The Ground Beneath (You and Me Book 1)

by Stephanie Vercier

  “You’re standing by your man, then. No qualms about what he’s done in his past?”

  “I’d stand by him even if we weren’t together. It’s the right thing to do. Hunter hasn’t done anything wrong except for wanting to keep some things in his life private.”

  “Do you think he ever would have told you if Theresa Carmichael hadn’t shared it?”

  Alli fumes quietly next to me, and I can tell that she’s not happy with the way Jessica is posing her questions, like she’s trying to amp up the drama.

  “I think what Alli and I have chosen to share in our relationship is up to us,” I say. “But what I’ll say is that I’m eternally grateful for this woman sitting beside me. I’m just sorry I’m putting her through all of this.”

  “I can imagine that might be why you didn’t want to tell her,” Jessica says. “For fear of losing her?”

  I nod. If Jessica is looking for my Achilles’ heel, she’s found it.

  “Of course,” she says. “But Theresa Carmichael isn’t the only villain in this story, is she?”

  We’d already agreed that no topic would be out of bounds for this interview. In fact, there really wasn’t a point to it unless I was going to answer questions about my abuse.

  “That’s right,” I say, feeling as ready as I’ll ever be to discuss it.

  “Theresa didn’t name your abuser because she didn’t know their identity. Is that correct?”

  Alli holds my hand a little tighter, and after clearing my throat, I say, “Yes. I never told her his name.”

  “Can you tell us now?”

  I’ve got a sick feeling at having to say the name out loud, but there’s no turning back now. “Clyde Mitchell is the man who abused me. He was our county sheriff, and he took advantage of a tragic situation, one I think it’s entirely possible he might have had a part in.”

  The admission will cause a riptide of anger back home and create a bizarre twist to Jessica’s interview, of how the man who victimized me was none other than Wyatt’s Mitchell’s father. Alli had been horrified at the connection, but she was no less compassionate to me. I’d already called Keith and Billy to prepare them, but I hadn’t bothered with my dad. It would have just pissed him off. Alli had let her parents and Daniella know too, but she stopped short telling Micah or his mother, Clyde Mitchell’s widow. She was afraid they might try to get ahead of the story and do their best to disprove it, but we agreed she’d call Micah right before the interview aired to give him a heads up. “I owe him at least that,” she said. “Even if his intentions weren’t the best, he was still there for my parents after we lost Abe.”

  I go on to tell Jessica Moore how Sheriff Mitchell came into our lives after our tragedy, posing as a man offering condolences and help. My father was a prisoner of his own pain, and while Keith was there for our little brother, Billy, I felt like I was floating away from them, unable to mend how broken I was without my mother and my aunt. Clyde Mitchell reminded me he was a dad too, that he could be trusted, that he could throw a football with me or take me fishing when my own father couldn’t—I don’t mention it was because my father was too drunk to do either of those things.

  He groomed me and then made me believe the sick things he was doing to me were okay but secret, so secret that he’d have to kill my brothers if I told anyone or tried to stop him. I believed him because he was the law, and nobody, not even my father, questioned that. I don’t tell Jessica that my own father didn’t believe me when I finally overcame my fear enough to tell him what was going on, when I knew the only way to stop Clyde Mitchell was to stop him myself.

  “I punched him in his groin,” I tell Jessica. “I might have been ten or just turned eleven—I don’t remember exactly. I told him he couldn’t do those things to me anymore. He grabbed me by my shirt collar, swore at me and said he’d kill my little brother, that he’d cut his throat and throw him in the river and make him fish food and that nobody would care.”

  Jessica breaks from her professional demeanor and gasps while Alli just keeps a firm hold of my hand. But then she asks me to continue, and I tell her how I wouldn’t let Billy out of my sight for a while, that I was following Keith around, begging him to help me get bigger, eating all the food I could and turning it into muscle when I hit puberty.

  “Clyde left me alone because he had to,” I say, “and it wasn’t until college that I went back and faced him, man to man. I told him if I found out he was hurting any other kids, I’d come for him, that I had a voice, that people would believe me then. He laughed and said I couldn’t prove shit, but I could tell he was scared. He thought that nobody could touch him because he was the sheriff, but I reminded him that I had no reason to lie, and people would be able to see that.”

  “We have to remind the viewing audience that Clyde Mitchell died five years ago,” Jessica says. “He won’t be able to answer these accusations.”

  “No, but there might be proof of what he did. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one he abused.” I think again of the man who called Daniella. He’d since told her he wasn’t ready to go on the record about what was done to him, but I hoped that me doing this interview would bring any other victims out of the woodwork and allow them to tell their story too.

  Alli and I continue answering Jessica’s questions for what feels like an agonizing eternity. By the end of it all, it feels like someone has dug a knife into me and scraped my insides out. But Theresa telling the world had made it necessary, and maybe one day I’ll be glad she did.

  We leave the studio together. For all of the space Alli wanted, she’s still spent every night with me at my condo.

  “Do you need a night away from me?” I ask her as we walk to my car, both of us glad to be done with the interview.

  “Is that what you want?”

