I took hold of Koda’s collar, so he didn’t get any ideas about chasing down a snack. Everly held out an almond, and I watched in fascination as the little guy took it right from her fingers. Then he darted back across the room into a small hole in a cabinet. “What was that?”
“That’s Chip. He lives here, too, so you have to be friendly.”
I blinked a few times, looking from the cabinet to Everly and back again. “Whatever floats your boat. Chip just better not try to snuggle with me.”
Ev shook her head. “He’s very happy in his home in the cabinet there.” She pointed to an open door on the opposite side of the living space. “That’s your room. We’ll have to share the bathroom here.” She inclined her head to another door off a small hallway. “And my room is next to it. I’m going to hop in the shower and get cleaned up. You can start one of the frozen pizzas if you want. I’ll make a salad.”
I was lost as soon as she said the word shower. All sorts of images that I didn’t need, roamed through my head. I cleared my throat. “Pizza. I can handle that.”
Who was I kidding? Nothing about being in such close proximity to Everly for who knew how long was something I could handle. But I’d have to figure out how to keep my thoughts in check and my hands to myself.
28
Everly
My fingers clawed at the arm dragging me by the hair. “Ian, please.” But he didn’t seem to hear me at all. He simply kept pulling as I tried to gain my footing in the dirt, my bare feet scrabbling for any sort of purchase.
“Mom!” I yelled, but she was in the greenhouse, far from where my shouts could reach her. And Ian knew that.
His hand slapped out with such force that I barely saw it coming. And there was no way I could escape. The blow hit me across the mouth. For a moment, I didn’t feel anything at all. Then pain bloomed, along with the taste of blood.
“Don’t you dare cry for her. You’re a fucking traitor.” He threw me to the dirt.
“Ian, no!” Addie wailed, but her father held her back.
I could just make out Allen’s cold gaze. “She’s earned this punishment. If she doesn’t want to be cast out, she’ll take it, and she won’t say a word to her mother.”
Spit hit my face as Ian’s boot collided with my stomach. All the air was forced out of me. “Stop. Please.”
“You took him from us. You deserve worse than I could ever give you.”
The next blow hit my ribs with a sickening crack, and I couldn’t hold in my scream.
I shot up in bed, barely holding back the scream that had escaped in my dreams. My chest heaved, and my t-shirt and sleep shorts clung to my body with sweat. “Just a nightmare.” I said the words over and over as I climbed out of bed.
It was my mantra as I stripped the sheets off the mattress and put on fresh ones. I’d learned long ago to have a spare set ready to go. “Just a nightmare,” I whispered one more time. Only that wasn’t entirely true. It was a memory. The images and pain carved so deeply into my body that I knew I’d never get them out.
“You’re safe.” I mouthed the words to an empty room. But I wasn’t sure how true they were, either. The angry note flashed in my mind. The feel of that hand covering my mouth.
My fingers dug into my comforter as I pulled it up. “I’m safe.” Hayes was just down the hall. There was a tug along my sternum. A pull to go to him and ask him to chase all of the bad dreams away.
I pushed the thought out of my brain as quickly as it appeared. Now wasn’t the time to be reckless. Instead, I pulled a fresh set of PJs out of my drawer and went to the bathroom. I turned on the shower as cold as I could stand it—I needed the shock to my system. Anything to clear out those last haunting memories.
The blast of water did the trick. I rinsed the sweat from my body and lifted my face to the spray as if that pounding force could erase whatever lurked in my brain.
I dried off quickly, reapplying my favorite lotion and letting the fresh scent soothe me. Tossing my old PJs into my laundry basket, I moved down the hall as quietly as possible. I listened for a moment, but only the familiar sound of crickets greeted me.
I heated a mug of water in the small microwave I’d purchased, pulling it out before the beeping could wake Hayes. I went for chamomile tonight, with just a touch of honey. The simple process of preparing the tea was a comfort. Soothing before I’d even had my first sip.
I grabbed a throw from the basket at the end of the couch and moved to the back deck. The night was cold, but I welcomed that, too. The stars were clear as diamonds against black velvet. I eased into one of the two chairs I’d picked up at a secondhand shop in town. They were the Adirondack kind with wide arms and reclined backs. They almost felt like a warm hug.
I wasn’t sure why I’d gotten two. It wasn’t as if I expected anyone to use the other one. But it felt depressing to buy only one.
I tipped my face to the sky and began looking for constellations, but the tears blurring my vision hampered my quest. How had a father who’d taught his daughter to trace the stars had such cruelty and sickness in him? How had that grown ten-fold in his son?
I didn’t think I’d ever find the answers, no matter how hard I looked. I wanted to find a way to be at peace with it all. But how did you find that with violence?
I wasn’t sure I could get my way there. Ian didn’t want my forgiveness. And he certainly hadn’t changed. So, what did it mean to let go of it all?
Footsteps sounded on the boards of the back deck, but I didn’t look up. I kept my gaze focused on the forest behind the cabin as Hayes lowered himself into the chair next to me. The one I thought might never be filled.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
“Bad dream.”
There was no point in lying. Hayes saw too much. In everyone, but especially in me.
“About the note?”
I wrapped my hands around my mug of tea, staring down into its swirling depths. “Something else.”
“Your brother?”
My head snapped up. “What are you talking about?”
I saw a gentleness in Hayes I’d never seen before. As if he were approaching an injured, wild animal. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out there’s something there.”
I turned my focus back to my drink. I ran my thumb up and down the handle of the cup, unsure of what to say.
“Let me in, Ev.”
Hayes didn’t realize how much he was asking with that single request. And yet, I wanted to tell him. To unburden myself of something I’d carried with me for years. I hadn’t ever spoken of it. Not even to Jacey when I went to live with her. My mom had tended to my wounds, stitching my lip and wrapping my ribs, but only after my bruises had faded and the stitches had been removed did she take me to my sister’s.
“After my father’s sentencing, Ian was angry. He took it out on me.”
Hayes’ eyes hardened. “He hit you? You were only eleven. He was a teenager.”
I remembered how big Ian had seemed at the time, towering over me as his boot made contact with my ribs.
“How bad?”
The two words were rough, grating over my skin. “Split lip. Broken ribs. Probably a concussion.”