by TM Frazier
Finn’s eyes were as dark as I’d ever seen them. His fingers flexed and his chest heaved as he glared hatred down at Sterling who was on the ground, wiping blood from the corner of his lip.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” Sterling said with laughter that had an edge to it.
“Is HE why you won’t fuck me?” Sterling asked me. Finn’s eyes followed to where I was standing in the doorway then back to Sterling who was attempting to stand.
“Glad I found out now before things went too far,” he snarled, stepping up to Finn. “The last thing I want is the famed Finn Hollis’s sloppy seconds…again.”
Finn’s fists clenched together. I stepped up to Finn, placing my hand on his. He turned to me and looked down to where my hand was on his arm. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me.”
Finn gave me a sharp nod, hopped down from the deck and grabbed Sterling by the shirt with one hand and began to pummel him with his closed fist. He roared like an animal, a sound I could feel deep within my gut. Blood sprayed from Sterling’s nose.
Bone cracked.
Finn lifted him up by his shirt into the air then shoved him back into the ground.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Finn seethed.
“She’s all yours,” Sterling said, stumbling and coughing, blood gushing from his nose and lip. “Little slut has too many of those goddamned ugly freckles anyway.”
Finn took a single step to Sterling and punched him across the jaw. Sterling fell onto his back on the ground with a groan and a gurgle.
“If you ever try and lay a hand on her again… If you ever talk to her again… You won’t come out breathing next time. I’ll tether you to a tree in the swamp where no one will be able to hear you scream.”
“You going to kill me the same way you killed Jackie?” Sterling rasped. “Did he tell you about her Sawyer? Did he tell you how he killed his fiancée?” Sterling snarled as he taunted Finn who looked like his eyes were bulging out of his head. His neck was corded. Sterling chuckled “At least I got a taste first.”
Finn sent one last punch to Sterling’s face and his entire body stilled. No more gurgling. No more groaning.
Finn stood, grabbed his phone from his back pocket and held it to his ear. I didn’t understand the words he was saying to the person on the other end. I only heard something that sounded like waves in the ocean loud in my ears. A wet kind of static.
I didn’t realize I’d been crouching down behind the side of the house until Finn approached, putting his phone away.
“Did…did you kill him?” I asked, my voice shaking. I stood and took a few steps back from Finn whose expression switched from murderous to confused.
Finn reached out his hand to me and I zoned in on the blood across his knuckles. When he realized what I was looking at he pulled it back but it was too late.
I was already running.
I ran from Finn. I ran from Sterling. I ran from the past.
I was in a full sprint by the time the full weight of a memory crashed into me like a wave, pulling me under and holding me deep beneath the surface.
Drowning me.
“Does it hurt when he hits you, Mommy? It sounds like it does.”
“No. It doesn’t hurt. I go to my safe place. He can’t hurt me there. No one can.”
“What’s it like in your safe place?”
“It’s warm and sunny. There are birds and alligators and all sorts of animals there.”
“What is your safe place called, Mommy?”
“It’s called Outskirts, but that’s our secret. You can’t tell a soul, not even your father.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
“Good.”
“Hey, Mommy?”
“Yes?”
“Outskirts is a silly name.”
“Yes, it is, darling. Yes, it is.”
“Caroline!” Father called from downstairs.
Mother gave me a kiss on my forehead.
“Don’t go,” I begged.
“Don’t worry. It will be over soon. I told you. I’ll just go to my happy place.”
“Because he can’t hurt you there? In Outskirts?”
“Exactly,” Mother said, getting off my bed. “Your father can never hurt me when I’m in Outskirts.”
The storm rolled in. The thunder boomed. I held the blanket over my head, but no matter how loud the thunder boomed it couldn’t drown out the sound of shattering glass. Whimpers. Angry demands.
The crack of leather against skin.
Defeated cries, that I’d later realize, were my own.
“Sawyer! Sawyer! Say!” My body shook and I blinked rapidly to find a man lying on top of me, his chest heaving. His fingers digging into my skin. I glanced around at the heavily wooded area surrounding me then back to the man.
In my mind, I saw Sterling. My father.
I panicked.
I fought.
I screamed.
“Get off of me!” I kicked my legs and flailed my arms. “I won’t let you hurt me anymore. I won’t let anyone hurt me!”
My fists were caught in the air, bound together in one big strong hand.
“Sawyer, it’s me! It’s Finn. I’m not going to hurt you.” His voice trailed off. “I would never hurt you.”
I slowly opened my eyes and when they finally focused, Finn’s face appeared above me, but the panic was still there, right under the surface like a boiling pot with a flimsy lid.
“Finn,” I stated simply. “Let me up.”
Finn watched me curiously as he slid off me. “He’s gone.” He leaned in to run his hand down my face, but I tore my head away before he could touch me.
When he tried to help me up I flinched. “I can do it,” I spat. Finn took a step back and allowed me room to get to my feet.
I stumbled and lost my footing. Finn caught me and again I struggled to free myself from his grip, but this time instead of stepping back he only held me tighter, spinning me around and searching my eyes.
