by S. Massery
I stay away from the state park.
Fog lingers there, obscuring most of the far end and houses beyond.
My breathing becomes shallow, and I subconsciously speed up.
Still, it isn’t enough to deviate from my route.
Goosebumps prick the backs of my arms.
It’s just the fog. I’m imagining the worst—boogeymen jumping out and carting me away, a hungry bear, a serial killer.
The ache in my legs is the first sign that I’ve pushed myself too far—and I’m only at the halfway point. The trail loops around and connects back to where I had passed five minutes ago, and I take a deep breath.
But I don’t slow my pace.
I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s a force urging me along.
I pass the split to go to the state park. The fog presses in closer here. I’m suddenly swallowed by the cool mist.
It takes me a moment to realize my footsteps have doubled.
I glance over my shoulder, but the fog obscures the trail.
It’s your imagination.
I run faster, sticking to the far edge of the trail. If someone is behind me, they’re doing a great job of matching my stride. My lungs sear, and the stupid fog just won’t end.
I take another peek over my shoulder, and that’s my downfall.
My toe snags on a root, and suddenly my feet are out from under me. I slam into the ground, barely avoiding knocking my teeth out.
Dead silence surrounds me, and I slowly rise to my feet. My knees burn, my jaw aches. I turn in a small circle.
I feel watched.
“Who’s there?” I call out.
Footsteps pound down the path, but they’re coming from the wrong direction. I barely have time to step out of the way when a jogger appears. Their shoulder clips mine, and I wheel around.
My heart hammers out of control.
Laughter floats toward me.
Fuck this. I need to get out of here.
I sprint out of there like my heels are on fire and I don’t stop until I’m in my yard. I trip up the walkway and burst into the house, gripping the doorframe.
My chest has a thousand pounds on it.
“Riley?” Dad says, rounding the corner with a mug of coffee in his hands.
I cling to the door, which is probably the only thing keeping me upright.
He gently pries me loose and shuts the door, then guides me to the kitchen.
“Sit,” he orders.
I obey.
“What happened?”
I take a deep, shuddering breath. “I think—I don’t know. I thought I was being followed. I fell—”
“I can see that.” He comes back with a wet towel and drags a chair closer to me. He takes my hand and flips it palm up.
I blink, startled. My whole palm is bloody, bits of rocks and dirt embedded in my skin. My knees are the same, little trails of blood running down my shins and disappearing into my socks. How did I not notice?
Easy. You were terrified.
“Dad,” I whisper. My eyes fill with tears.
“Oh, honey.” He folds my fingers around the towel and hugs me.
I rest my head on his shoulder and try not to sob. Tiny little tremors rack through me. I was followed. I know I was.
I heard the laughter.
“Someone was behind me,” I tell him, scooting back. “I’m not making it up.”
Dad narrows his eyes. The change from concerned father to prosecutor is scary, but a comfort all the same. He does this for a living—catches bad guys. Talks to victims. Fights for the truth.
“Start from the beginning,” he says.
“I was running the trail that connects to the park. It was a little foggy. I made it around the loop and was coming back… I heard footsteps behind me. They matched mine, but they didn’t overtake me when I fell. And then…” I shudder. “Laughter. Maybe. It could’ve been a trick on my ears, or my imagination—”
“At what point did you hear someone behind you?”
I close my eyes. “Just after the split off for the state park trail.”
“They could’ve come from that trail, then,” he says. “And perhaps passed you when you were on the ground?” He reaches out and swipes at my chin.
Good grief, there’s mud on his thumb.
I pause. “I guess they could’ve…”
He leans forward. ‘The most important thing is that you’re okay. Nothing else hurts?”
“Just my pride.” My face grows hot.
“I ordered pepper spray while you were gone. Go get cleaned up for school, and I have to go to work.” He stands and pats my shoulder.
“What do you think?” I follow him to the door. “Imagination or…?”
“I don’t know.” He meets my gaze. “I’m glad you’re home safe. It just cements in my mind that I do the right thing by waiting for you to get home. God only knows how long it would take—”
I press my lips together.
Dad and I survive on rules.
Rule number three: no bad-talking the other parent or sibling.
We’ve both seen how gossip and venting can grow into something worse. Unless there’s an actual problem that can be solved… don’t talk about it.
He grabs his jacket and briefcase and heads out. I lock the door behind him, leaning my shoulder on it for a second.
The best thing I can do is shake this off and forget about it. I won’t run that path anymore, at least not in the early morning.
My resolve hardens.
In the shower, I find more little injuries: not just my knees were scraped, but there are tiny scratches all down my legs that sting when the water hits them. A bruise blooms on my chin. I rinse away the blood and dirt and tip my head back.
I’m in my room, shoving things into my backpack, and I cannot find my water bottle. It dawns on me: I took it running, but I don’t think I returned home with it.
Damn it.
It probably flew away from me when I fell, and I didn’t spare it a second thought before I bolted home. Why would I?
I shrug it off. I can always buy a new one.
