“Oh, um …” Me? Why would she want to get to know me?
She looked at me so hopefully. “Please?”
“Okay.”
That exuberant grin spread over her face again. “Awesome.”
I sat at the island on one of the stools as Chloe unpacked the bag of groceries on the counter that she must have brought with her when she arrived.
Gabriel came in the kitchen and took us in, his eyes lingering on me for a moment before he turned to Chloe. “You sure you’re okay doing this? We could just order takeout.”
“Gosh, no. I’m so happy you’re letting me cook for you. Honestly, Gabriel, after all you’re doing for me, a home-cooked meal is the very least I can do. Don’t deprive me of showing my gratitude. It wouldn’t be nice of you.” She shot him a teasing smile.
He chuckled. “All right, then. Thank you.” He turned back to me. “You good?” His eyes were soft as he seemed to assess how I was sitting, where my leg was propped, his gaze like a warm ray of sunshine washing over me.
“Yeah, I’m good.”
“Okay. I’m going to do a little yard work while you two are in here. I’ve been neglecting this place, and the weeds are taking over.”
“Six o’clock,” Chloe called as he left the kitchen.
“I’ll be here,” he called back.
Chloe turned her smiling face to me, halting in her work. “He’s really … God, he’s just extraordinary, isn’t he?”
Extraordinary. Oh yes, he is that. I nodded. “He is,” I murmured.
Chloe cocked her head, studying me. “I have to admit, when I first talked to him on the phone, I couldn’t help wondering if he was single.” Oh. There was a small, strange, sinking feeling inside me. “But now, seeing the way he looks at you …”
My eyes snapped to hers. “Oh, no. He’s just … we’re only friends, I mean.”
If we see each other naked again …
A warm blush moved up my neck at the memory of the words. Chloe shook her head, a smile tipping her lips. “Oh no, Ellie. The way he looks at you is many things, but friendly is not one of them. He has feelings for you. And if that man has feelings for you, you must be someone very special.”
Just as quickly as joy had run down my spine at her declaration that Gabriel had feelings for me, so now did insecurity and a sense of defeat. I laughed, a humorless sound. “I’m no one special, I can assure you of that.”
Chloe turned, setting a handful of vegetables that she had just gathered from the refrigerator onto the counter. A look of alarm came over her face, and she took my hands in hers across the island, startling me. “Oh, Ellie, I barely know you and I can already tell that’s not true.” She grinned and squeezed my hands before letting go. I couldn’t help the affection that flushed my cheeks at her compliment. Girls had never been kind to me, and I felt strangely shy. She was everything I wasn’t; she was friendly and open, quick to smile and easy to laugh. Pure. Sweet.
“So what do you do?”
Here we go. I watched as Chloe searched for something in a few cabinets, pulling out a cutting board and placing it on the counter. “I’m a stripper.” I stilled as I waited for her reaction.
She halted what she was doing, her eyes widening slightly. “Are you really? God, I’ve always had this secret fantasy about trying that. It must be liberating to feel so free with your body.” She grabbed an onion and started chopping it.
I frowned. “Um, no, actually. I’ve never thought of it that way. I don’t enjoy it. I just sort of … fell into it, I guess.” I sighed. “I won’t say it wasn’t a choice because we all make choices, right?”
Chloe glanced up at me, pausing only momentarily in her chopping. “I suppose, but ‘choice’ is such a loaded word, isn’t it?”
I turned that over, putting it away to think about later. “I suppose.”
“Anyway, if you didn’t like stripping, maybe your accident will be one of those things that you look back on later as the catalyst that changed things for the better. You know, the thing that motivated you to take a different path.”
You’re going the wrong way. You must turn back, sweetness.
I stared at her, thinking about how confident she sounded, how neat and tidy her conclusions were. If you’re not happy, just make a change. No problem. Easy peasy. Those were the conclusions of someone who had never really struggled, didn’t know that it wasn’t only fists that broke you and beat you bloody—no, life itself could do that just as easily, maybe more so. She didn’t understand the soul-deep agony of loss, of being left behind, terrorized, cast out, taken advantage of. She didn’t realize that your heart could hurt so badly you just wanted to curl up inside yourself and never come out again. And yet I couldn’t resent her for that. I envied her for it.
“It wasn’t exactly an accident. Three men assaulted me.”
The knife Chloe was using clattered to the granite counter. “Oh, Ellie! That’s absolutely awful. Were they arrested?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
She looked relieved. “Oh thank goodness.” Still she shook her head, a look of compassionate distress on her face. “God, you’ve had it rough. I’m so sorry.”
She picked up the knife and held it out, wielding it as if she intended to use it as a weapon. “I’d like to be left alone in a room with this knife and the so-called men who would attack a woman. I’d carve them up.” She swiped the knife through the air, and I felt a momentary twinge of shock before a laugh erupted from my throat. It was so strange to see this sweet, innocent-looking girl wielding a chef’s knife as if she were a pretty version of Zorro.
She stopped, the fierce look dissolving into a grin as she laughed with me. I bent forward, gasping for air, my ribs hurting with the hilarity moving through me. “Ouch.” I laughed again.
After a few minutes we collected ourselves, and Chloe went back to chopping, a few stray chuckles still bursting forth here and there.
“Is there another cutting board under there?”
“Yes, hold on.” Chloe grabbed another cutting board, a knife, and a basket of mushrooms and put them in front of me, and I began slicing.
“So, Gabriel said your paper’s about kids who were abducted and then came home?” I asked after a minute.
“Yes, specifically, it’s about the long-term psychological effects.” She tilted her head. “The majority of my research has been done using case studies, so I was really lucky that Gabriel agreed to be interviewed.” She shook her head, laying her knife down, and took the chopped onion in her hands and threw it in the large skillet on the stovetop. She turned back, grabbing a paper towel and wiping her hands. “I have to say, I expected someone … different. Not so well adjusted, so …”
“Solid,” I supplied.
Her eyes met mine and she smiled. “Yes. Solid. That’s a good word to describe him. There’s something so amazingly strong about him. Remarkable, really.” We worked in silence for a minute. “I’m fascinated by the reasons one person breaks while another who’s experienced a similar trauma survives and thrives. The mind is such a fascinating thing—and there are always so many variables. I could discuss psychology all day long.”