made no secret about wanting there to be more than friendship between us. Agreeing would make everything so simple. “Go on, open it.”

  I did, only to find an antique leather ring box. My stomach sank. Why was he doing this? He knew how screwed up I was about Liam. I lifted the lid to find the prettiest vintage ring. It was shaped like a skeleton key.

  “It’s not gold—only brass. The lady running the antique shop said it was from a sorority—Kappa something—but I liked the key, and how…” He angled sideways, taking my left hand. “This is going to sound cheesy, but I feel like you’re my own personal key. Like before meeting you, I didn’t have any goals or anything.” He raised my hand to his mouth, kissing the tips of my fingers. “You make me want to be better. I know I’ll never be as rich as Liam, but I’ll always be here for you, Julie. And that has to count for something, right?”

  Swallowing back tears, I nodded.

  He removed the trinket from the box, slipping it onto my ring finger. “Before you start in with your just friends speech, do me a favor and think about how great the two of us could be together.”

  I nodded, because I didn’t know what else to do. Nathan was my friend. I owed him so much. But I owed myself more. And I sure didn’t want to make him angry.

  “This will sound corny, but think of this ring as a symbol of us continuing our circle of friendship—maybe someday we’ll share more, but not today, or even a year from now. Just think about it, okay?”

  Again, I was nodding, but this felt all wrong. Nathan felt comfortable, like yoga pants and warm, thick socks after a long day. That wasn’t a bad thing, but it wasn’t what I’d felt with Liam. With him, there’d been that Frisbee soaring in my belly. With him, I felt renewed, like a little girl running laughing with a sparkler on the Fourth of July. There was only danger if I fell, but he’d been there to catch me. That is, until he hadn’t. He’d proven himself unreliable. And that made me crawl onto Nathan’s lap, tucking my head beneath his chin.

  He held me, and in that moment I felt good. My Frisbee lay abandoned on the floor. My sparkler remained unlit in its box. But that was okay. At the moment, safe trumped exciting. Safe reminded me I was a recovering dead girl, lucky to have found air. Wanting anything more would be just plain greedy.

  —

  Mid-morning the day after Christmas, I’d just finished exchanging a customer’s faulty music box when Yvonne cried out.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, finding her in the movie-themed ornaments room, holding her apron around her right index finger.

  “I’m good. Cut myself with box knife.”

  I gently took her hand. “Let me see.”

  The knife had cut to the bone, and the sight of so much blood left me fighting through a panic-induced fog. By the point in our relationship when Blaine had branded me, I’d become immune to pain, but nothing could have prepared me for so much blood. During dinner, he’d drugged me. I woke standing on a moving dolly. He’d duct-taped my legs and arms and abdomen, so that practically the only bare skin showing had been my breasts. He’d gagged me with one of his favorite ties, and I remember blood running over the metallic tape like macabre fringe. When the pain had grown so bad I blacked out, I’d welcomed the release and hoped it was the beginning of my death.

  “Do you think I need stitches?” Yvonne’s question pulled me back from my grave.

  “Y-yes.” I untied her work apron, easing it over her head so I could wrap it like a bandage around her wound. “Let’s get you to a doctor.”

  I closed the shop, then drove Yvonne’s Jeep Cherokee to an urgent care center. I dropped her at the front door, then circled for a parking space. Cold rain had started to fall, and by the time I joined my friend in the waiting area, I was soaked to the point that my hair hung in stringy waves. I wound it into a bun, jabbing the pen I’d stashed in my jeans pockets through the center to make my hair hold.

  “What’d they say?” I asked. Poor Yvonne’s complexion had paled and I assumed she was in a great deal of pain. “How long’s the wait?”

  “Not long,” she said with a forced smile. I hated whatever quality she found in me that made her feel as if I needed reassuring. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Hope so.” The statement was silly. Of course she’d survive. In America, people don’t usually die from cuts. But in the short time I’d known her, I’d grown to like her very much. I hated seeing her hurting. She didn’t deserve anything other than the smiles she brought to so many others.

  When a nurse called Yvonne back to the treatment area, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. The waiting room’s other occupants were clustered into pairs or trios. I was the only one alone, but since when had that bothered me?

  I closed my eyes and swallowed the knot in my throat.

  I turned in my chair, losing myself in the dreary view. I could play all the games I wanted with pretending I didn’t know the answer to that question, but the truth was that I’d found it intolerable to be alone from the moment my gaze had first locked with Liam’s. I’d lost count of how many days it was since I’d last seen him, yet if I closed my eyes, his emerald stare haunted me.

  Needing relief from his ghost, from the now ruined optimism tangled inside me like a knotted jump rope, I left my chair to rifle through magazines that had been tossed on an end table. I’d settled on a well-read copy of People when a newspaper headline caught my eye: Boy Billionaire Busted.

  Even Liam’s mug shot took my breath away.

  I snatched the paper from the pile, reading as if the story might self-destruct.

