She started to lift her hand from my chest, but I held it steady.
“Just talk to me, beautiful.”
So she did.
Turn by turn, until we arrived at the Airbnb she was renting.
It was a nice place on a shady, tree lined cul-de-sac.
The worst house on the block was hers, and that was only because the yard needed mowed, and the weeds that were notorious for growing an inch in a day obviously chose this day to do it.
I pulled into the driveway and stared at the front door.
It was closed, but the glass windows on either side of the door had been boarded up.
This was obviously where she’d been assaulted.
Anger once again rose in my chest, and I stared at it for long moments.
Dory got off the back of the bike and slid to the ground, pulling off the purple helmet as she did.
Placing it on the back seat where her ass had previously occupied, she started toward the front door.
“No,” I called to her. “Let me go look first.”
She shot me a look over her shoulder, but I shrugged it off.
“It’s happenin’, darlin’,” I said. “I’m going to make sure that it’s clear before you get in there poking around.”
She stayed out on the porch while I made a round of the house.
The place was cute.
Way cuter than I would’ve thought she could find in a town as small as Accident, Florida.
Something in which I found an answer to moments later when I went back out on the porch to hear her soft voice saying, “I can’t believe it, either. I mean, this is the nicest neighborhood in Accident. How does this happen?”
“I’ll bet it was the little shit on the corner,” someone, a woman, said. “The thug that lives there was in jail.
“Wake didn’t do this,” came Dory’s soft reply. Always so soft. Even in anger like it was now. “He may have just gotten out of jail, but he’s the one who saved me.”
That was news to me.
“Baby,” I called as I headed back into the foyer to find an elderly couple on the porch. “You can come inside now.”
“You her young man?” the woman asked.
“The one that’s left her living by herself for the last four and a half months?” The male of the pair narrowed his eyes on me.
Dory’s lips twitched as she headed toward me. “Gladys, Fred. This is my husband, Bram. He’s been away for the last four and a half months.”
Liar.
“Nice to meet you,” I said to them both. “Thank you for taking care of her while I was away.”
“You’re welcome.” Gladys beamed.
“Well, it’s been a really hard day for her, so I’m gonna get her in bed,” I said. “Thank you for checking on her, though.”
After saying our goodbyes, we went inside of the house to find it cold and empty.
The place was great on the outside, but the inside was sparse, denoting it a BNB, and definitely not a place where someone lived often.
She walked to the couch and took a seat, her breath leaving her upon hitting the soft cushions.
“What guy were you talking about when I came out there?” I asked.
She looked at me stubbornly. “He didn’t do it.”
I took the seat at the coffee table and said, “I think I, of all people, know better than to say anything about anyone’s actions. How about you tell me exactly what happened, so I can have some idea of what’s going on right now.”
She blew out a hard breath that caused the frizzy hair on either side of her face to blow away from her face before saying, “I go on a walk every morning. I like to go before it gets too hot. Today, I walked out like usual, turned to lock the door behind me, and was hit from behind. One second I was standing, and the next I was curling in on myself to avoid blows. The man down the street was running when he heard me cry out. He came up and scared whomever it was away but was stuck staying with me rather than chasing him down.”
Secretly, I was glad that he’d stayed. I wouldn’t have wanted her to be alone.
“Has anything strange been going on lately?” I asked. “Has anything happened that would’ve provoked that?”
Had her brother been alive, I might’ve seen it coming. But since I knew he was dead…
“Nothing.” She shook her head.
I sighed. “Did anyone else see it happen?”
She shook her head again, her eyes getting heavy. “Not that the police officers knew of.”
“And which police officers were these?” I asked.
I hadn’t seen any come around the entire time I’d been there, now that I was thinking about it.
“This town is quite tiny,” she said. “Smaller than even Intercourse. They have one part-time chief of police who also works at a refinery two towns over. And then there’s the sheriff’s department that apparently had quite a large drug bust at the docks. That’s where they all were today. They had one young guy come over about forty-five minutes after I got to the hospital, and then he left once he took my statement.”
Her words only served to piss me off more. “So this town is lawless or something?”
She shrugged. “I chose it because it was perfect. No cops. Nobody constantly watching over me twenty-four seven. But, I suppose, it’s not the best single woman capital of the world.”
Her words only pissed me off more. “You’re not single.”
Her eyes shot up to meet mine. “I sent divorce papers, Bram. I’m about as single as I can get before the judge approves it.”
“So what we talked about in the hospital. You’re not willing to give me another chance?” I asked.
My voice sounded wrong somehow.
Void of emotion.
She must’ve realized it, too, because she winced. “Bram, things would be better if you weren’t saddled with me anymore.”
“I wasn’t saddled with you at all,” I snapped, unable to help the emotion this time. “I had a wife that I adored. I just didn’t let her know that I adored her, apparently.”
She stiffly sat up and stared at me with a look of astonishment on her face. “Are you telling me that you like me? All those times you gave me shit about my eating habits. About how I couldn’t stand to be dirty. Or hell, even how your family treated me at almost every single social gathering you took me to… and you’re going to tell me that you adore me? Bram, if you adored me, you wouldn’t have allowed any of that to happen.”
She had a very valid point.
“I’ve battled with depression since I was a young kid,” I said. “I don’t know what happened, but whatever it was, Amon made it worse. I can’t seem to break out of it sometimes, and pushing people away seems to be the only way that I can get some alone time to actually think. Or be. Or fuck, I don’t know. Deal with the bullshit that’s swirling around me.”
Her mouth fell open. “Depression? You have depression?”
“Depression that’s also seasonal. Meaning, in the winter months, it gets worse,” I admitted.
This was stuff that I should’ve told her years ago. Before she’d ever agreed to marry me.
Yet, I was a selfish asshole, and did stuff that benefited me. As in, she made me happy, she was the perfect cover up, and she got me out of a relationship with Mimi that was slowly suffocating me.