  “Hell no. I’m just trying to respect what you said, that you wanted room to breathe. You don’t have to spend all your time with me if it’s just because you feel sorry for me.”

  “That’s not why,” she says, taking my hand. “I guess I thought space would be the best thing for both of us, but it was really about me being afraid of how much I need to be with you.”

  “Doesn’t sound so bad to my ears.”

  “It’s not, not really. It’s just that I didn’t want to picture myself as that dependent. But the truth is that I want to see you every day. I want to be there with you through the good and the bad, just the way I know you’ll be there for me. But if you need space, I understand, and—”

  “I said I don’t need any fucking space, Alli. All I want is you.” I pick her up then and twirl her around like she’s a princess, like she’s young and in love and gets to feel that and not all of the shit I’ve brought down on her, even if it’s just for a few minutes.

  She laughs just the way I want her to, and we kiss, just the way I love kissing her.

  I’m caught up in the fantasy too, imagining that I’m her prince, just having ridden in on my big white horse.

  Sometimes I need to escape too.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ALLISON

  Micah didn’t take things well when I called him just before the second interview with Jessica Moore aired. He didn’t come out and say he didn’t think his father was capable of the things Hunter said he’d done, but he was more concerned with the fact millions of people would be finding out.

  “Bad enough Daniella calls me with that crap, but then you go and have to tell the entire fucking world, Allison?” He was angry, and I did my best to understand why.

  “His hand was kind of forced,” I told Micah. “This isn’t about hurting you or your mother, but it’s true. I believe Hunter.”

  He laughed dismissively. “Of course you do. Big NFL superstar versus me, small town sheriff with a dad everyone will see as a pedophile now. I never had a chance, did I?”

  “We can talk about it when I come home,” I offered. “We’ll be there over Christmas, and I think it might be good if all of us sit down an
d—”

  “I’m not going to talk to your boyfriend about the shit he says my dad did to him, okay? And I can’t believe you’re in on this, Allison. Shit. Both our brothers died, and I thought that connected us, but I guess I was wrong. I was so wrong about you.”

  He was being unfair, but he was hurt and angry, and it wasn’t the right time to challenge him, even if he hadn’t just hung up on me.

  I’d talked to my parents about all of it, worried especially about my mother, for the potential friction it would cause with Micah and the increased attention the story would bring. But Mom was seeing more sunlight than darkness in her life, the therapy and medications she was on working. Both she and my father spoke to Hunter, letting him know they were both incredibly proud of him and that they’d be standing behind him.

  That made things easier as we tried to go back about our normal lives. There was plenty of drama still brewing, so many things still unresolved, and yet Hunter, still injured, was part of a team and was expected to show up regardless of the controversial and sometimes negative press that was following him around. And while I’d had to take a day or two off myself, I still had my own job to do. Thankfully, we were one very demanding client lighter after Sheila dropped Theresa without a second thought.

  “It was always just a business arrangement with them,” Sheila said of Theresa and Henry’s marriage. “But it’s easy enough to see Henry was the one depending more on her than she was on him. That could be hard to give up.”

  But Henry didn’t want to jump ship and asked Sheila to continue to represent him. She asked me if I had a problem working with him—I said I didn’t—so she kept him and his lucrative deals on.

  “That’s one way to get back at that bitch,” she said, taking great pleasure in unraveling her contract with Theresa.

  And I admit that I got some satisfaction out of it too.

  With all of the upheaval, I think Logan was expecting Hunter and me to forget about him and the party we’d promised to throw. But even during our worst days, I was still focused on getting Logan’s friends together, especially Grace, the redheaded girl he said he used to tease because he liked her, the girl he would have gotten the courage to ask out if he hadn’t gotten sick.

  “So, this is really happening, huh?” Logan asks when Hunter and I arrive in his hospital room at Children’s. He’s sitting at the edge of his bed, freshly showered, but looking unsure as to whether he should stand up or crawl back under the covers.

  Hunter is carrying a freshly pressed suit he’d had tailored for Logan. “It most definitely is,” he says. “We’ve got these sweet threads and your friends waiting for you.”

  “Seriously?” Logan looks taken aback about the friends part, like he was expecting Hunter to tell him no, that this isn’t really happening at all.

  “Yes, seriously,” he says, “and might I say, you’ve got a good eye when it comes to the ladies.”

  “He’s right,” I say. “Grace is really pretty.”

  It’s no stretch—she is a beautiful girl. I don’t tell Logan that she seemed pretty nervous when we picked her and three of his other friends up. It could be because she was riding in the same vehicle as Hunter, but I wasn’t really getting the star-struck teenage vibe from her. I don’t know if her nerves are because she’s worried about what Logan will look like now or if she has as big a crush on him as he does on her and is hoping their reunion won’t bomb. I’m really hoping it’s the latter.

  “What am I even going to say to her?” Logan asks. “I missed like half the last year of school and I haven’t been back.”

  “You can tell her you like her for starters,” Hunter says. “Why waste time?”

  “Because I could die any day?” Logan doesn’t sound pissed, just resigned to the possibility.

  “No,” Hunter says. “Because you’ve got to strike while the iron’s hot. Why not tell her when you’ve got her right in front of you?”