That bottle had stickers on it from NYU and a trip to Chicago. Sentimental value.
Steeling my resolve, I shoulder the bag. I can search the trail after school. It’ll be safe in broad daylight.
Maybe Noah will come with me.
I open the front door, and a lump forms in my throat.
Just carry on your business, Riley.
It’s still terribly early when I get to school. I’m the first car in the parking lot.
I close my eyes for a moment, trying to hear the laughter I heard.
My thoughts snag on Eli for a split second, then I shove him away. There was a time when he was all I could think about, or focus on, but not anymore.
I grab my keys and beeline for the school doors. Amy, my cousin, gave me keys to the library halfway through my sophomore year. She felt bad about the bullying and wanted to give me a safe space.
Unfortunately for her, she put a little too much trust in me. When she was gone one afternoon, I made a copy of her master key. It’s been my dirty secret. So far, though, I’ve managed to stay out of trouble. Just an early morning hideout in the greenhouse, for example, or avoiding locking myself on the roof.
What kind of roof door locks from the inside?
It isn’t like burglars will try to break in through the roof.
Getting locked up there only had to happen once for me to safeguard against it happening again.
The greenhouse doesn’t hold appeal today—and neither does the roof.
I consider my options, then make my way to Mr. Jenkins’s classroom. Margo’s foster dad has always been kind to me. Even though he’s not here, the room itself is comforting.
I step into the dark room and close the door. A bit of light comes in under the shades and from the vertical window in the door, enough that I can pick my way over to the back wall.
The wall of ach
ievement.
The portrait Caleb did of Margo hangs alongside other impressive pieces of art. He managed to catch the tortured gleam in her eye, the slight hint of a smile on her lips.
How did he do that?
How did he see her so thoroughly?
Margo’s image seems to glare at me in warning. Like there’s something bound to happen, and I haven’t yet realized it.
My chest tightens, and I have to turn away.
At one point, I thought Eli looked at me the way Caleb saw Margo.
We had an all-consuming relationship—and it did consume everything.
My morals included.
Now… now, I just need to find a way to get them back.
4
Eli
Confession: I didn’t do college right.
I didn’t live up to the immediate expectation of success. College classes are hard. There’s more reading, more studying, more independent learning. My professors were assholes.
Instead of buckling down and accepting the sucker punch, I did what no respectable Black has done in the history of our family. Probably.
I dropped out.
Dad was pissed, but the deed was done. I told the university in Maine to fuck off as I was on my way out, effectively burning any bridge for readmittance.
“A gap year,” Dad says, rubbing his temples. “That’s what you call it when you apply to new colleges. And so help me God, Eli, you need a job.”
“A job?” I go to the window.
Manhattan is encased in a layer of fog this morning. It’s been hovering for a while, but the sun hasn’t been up long enough to burn it off. Dad’s office is just high enough to see over the top of it, so it looks like skyscrapers are jutting out of the clouds.
Like we’re in some sort of mystical world.
I try not to snort. A mystical world of overpriced corporate attorneys and stockbrokers.
Right.
“You can’t just sit home and do nothing,” Dad says.
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
“I’ll call Barb, see if you can do something here—”
“Absolutely not.” I face him. “You don’t want me in the same building. We talked with all your fancy friends about Maine. There’s too much potential embarrassment.”
Dad frowns. “You don’t embarrass me. I’m worried about you and how you’re going to explain—”
“Maybe I won’t go to college.”
It’s just to get a reaction, I think. But he gapes at me, eyes bugging out. His clients rarely see him this expressive.
“Eli,” he warns.
A job.
In a way, it’s exciting. Dad’s been going on and on about me being an attorney for who knows how long, and suddenly the shackles have released from my wrists. I’m free, if only temporarily.
Mom will take the news better than he did. That’s why I chose to confront Dad in his office, with the glass walls and zero privacy.
“Relax, Dad. I’ll find something and reapply for next year. Deadline is months away, and I can reuse bits of my essay.”
He groans. “Sit down.”
For once, I don’t mind listening to him. I sit in one of the metal chairs in front of his desk and eye him.
No one is more surprised than me when he pulls out the chair next to me, angling it closer.
Nice personal touch there, Dad.
“Tell me why you really came back.”
I force myself to stay still. Part of me recognizes that we’re negotiating.
“Why?”
He raises an eyebrow. “If you don’t, I will call Barb and stick you in the mailroom until you turn twenty-seven.”
Barb is a scary lady on a good day, but she makes an excellent head of Human Resources. I have no doubt she’d put me on the bottom level of the company with glee, then pretend to leave me there to rot.
It definitely wasn’t the Halloween prank my friends and I played on her at a party a few years ago that put a sour taste in her mouth for me.
“I tell you, and you give me a month to find my own job,” I argue.
He grimaces. “A week—if the excuse is good.”
I lean back in my chair. “Three weeks for a good excuse. I’d accept a week for a bad one.”
“Fine. Spill.”
“I hated it.”
