As a young boy, he’d always been tricky. As a grown man, he was cunning and slick.
Another crack of thunder had me pulling the blanket over my head and counting backward from one hundred as I tried to slow my racing heart and calm the fear that was rising in my throat, threatening to choke me.
All big storms were the same in my mind.
They took me back to another night in another place and shoved memories I’d much rather forget to the forefront of my exhausted, slightly broken mind.
Hidden under the flimsy fortress of the quilt, I could clearly recall slick, slippery roads. White lightning bolts zipping through the summer sky as windshield wipers struggled fruitlessly to keep up with the deluge outside the sports car I had no business driving.
It was the perfect recipe for disaster.
I remembered the flicker of illuminated eyes outside the windshield. I never found out if it was a deer, or a dog, or some other animal that suddenly darted in front of the car, that caused me to lose control and send the car careening off the road, down a steep embankment and into a huge tree off the side of the road. I could still hear the sound of metal crumpling like a tin can around me, and the screech of tires as they lost traction on the wet road. The memory of the tinkling sound of glass cracking and then imploding into a shower of painful shards still had the power to pull me out of a sound sleep. It was the soundtrack to each and every one of my nightmares.
I usually woke up with tears on my face and shaking fingers tracing over my scar. It was always a deeply visceral reaction.
Mixed in with the echo of the car breaking apart, I also heard Huck’s voice calling my name. And another voice, the one I was constantly running from both when I was awake and asleep, laughing hysterically as if the horrible accident was some wild ride at an amusement park. It was never a good situation when Huck and Sawyer were near one another, but that night had been the worst of the worst-case scenarios.
If I’d known that night would result in losing Huck and becoming even more entangled in Sawyer’s games than I already was, I never would’ve left the house. Back then, I’d been unable to say no to either boy. One by choice, the other through force. So when they both ordered me to play designated driver that night, even though I was underage and had only driven Sawyer’s fancy car in an empty parking lot when he insisted I needed to learn how to drive, instead of doing the smart thing, I did what was expected of me by both of them. I went to pick up Huck because I was worried, and Sawyer convinced me I should take him and his car rather than borrowing my mother’s old junker.
Lost in the past memories, I absently lifted a hand to touch the slightly lifted mark on my face. Sawyer wanted me to get plastic surgery to get it fixed. He also wanted me to forget all about Huck and seamlessly settle into the role he decided I was supposed to play.
I refused to get it fixed.
It was a constant reminder that the accident could’ve been prevented if I’d been smarter, faster, better than the boy who wanted to own me, and if I’d been more aware of just how dangerous caring about Huck really was. It forced me to remember that everything that followed the accident could also have been prevented if I’d been braver. If I’d been more honest—with everyone, and with myself.
But I’d lied, and it cost me close to everything. I hadn’t even managed to save the only person I wanted to keep safe. I mean, the lie kept my mom alive a little longer than anticipated after she suffered a massive heart attack the night of the accident, but it wasn’t enough to bring her home or help her recover fully. She passed away regardless of the sacrifices I’d made and everything I put Huck through as a result.
I had a hard time convincing myself those few years she gained, attached to machines, remaining almost totally bedridden, had been worth selling my soul and losing my friendship with Huck.
I was still breathing hard and sweating profusely curled up in the old tub. My hands were shaking where I held onto the blanket, and I could hear the blood rushing loudly between my ears. I felt like I was going to pass out, and honestly, being unconscious was preferable to feeling like I was going to come out of my skin at any moment.
I couldn’t hold back a shriek of terror when the next clap of thunder rumbled through the night and rattled the whole house. I put my hands over my ears and tried to keep both the past and the present at bay.
Since most sounds were muffled by my hands on the blanket over my head, I didn’t hear the noisy stairs to the attic pop and creak. And because I had my eyes closed as tightly as possible underneath the protective shroud, I missed the flickering light of a camp lantern as it entered the bathroom, held in the hand of the very last person I thought would come to check on me.
When the blanket was suddenly yanked off my head and a shadowy figure materialized in front of me, there was no more holding it together. I screamed at the top of my lungs, my arms and legs flailed about wildly. I hit the back of my head on the edge of the tub, and tears immediately started to creep out of my eyes and roll down my cheeks. My chest felt like it was going to cave in, and every breath I managed to take burned on its way into my lungs.
“Whoa. Calm down, Ollie.” There was a thump as Huck hit the tiled floor, kneeling down and holding the lantern in front of his face. “The lights go out all the time when the weather is bad because this house is so old. There are camp lights and candles stashed everywhere. I was going to have Vernon bring you one when he messaged me that the power was out, but I figured having him pop up in the dark would scare you even more than the storm.”
I was shivering so hard that my teeth were chattering, and I couldn’t hold onto the blanket any longer. Huck sighed and reached out to yank the fabric back up to my chin. The faint light from my phone and the lantern cast weird shadows over his starkly handsome face, giving him an almost sinister look.
He cocked his head to the side and asked, “Are you going to spend the night in the bathtub if it doesn’t stop raining?”
I nodded and curled my fingers around the blanket to keep it secured so that only my eyes and nose were showing above the edge.
Huck heaved a sigh and shifted so that he was sitting on the bathroom floor with his knees pulled up. He rested the wrist of one hand on his bent knee and tapped the fingers of the other on the edge of the tub. I couldn’t tell if he was impatient or frustrated, but it was obvious he was having a hard time sitting still while I cowered and quaked a few feet away.
“I got off work early because of the storm. The bar lost power as well.” One of his dark eyebrows lifted. “I wondered if you were going to have a hard time. I’m not surprised you’re still this shaken up when it storms.”
After the night of the accident, the weather had stayed really crappy for weeks. It fit the mood that descended upon the people in my life since I was hospitalized for several days, and so was Huck. I would never forget the first night I was alone in the hospital, and it started to thunder and lightning. If I hadn’t had IVs poked into the back of my hands, I would’ve climbed out of the bed and found a place to hide. Luckily, Huck was in a room close enough to hear me screaming and had come to find me. He sat with me the whole night, much like he was doing now. Only, when the next big squall rolled around, Huck was gone, and I had learned I had bigger and scarier things to fear than the weather.
I anxiously cleared my throat. “I’ll be fine. You don’t have to sit in here.” I tugged the blanket down so I could frown at him. “I know the door was locked. How did you even get in?”