  There was a shooting at Liam’s penthouse, and though he wasn’t implicated, he was jailed for striking an officer. As if that weren’t enough, the reporter went on to say that Willow, who’d reportedly had some involvement with the deceased, had overdosed during police questioning and was now in intensive care.

  The room spun to such a degree that the paper slipped through my hands. The slap of it hitting the floor struck me as deafening. A ringing started in my ears, rising to a painful pitch.

  Liam in jail?

  Willow in a hospital?

  How had everything gone so wrong? Damn Nathan for always having our crap TV on ESPN; otherwise I might have known sooner.

  “Ma’am? Are you all right?” A fatherly sort seated across from me, bouncing a giggling baby on his knee, leaned forward, asking, “Need me to find you a nurse?”

  I shook my head.

  I somehow made it to the reception desk, then asked the nose-ringed clerk if I could speak
with Yvonne. The woman refused, and the door leading to the treatment area was locked. My only option was to hand her the Jeep’s keys and ask her to tell my friend I’d had to leave. There’d been an emergency.

  Outside, I walked through the rain to the tourist zone, found a cab, then had the driver take me to Willow’s hospital. I was to blame for everything. If I hadn’t gotten us mixed up with Liam, she’d be back in Rose Springs, getting her buzz from more innocuous means like vodka and Mountain Dew.

  In the hospital, my thrift-store Converse sneakers made squooshing noises down the endless halls. I must have walked miles beneath the fluorescent glare until finding my friend.

  And then, I wished I hadn’t.

  On my approach to her bed, my chest tightened. A monitor’s steady beep told me she was alive, but my eyes didn’t believe it. Her face looked too pale. The Willow I knew never left her apartment without makeup—at the very least, lipstick. This Willow’s hair was matted and in need of a wash. This Willow broke my heart with the knowledge that if she hadn’t followed me out here, she’d be safe. She wouldn’t have tubes sticking out of her mouth or a needle in her arm.

  It didn’t matter that she’d essentially talked me into agreeing to Liam’s deal. What mattered was that if I’d said no, she never would have been in that twisted penthouse, faced with the kinds of temptations she clearly couldn’t resist.

  I dragged a chair to her bedside, taking her hand, kissing it, stroking it, begging her to wake from her self-induced sleep. “I-I know we weren’t exactly getting along when I left, but that doesn’t mean you haven’t been on my mind. You were my first friend in Rose Springs, and I’ll never forget how many times I dreaded going to that crappy job, only to have you make me smile.” I laughed through my tears just thinking about her dozens of dirty hot dog jokes. I squeezed her hand, asking, “What has one hundred teeth and eats wieners?”

  I politely waited for her to answer.

  When she, of course, didn’t, I answered for her. “A zipper. Get it? What did the hot dog bun say to the hot dog?”

  Still silence, save for the monitor’s steady beep.

  “Don’t t-touch my…” I couldn’t make it to the punch line through my tears. It was a stupid joke anyway. Her best ones were on the fly, and usually involved bitchy customers.

  I sat there through nursing personnel changes and until the sun set beyond the bank of windows. I fretted about Yvonne and how to get in touch with Nathan, who was no doubt worrying where I was. I teased Willow about what a fortune she’d have to pay for a hotel with this kind of harbor view. Please, wake up, I begged through words and prayer, but she slept on, and eventually I slept, until dreaming I’d heard Liam ask, “Ella? Is that really you?”

  35

  Liam

  I was afraid to breathe for fear Ella would vanish.

  It was strange how close I felt to her on an almost spiritual level, yet in actuality, I hardly knew her at all. I hovered in the room’s cramped vestibule, wanting to sprint to her, yet instinctively knowing that if I so much as looked at her the wrong way, she’d bolt.

  If I were a decent human being, I’d be concerned about Willow, but I wasn’t. All she’d ever brought me was pain. The same could be said for Ella, but it was a different sort of pain. The kind of messed-up pleasurable variety I used to have when I was a kid, worrying a loose tooth, flicking it back and forth with my tongue. It had hurt, but I couldn’t stop. Made no sense, but made perfect sense, when all I’d wanted was for that tooth to be out. Now, the process had been reversed, since I so desperately wanted Ella to be in.

  Judging by her uncomfortable pose, and the way she’d failed to react to me entering the room, I guessed she was asleep. I approached her slowly, almost as if I were stalking prey—sick, but true, for that’s what she’d become. I wouldn’t deny being obsessed, but all I’d ever wanted for her was good.

  I sat on the opposite side of Willow’s bed, scarcely able to believe that after all this time, Ella and I were together again. Only the rational side of me pointed out that sharing the same oxygen hardly constituted being together. If Garrett found out I was here so soon after being sprung, he’d be livid, but what were the cops or tabloids gonna do that they hadn’t already done?