He waits for more.
There’s always more.
I scowl. “I wasn’t as good at it as I thought.”
He sighs and stands. His movements are methodical, tucking in the chair, running a hand down his tie. “We’ll talk about this at home.”
I glance behind me. His paralegal stands at the door with a client. The man appraises me through the glass.
There are some things you can’t hide—the dead look in his gaze is one of them.
Tattoos crawl up his neck, out from under his white collared shirt. There’s a pair of tattooed eyes on his neck that catch my attention.
You can dress a man up, but…
“Eli,” Dad says. “Time to go.”
I jerk. “Right. Sorry.”
It feels like I’ve walked through a spiderweb. I shiver. The strangest urge to duck for cover washes through me, but I ignore it.
The elevator doesn’t come fast enough. Once it arrives, I stand in the back corner and discreetly pat myself down.
I don’t know who that man was, but I don’t think I want to know. At all.
I shoot a quick text to the driver I hired, then slip into the café on the corner. It buzzes with chatter from patrons, and the smell of toasted sugar and fresh ground coffee lingers on the air.
I order a latte—hey, a guy can get a fancy drink every now and then—and my phone buzzes. My driver has arrived, speedier than usual. Especially in Manhattan.
Then again, I was only in Dad’s office for twenty minutes. There isn’t much to say when my presence speaks volumes.
The decision to come home wasn’t done lightly, no matter how few words I used to explain it to Dad. I don’t understand half of it myself.
I slide into the waiting car, and it pulls away from the curb.
Still, I’m convinced there’s a method to my madness—and at times, I’m positive it is madness that racks through me. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat. I lived in a state of near-starvation for the better part of a year.
When I close my eyes, I see her and her irrational anger.
It’s a mirror for mine.
We’re almost home, the trip from the city passing deceptively smooth. Unbeknownst to my parents, I’ve been home for three days. It’s them who have only just arrived back home.
Where they were, I couldn’t say. But this morning, the housekeeper’s surprised yelp startled me awake. She didn’t have it in her to scold me. She wasn’t like the last one, who knew me from when I was in diapers. This woman was older, kept her head down, did what my parents asked.
She told me they had been staying in the city but were expected back tonight.
The best defense is a good offense. Thanks for that one, Dad. So what else was I to do? I didn’t sit around waiting for them to get home. I went to him.
My mood darkens when we pass the Entering Rose Hill sign.
I lean forward and tap the driver’s shoulder. “Turn here.”
“My instructions were to take you—”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll give you fifty bucks to turn right now.”
He sighs and flicks on the blinker.
“Okay, pull over.”
“Sir—”
“My dad is the sir, not me. I’m just the asshole standing between you and your next paycheck.”
He hesitates for a fraction of a second. Probably wondering who the bigger dick is—me or Dad. It’s Dad, but he doesn’t have to know that. This little interaction can stay between us, for all I care.
Once the car is stopped, I toss a fifty onto the passenger seat and hop out.
The tattoo shop is brightly lit. There’s a ton of hand-drawn art taped over
the dark-blue walls, giving it a sort of retro teenager’s bedroom vibe.
Whatever.
The girl at the counter smiles. “Hi. Can I help you?”
I grin. “I was hoping to get a tattoo.”
“We only have one tattoo artist here today,” she says. “If it’s small, he might be able to squeeze you in this afternoon. Otherwise, we can make an appointment.”
I shrug. “I just wanted a name.”
“One sec.” She disappears into the back and reappears with the tattoo artist.
Riley’s brother doesn’t do more than glance at me, and recognition does not fly across his face as anticipated.
“I was thinking script,” I say conversationally, leaning on the counter. “Right over my heart in bold letters. R-I-L-E-Y.”
Noah Appleton’s head snaps around.
“You,” he growls.
I feign confusion. “You don’t think that’s a good idea? Maybe I should get an arrow piercing—”
He jumps at me, swinging.
His fist glides through the air millimeters from my nose. That was a close one. Imagine a broken nose on this face? Wouldn’t be a good look.
Arms bind around Noah’s chest, hauling him back. The girl who greeted me is stronger than she appears, apparently.
“Leave,” she barks.
I raise my hands in surrender.
I was hoping for a solid punch, but this will do. The way he’s glaring at me means he knows what happened—Riley’s side of the story, anyway.
I can’t decide if that’s a good or a bad thing. If he knew the real truth, he wouldn’t be glaring at me like I stabbed his kitten.
“Maybe I should put her name on my ass,” I muse. “Because she’ll be kissing it—”
He lunges, escaping the girl’s grip. This time he does make contact.
Pain explodes across my jaw. Blood fills my mouth.
I stagger back, but he stops. Cocks his head.
For a split second, I admire his self-control.
“Leave,” he orders.
I smirk, touching my lip. It’s already hot to the touch. I spit blood onto the floor and cross to the counter where my phone waits. I tap a few keys, then show them the instant replay: talking, Noah’s first lunge. My confused expression, and then the final blow.
