I rap my nails on the table, pausing.
Everything that happened after that delineated my wonderfully ordinary “before” from my tragically heinous “after.”
The double-wide stainless steel fridge on the other side of the room hums, bringing more life into this room than the chickenshit bastard across from me.
“I was standing there, watching the ocean waves crash on the rocks,” I continue, “when a man came up from behind me.” My voice trembles, and I stop to swallow the lump that forms in my throat. “He grabbed me, held me tight against him, placed his hand on my mouth, told me to be quiet.”
My fingertips tremble and my face grows numb as I attempt to continue. Maybe it’s my body reacting to telling my story for the first time . . . all the trauma, all the things it harbored inside for so long are working their way out, like little earthquakes. I force them away as I study my husband’s expression, searching for a hint of what he might be thinking in this moment. Only Luca’s face is void of any kind of reaction. Poker straight.
But he’s listening.
He hasn’t stripped his attention away for two seconds.
I’m not even sure he’s blinked.
He’s got to be shell-shocked. They say mammals have a fight, flight, or freeze response when placed in alarming situations.
Guess Luca’s the type to freeze.
“Anyway, he put something over my mouth.” Leaning back, I draw in a jagged breath. “A . . . a cloth or something . . . it smelled sort of pungent and sweet.” I hover a cupped palm near my lips. “Everything went dark after that.”
Merritt leans forward, sliding an elbow on the table and resting her pointed chin on the top of her elegant little hand.
Stoic Luca still hasn’t moved a muscle, hasn’t made a sound.
“When I woke up, I was strapped to a metal chair in a one-room cabin,” I add.
Merritt sucks in a breath, her fingertips tracing her full lips. She’s no better than a kid at a campfire listening to a ghost story.
“Then what happened?” Her tone is urgent, impatient.
How rude of me to keep her on the edge of her seat . . .
I direct my attention to my husband. “The man who took me came back.”
Merritt adjusts her posture.
“He raped me that first night,” I continue, “several times. And he told me—in great detail—all the horrible things he was going to do to me from then on.”
Merritt turns to our husband with glassy eyes, but he pays her no mind. His concern is on me—as it should be.
“He was a sick man.” I wring my hand around the opposite wrist, reminding myself those bindings are no longer there. “Evil incarnate.”
“Lydia.” Merritt reaches for my hand, but I pull it away.
I didn’t come here for her sympathy.
“And for nine years, he tortured me every chance he got in every way you can torture a person,” I say through tremoring teeth. Luca’s dark eyes strike onto mine. I’m disappointed that he’s yet to say a word or show an ounce of emotion, but I know this is a lot to take in without warning. “The Monster—that’s what I called him in my head—tried to kill my spirit, my will to live. But he couldn’t kill me. And believe me, he tried. Six months ago, he put a cloth sack over my head, marched me out to the forest, and shot me in the back like an old dog.”
I leave out the part where I dropped to my knees and pleaded for my life like a goddamned coward. For nine years, all I wanted was for it to end. I’d even prayed for him to put me out of my never-ending misery. But in that moment, with the summer wind skirting across my flesh and birds chirping overhead, I wanted nothing more than a chance to live. To be free.
I swore to him I’d stay away, that I’d never come back, never look for him, never bother him. I promised I’d be as good as dead. And those were my exact words. As good as dead.
The Monster’s rebuttal came in the form of a gunshot, a white-hot snap against my shoulder blade that knocked me facedown into the earth as the shot echoed through the forest around us.
“Wait,” Merritt says, voice tender. “How’d you get away from him?”
I shove my shirt down my left shoulder and angle myself so they can see my back, tracing my fingertips over the raised pink mark where the bullet entered, and then I show them the other side—the exit wound scar.
“I hit the ground as soon as the bullet struck me.” I fix my shirt. “And I played dead until he left.”
Sometimes at night, when I can’t sleep, I still hear the crunch of his boots against fallen leaves and the snap of the twigs beneath his weight. I still taste the broken blades of earth-coated grass in my mouth and the soft graze of a gentle breeze against my face. So much life. So much death. Blood spilled out around me as my adrenaline-fueled heart ricocheted against my chest wall, but I held my breath and lay still—a most impossible task when all I wanted to do was scream until I could no longer feel the blinding-hot sting of the bullet. I must’ve counted to a thousand before he finally left. And it took me another thousand seconds to muster up the courage to yank the cloth sack off my head and force myself up. An animalistic will to survive took over from there.
The unexpected wail of their daughter’s cries cuts through the tension, sending Merritt jolting in her seat and forcing Luca to finally remove his intense gaze from me.
“I’ve got it,” Merritt says, though I didn’t see Luca offer.
The moment she disappears, I reach across the table and place my hand over his. My throat squeezes and my stomach roils. I’m hopeful that one day I’ll be able to tolerate human touch again.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about this moment.” I keep my voice low, out of Merritt’s earshot. “Seeing you again.”
His eyes flash, but he remains statue still.
This must feel dreamlike to him.
I scan the beautiful surroundings of his kitchen, a never-ending expanse of marble and stainless steel, the abundance of fresh flowers and meticulously styled accessories—cutting boards, a butter bell, a vintage recipe tin, copper salt and pepper mills. It’s a far cry from our humble beginnings in that run-down one-bedroom apartment on the east side of Bent Creek.
“Looks like you’ve done pretty well for yourself since I died,” I say.
His jaw sets and his temples pulse. “I don’t understand . . . why didn’t you go to the police after you were shot?”
“Because I wanted to find you first. I wanted you to hear the good news from me—not some small-town sheriff’s deputy.” Head tilted, I offer a warm smile. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”
Sure, I could walk into the Bent Creek police department and speak to a skeptical detective who begrudgingly digs my case file out of an old storage unit. Proving my identity would likely require a DNA test, and those things take time. At that point, word would easily get out that a formerly missing-and-presumed-dead wife of a local businessman is very much alive.
After everything I’ve been through, I at least deserve to be the bearer of my own good news.
“This is . . . a lot to take in.” He forces a hard breath through his nostrils. “Where are you staying?”
“I’ve been taken in by a woman who runs a shop on the square,” I say. “She drove me here tonight, actually. She’s helping me get on my feet. Thinks of me like her daughter, in a way. I’d love for you two to meet sometime.”