“I’m not him,” Finn said, calmly and assertively.
“I know you’re not Sterling,” I said, wriggling from his grasp. He dug his fingers into my arms.
“No. Not Sterling. You know who I’m talking about,” Finn said. “I’m not him.”
I closed my eyes. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over.” I wanted to disappear. From Finn, from the memories. I needed to be alone. To think.
“I don’t know where you went back there, but I know you weren’t here.” He pulled me in tighter. “I’m not him,” he growled, louder this time like he was trying to push the words into my soul.
“Just let me go!” I begged. “Please!” I didn’t want to face it.
Any of it.
“Sawyer, say it. Tell me. Look at me and say it!” Finn shouted.
Wanting to get whatever it was he was trying to do over with, I opened my eyes, glared into Finn with everything I had and screamed, “You’re not hiiiiim!”
After a few seconds of Finn and I staring at one another, I felt the words sink in. “You’re not him,” I whispered, just as I felt the fight inside me turn from bright to dim to dead.
I collapsed forward into Finn’s arms and made no attempt to get away this time. I felt exhausted. Drained.
Finn spoke into my hair. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” I answered, my teeth chattering.
Finn eased back so he could look at me, keeping his hands lightly on my arms. “Where did you go?”
I sucked in a breath. “Home. I went home,” I answered, feeling confused and shaken up. My heart still racing and my head pounding.
Finn raised a hand to smooth some hair from my face but stopped again when he noticed his knuckles. His eyes widened and he dropped his hand.
“It’s okay, now,” I assured him. I reached out and grabbed his hand. I blew air over his wounded knuckles.
“I’m sorry I scared you,” Finn said softly.
“Me too.”
Finn bent at the waist and lifted me off the ground with one arm behind my knees and the other supporting my neck. He held me against his chest and carried me out of the woods and back to the clearing.
“When I kicked opened your door,” Finn started, “You were laughing. Why?”
“Because, I knew you’d come,” I said, hearing and feeling Finn’s heartbeat quicken against my temple. “I knew you’d save me.”
“You did?” Finn asked, his voice broken.
I nodded and closed my eyes. “I did. He can’t hurt me here. I’m in my safe place.”
“Your safe place?” he questioned as we approached my house.
“Outskirts. He can’t hurt me when I’m in Outskirts.” I sighed deeply as I echoed my mother’s words from the past. “No one can.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Finn
She knew I’d come.
“My mother told me when I was younger that no one could hurt her while she was in Outskirts. That’s what I was remembering. When I zoned out.”
“Did you ask Critter about her?” I asked.
“Yes, I asked him about her. Described her. He said he didn’t know her.”
“Maybe he was getting his wires crossed. No one has been in this town in the last fifty years that Critter didn’t know in one way or another. Maybe there’s a record of her somewhere in the library. That’s where they used to store all the City Hall stuff before City Hall moved to the mayor’s back guest room-slash-home office. I’ll ask around for you.”
“You will?” Sawyer asked, perking up.
“Yes. But are you sure you’re okay?” I asked Sawyer. “You’re surprisingly calm after what just happened. It’s kind of freaking me out.”
Sawyer chuckled and rested her head on my shoulder. “I’m sure. I promise.” We were on my porch, sitting on the old porch swing listening to the bugs chatter in the otherwise silent night.
“I hate that you’ve been so used to being beaten that Sterling trying to assault you hasn’t affected you the way it should.” I felt a new pulse of anger surge through me.
“I hate that too. But I can’t change the past. I can only change my future. And I told you, Sterling didn’t hurt me.” Sawyer met my eyes. “Because of you.”
I wish I’d had the kind of faith in me that Sawyer had just shown. I had faith in her too.
It was about time I showed her just how much.
My hands shook when I pulled the picture from my wallet and handed it to her.
“This is Jackie, right?” Sawyer sat up and examined the picture.
I nodded.
“She’s beautiful.”
“She was,” I agreed.
“Tell me about her,” Sawyer said without a trace of pity in her eyes. I lifted her legs so they were draped across my lap.
I thought for a moment. “Well, when I first met her we were both all elbows and knees. Just a couple of lanky kids. She had more energy than a power plant. Always buzzing around and getting into something. We were just friends at first. We had a lot of fun together.” I chuckled at the memories. “Got in a lot of trouble together too. Especially with Josh and Miller.”
Sawyer laughed with me, and the sound was like the best part of a song, the kind you always wanted to sing along to even if you didn’t know any of the other words.
“Jackie was one of those people that walked into a room and every single head turned, and not just because she was beautiful, which she was, but because she had this thing about her that made people want to be around her. Made ME want to be around her.”
“People orbited her,” Sawyer chimed in.
“Exactly, orbited her. I like that,” I agreed, pulling Sawyer closer.
“When we hit high school, we became more than friends. She was never a good sleeper so she used to sneak into my bedroom window at night. Said she always slept better with me, but I don’t think that was true because when I’d wake up in the middle of the night she was always either staring at the ceiling or playing on her phone or pacing the room.” I sighed and my throat started to tighten.