  As pissed as I was at Willow for pulling her multitude of stunts, I’d never wished for this to happen and felt responsible. During my brief incarceration, I’d had plenty of time to think. To turn events over in my mind like a Rubik’s cube, searching for a solution that so far hadn’t come. Sure, I could have left Ella in Rose Springs, but then what? She’d still have been constantly on my mind. I for sure should have left Willow there, but if I had, Ella might have refused to come. My biggest question—or, maybe, regret—was my Australia trip. I’d needed time for a reality check regarding my feelings toward Ella, but in the end, while I’d learned what I felt for her went deeper than my usual infatuation with a woman, I’d also possibly ruined any and all future chances of us being together.

  The dim light cast from Willow’s life support machines showed both women to be pale. The patient, in a sickly way. Ella also looked unhealthy, but more from what I could only guess by the dark circles under her eyes to be exhaustion. I wanted to reach out to her, if only to smooth my hand across the top of her head. Ironically, the distance across Willow’s bed felt as insurmountable as if I were back down under.

  The door opened, and the hall’s glare made me wince. A nurse turned on the overhead lights. “Sorry,” she said upon seeing Willow wasn’t alone. “I didn’t know our patient had guests.”

  Ella was slow to wake. She blinked, yawned, looked to Willow, then the nurse, then did a double take when her gaze finally landed on me.

  My pulse took off on a suicide mission. Would she even speak to me? Give me the chance to explain why I’d gone?

  But then she owed me explanations, too. Yet considering the amount of times her number had shown up on my caller ID, mine were the only ones that mattered. I’d been wrong—on so many levels. Starting with ever insulting her with my standard offer of employment. She deserved better. I’d just been so damned insecure where she was concerned. When I was around her, my mind felt trapped in a Bermuda Triangle where none of my thought processes worked. She made my whole world go haywire—as recently proven by the fact that I’d spent the night in jail for punching a cop.

  “Hey…” I somehow managed.

  She didn’t say anything. Just stared at me with those enormous blueberry-colored eyes. How many times had I imagined this moment, playing it on repeat in my mind? Would I speak first or would she? Would she bolt, or at least let me take her for coffee? The fact that I’d been right about the likelihood of Willow playing a part in our reunion came as a hollow victory. Carol told me Willow’s doctors said that odds were, she’d make a full recovery, but then with coma patients, who really knew? God forbid Willow died. Then what? Where did that leave me in regard to Ella? What kind of an ass was I that my own selfish needs came first?

  “Your vital signs are good,” the nurse said to Willow. “Nice and stable. Are you hungry? You’re probably sick of getting fed steak through a tube.”

  Coma humor? Not funny.

  After pillow plumping, catheter emptying and changing out an IV bag, she left Ella and me on our own. I’d had multibillion-dollar negotiations that felt less tense.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, taking the high road in what felt more like a confession than conversation. “I shouldn’t have left and I was wrong.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Really, Liam? We’re not talking about this here.”

  “Then where? Name it. Literally, anywhere on the planet you want to go. But for my own sanity, I need to know what happened.”

  “You don’t deserve to know.”

  Her words cut, and I didn’t know how to treat my gaping wound.

  “In fact, since you’re so good at it, why don’t you just do it again and leave.”

  “The fact that you’re pissed at least tells
me you care.”

  “Dream on…” She took a tube of ointment from Willow’s nightstand, applying a thin layer to her friend’s lips. In that motion, I caught the flash of a ring on the all-important finger on her left hand. What the hell?

  “Ell…”

  “Don’t call me that. Ella’s dead. Congratulations—you should take great pride in knowing you put the final nail in her coffin.”

  “Quit the drama. I wasn’t gone that long. I wanted to call, but—”

  “Shh!” She pointed to the hall. “I told you, we’re not doing this here.”

  She stormed out the door, turning the lights off behind her.

  I followed.

  I’d follow wherever she went, a fact she must have known on some level. She led me to a lounge area that unfortunately had a family camped in a corner. Two rowdy kids played tag. She sighed, then kept on walking. Midway down a quiet hall, she opened a door labeled Linen Room, found it empty, and gestured me inside. The space couldn’t have been much larger than ten by twelve. Stainless-steel linen racks lined the walls and the far corner housed a utility sink and mop bucket. The smell was a blend of laundry detergent and disinfectant—not all bad, but I could think of a dozen other places I’d rather have this talk. Regardless, I stood quietly, waiting for Ella to make the first move. I owed her that much.

  Instead of speaking, she leaned forward against one of the rolling carts, resting her forearms against a stack of towels. She cradled her forehead in her hands. Again, I was hit by that all-too-familiar sensation of wanting to hold her, but I didn’t dare. But I knew I had to do something. Anything. I had to start a dialogue that kept her not just in this room, but in my life.

  “I am sorry,” I finally said. “For all of it. I botched it all—start to finish.”

  “Stop…”

  “What do you want me to say? What would make you happy?”

  She spun on her heels to face me. “Happy? For starters, I wish my friend wasn’t in a coma. Even better—more than anything, I wish I’d never even met you.”