  Logan looks at me, like he wants to get the feminine angle on this, and I say, “He’s right. Hunter made it clear that he liked me from the start. And that’s what girls like, a man who knows what he wants.”

  Hunter smiles and puts his arm around me. “See, Logan. Living proof right in front of you!”

  “Fine,” Logan says, slowly standing up. “I’ll put my heart on the line, but I’m holding you both personally responsible if she tells me to go screw myself.”

  I can’t help but to laugh. Logan sounds so grown up.

  I’d done the decorating myself for the room the hospital was letting us use, and Hunter had ordered some games to be brought in, an air hockey table, foosball and several arcade games, even a car racing one where you actually feel like you’re sitting in a car. There was plenty to eat and drink, and even a DJ to play whatever songs they wanted.

  “We can stand in the door all night, or you can go in,” Hunter tells Logan as he takes the room and its occupants in, Grace and the rest of his friends slowly walking toward us.

  “Come on,” I say, nudging Logan. “It’s time for you to have some fun.”

  Hunter and I stand back and watch the friends reunite. I’d asked Logan once why the people now in this room never came by the hospital to visit him—it was a delicate question I’d hemmed and hawed on asking before, one that might have even been better left for Hunter. But Logan didn’t seem phased and told me his guy friends came by at first, but then he asked them to stop when he got sicker. He just didn’t want them to see him wasting away into nothing.

  “Look at that. You see that?” Hunter whispers to me when Grace wraps her arms around Logan and lets him hold her to his chest.

  I put my hand on my heart. “She really likes him,” I say, and I’m so glad right now that Logan agreed to let them back in, that he might even have a chance at experiencing love.

  “You made this happen.” Hunter wraps his arm around me, and we try not to stare at the teens.

  “I made this happen?” I look up at him and smile. “It was a team effort, Hunter.”

  “I never would have made that connection with Logan if you hadn’t come with me that first day. I’d have probably made a total ass out of myself in front of everyone and left before I even made it upstairs to the patient rooms.”

  “Sometimes you really sell yourself short,” I say, leaning into him and looking into his gorgeous eyes. “You’re an amazing guy.”

  “I don’t know about that, but I like that you think it about me, even after all of the shit I’ve put you through.”

  Hunter has been overly apologetic since the whole Theresa incident, and I appreciate that he cares about my feelings, but all that’s been important to me now is that we’re honest going forward. “You think my life was drama free before I met you?” I say it in a teasing way, wanting to keep things light.

  “I brought a hell of a lot more in than you did.”

  “We’ve learned from it though, right? You’ve been honest with me.”

  His face turns a shade of red, and he says, “Yeah… that was fun.”

  The day I’d thrown my now replaced phone against the wall at Sheila’s office, I’d pushed Hunter to have an honest discussion about our pasts. I’d not only wanted to know what he went through with Clyde Mitchell but whether or not there were any other Theresa’s out there. I didn’t want intricate details about every woman he’d ever slept with, but I did ask him to tell me about the women whose names I might recognize. I didn’t want to be blindsided if an actress, a model or well-known entrepreneur decided to sell a story of their own night or weekend away with Hunter.

  “None of them meant anything to me,” he said. “I know that makes me sound like a dick too, but you’re the only woman I’ve ever actually loved.”

  I would have understood if that hadn’t been true, if he had actually loved one of the women that came before me. I was able to admit, though, that it curbed my jealousy and made me feel so much more special to him.

  “Your turn,” he said after he’d reve
aled all.

  For me, other than a few boyfriends in junior high, it had only been Wyatt. And I did love Wyatt, or at least I thought I did. I loved the person he presented to me, not the man who was sleeping with Olivia, older and vastly more experienced than me. I was the girl Wyatt didn’t want to corrupt, being used for one thing while he used Olivia for another.

  “Do you think you would have gone back to him… if he didn’t die?” Hunter’s expression was rigid, as if he was hoping I’d say no, even with Wyatt being gone.

  “Really doubtful,” I said to him. “And now that I’ve experienced what real love is, I can say for certain I wouldn’t have.”

  That made Hunter smile, a smile I’ve grown to love so very much.

  Logan and his friends eventually tell us to stop standing around like a couple of chaperones and invite us to be part of the celebration.

  “She’s only like four years older than us,” Logan says, looking at me. “Hunter’s the only old guy in the room.”

  “The old guy who could kick your ass at foosball,” Hunter counters with a laugh, and he goes on to do just that.

  Hunter and I race one another in the car racing game, and I beat him, though I have a suspicion he pretty much let me win. The hours are filled with enjoyment, and even though I don’t mean to, I catch Logan and Grace kissing, not just a peck on the cheek, but with lips fully attached. Logan is just like any other boy his age tonight, and it makes me wish his prognosis weren’t so dire. It makes me hope for miracles, for something in the universe, for a God who I’m not sure has a great deal to do with our everyday lives to help Logan, to give him a chance at a full, long life.

  “Are you thinking the same thing I am?” Hunter is next to me after kicking more ass at foosball. He nods toward Logan and Grace before turning his attention back to me.