“I should’ve seen the signs,” I continued. “We’d just graduated. Had plans to move in together. We partied a lot, but we were teenagers just doing teenage shit. Then our Friday night partying turned into every single night partying. When I suggested we slow down, she left me.” I shook my head as if I still couldn’t believe it and sometimes I couldn’t. “Four fucking years together and she left me because I didn’t want to party like an 80’s hair-band on a Tuesday night anymore.” I looked down to where my hands were resting high on Sawyer’s thighs.
She sat up and wrapped her arms around my waist, pressing her cheek to my bare chest.
“Then what happened?” she asked, the moonlight highlighted the freckles on her cheeks. Not being able to help myself, I leaned over and brushed my lips across them before remembering she’d asked me a question.
“Then Sterling happened,” I growled. “I guess he didn’t have a problem with her partying because suddenly she went from drinking every day to being dependent on oxys. “
Sawyer looked at me with a confused expression on her face.
“Painkillers,” I clarified. “She even came around asking me if I could get them for her. Asked Miller too.”
“What did you do?”
“I suggested she go to rehab,” I said, remembering how pissed off Jackie was when I’d brought it up the first time. And second. And third. And every time after that.
“Did she go?” Sawyer asked, sounding as hopeful as I did in the beginning.
I sighed and dropped my head. “No. No, she didn’t. So, I did the next best thing.” I smiled at the memory.
“Which was what?”
“I locked her in my house for a week,” I said, proudly.
“You didn’t,” Sawyer gasped.
“I did. I’d do it all over again, too because after that she was clean. At least for a while. We got back together. Moved in together, and I proposed. She said yes.” My throat started to close up and I coughed into my fist.
“You don’t have to keep going,” Sawyer said, sensing my unease.
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s just that I haven’t talked about her in a long time.”
I took a deep breath. “She bought all these bridal magazines. She was happy to be wedding planning. We both were. I guess in all of the excitement I missed the signs. She wasn’t sleeping again. Up all hours of the night, and when she did sleep she’d sleep all day. I thought she was just worn out from being up all night. Or that she had a lot on her mind with the wedding.”
I steeled myself for what I was about to say next. Sawyer sensed my unease and sat up, wrapping her arms and legs around me.
“Then one night I woke up and she was gone. Something just didn’t feel right. I called Josh and Miller and we went out looking for her. I was the one who found her.” I took a deep steadying breath that shook on the way in. “At the water park. At the top of the big slide.”
“She…fell?” Sawyer asked hesitantly, her legs tightening around my waist.
“She left a note at the top of the slide.” My voice a raspy staccato. I inhaled Sawyer’s sweet scent, needing to breathe her in, feel more of her so I could continue. “She waited until I got there, like she wanted me to see her do it. She wanted me to see her… jump.”
Sawyer
Finn held me tighter.
“What did you do?” I asked, my own voice a breathy whisper. My heart broke for him. I felt the anguish in his every word as if the story he was telling was my own. And in some ways, it might as well have been.
In others, it was in NO WAY the same. I didn’t witness Mother end her life the way he’d watched Jackie end hers. I couldn’t begin to imagine.
More and more I was understanding the reasoning for the way Finn reacted to things. To the way he treated me.
I was understanding Finn.
He stroked the back of my hair. “She jumped off the b
ack of the slide, the side where the swamp runs underneath. I ran and dove into the water where she landed, but I couldn’t find her. Miller and Josh too. We spent hours after it went dark combing every inch of the water long after the search teams and police had left. When they came to show me the suicide note they’d found at the top of the slide, at first I couldn’t believe it. Even though, looking back on her behavior, I should’ve believed it. The signs were there. They were there long before that day. Years before.”
“Even after all that I still spent weeks on my boat searching for her. I was crazed with this idea that she could somehow be alive in the swamp, but just lost.” He shook his head against me, wiping the wetness of his tears against my skin. “Jackie was born and raised here. She knew those waters better than most. As kids, we spent every hour we weren’t in school in that swamp. But I kept searching anyway. That’s how I got this.” Finn grabbed my wrist and gently guided my fingers to trace the raised white scar above his eye that ran from his eyebrow into his hairline. “Ran my boat so fast without using a spotlight that I didn’t even see the low hanging branch. I was lucky it wasn’t more.”
Every wall I’d ever built to keep him out came crumbling down and as he spoke a bridge was built with direct access to everything I ever had to offer.
“Why did Sterling try and make it seem like her death was your fault?” I asked.
“He blames me for convincing her to get sober and for her leaving him to come back to me,” Finn explained. “He thinks if I let her do what she wanted and stopped making her feel guilty about her extreme upswings and downswings then she wouldn’t have wanted to kill herself.”
“That’s why you came out here,” I said, it wasn’t a question.
“That’s why I came out here,” Finn agreed. “Everything reminded me of her. Every person. I just wanted to be alone, so I came out here,” he said, searching my eyes and cupping my face with his hand. “And then you came around…”
“And blasted a hole right through your plans to be the grumpy hermit who lived in the swamp,” I finished for him.
