Page 66 of A Summer to Save Us

The Majestic Yosemite is a hotel for well-off people like professors, doctors, and lawyers.

It’s a stone palace in which wooden elements fit seamlessly.

The lobby’s furnishings are impressive, with glittering chandeliers, baroque velvet armchairs, antique wooden tables, and a gigantic fireplace with a crackling fire.

Obviously, Dad won’t let me leave, as I expected, since it’s almost dark now.

Since I can’t stand being in the same room as Arizona, I pace like a madwoman through the reception area, the hotel’s own candy store, and the bar, followed by Dad or James, who don’t take their eyes off me for a second.

Every ten minutes, I send River messages, but he doesn’t reply.

All the messages remain unread. Maybe his phone is still in the planter.

At some point, I sit in front of the fireplace and stare into the flames without seeing them. James, who is on “Kansas patrol,” sinks next to me on the velvet sofa.

“I’m sorry, Kans,” he says quietly.

I don’t know what he’s referring to. That he fooled me as Mr. Spock or that I lost the love of my life?

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you better,” he says now, looking into the crackling fire.

It radiates a pleasant warmth, but it doesn’t reach me.

My bones feel cold, as if there was a layer of polar ice in my marrow.

“I was hurt because you simply excluded me from your life. I was angry with you, Kans. So angry.”

“Is that why you started to either ignore me or yell at me?” I ask bitterly.

He swallows, and out of the corner of my eye, I see him rubbing his hands over his thighs—something he only does when he’s uncomfortable. “Maybe.”

“Have you ever wondered why I stopped speaking?”

“That’s why I invented Mr. Spock. I thought that when you stopped talking to me, you might tell him—a stranger who knows nothing about you and has nothing to do with this family.

But you never revealed much to him either.

” He looks at me with his warm, dark brown eyes, and only now do I realize how much I’ve missed him this last year—how far we’ve grown apart, and that it was partly my fault.

“How bad was it, Kans?” he asks softly.

“Bad,” I answer tonelessly, feeling my throat constrict at the memory of Kensington.

It seems so far away, and yet just the thought of it brings pain and physical tension.

I see myself from a bird’s eye view—a girl being pushed around like a punching bag, dunked in buckets of water, and held down.

Out of habit, I press my nails into my palm, but I consciously stop the gesture and instead grasp the signaling device.

“They pushed me, beat me... held my head underwater in buckets in whatever storage room they could find.” I force myself to reply, sounding emotionless as if it hadn’t happened to me but to someone else.

“I constantly had bruises all over my upper body.”

James blanches. I suspect he’s just realizing the connection between my choice of clothes and the torture. “I didn’t do anything to them, but they never left me alone...” Because of Chester. Because he wanted something from me that I wouldn’t give him. At least, I was strong enough for that.

James’ eyes are moist. Repeatedly, he shakes his head and then reaches for my hand, but I pull it back. Somehow, that’s still too much for me.

He looks at me, concerned. “Why didn’t you tell us? We could have helped you.”

How do you tell someone that you were ashamed? That you were embarrassed by always being the victim—being weak and unable to defend yourself? And I was always afraid that they wouldn’t believe me.

I peer into the fire. “I wanted to jump, you know...” I fiddle with River’s much too big black sweater. It still smells of him and feels like him—a gentle touch against my skin. “I wanted to do it at Old Sheriff, but River stopped me...”

“Oh, Kans.”

“I couldn’t take it anymore. They, well...” I pause. No, I can’t tell him.

“Kans, tell me, please! What else did they do? What happened?” My brother’s voice rises, growing angry, as if he already knows.

I swallow and shake my head. No, I won’t tell him. I can’t.

The fire crackles, and suddenly, there’s a loud ruckus at the hotel entrance. James and I turn at the same time and I spot the Davenports, well, Chester, his father, and an older man. Maybe Chester’s grandfather, the senator from Minneapolis he used to brag about.

I immediately stand. Chester is the last person I want to see right now, and it would also eliminate the awkward conversation.

James also stands as Clark Davenport waves him over from the reception desk. “Wait here, don’t go away. I want to continue this conversation.”

Not me. I nod anyway and pray that Chester doesn’t come over. I feel his gaze sticking to me like syrup, but I’m distracted by my phone vibrating.

River! With my heart pounding, I pull the phone out of my pocket, glance at the display, and disappointment pierces my chest like a rock shard. It’s not a message from River but Zozoo.

My fingers are shaking. With a lot of luck, River has contacted him. Maybe he knows something.

With a thousand thoughts plaguing my mind, I follow the signs to the ladies’ room and leave the pompous foyer.

At the end of a wood-paneled corridor, I reach the toilets and disappear inside.

It’s a luxury version where the cubicle walls extend from floor to ceiling.

The anteroom is tiled in green and gold, and everything sparkles as if it’s been polished to a high gloss.

I glance around. All the cubicle doors are wide open, and no one is here, so I can make a phone call in peace.

I’m about to tap the number I’ve saved when the heavy door is shoved open.

It’s Chester.

In shock, the phone slips out of my hand and lands with a clatter on the tiled floor.

“A message from your new lover? Mr. Asher Blackwell?” He briefly checks the room and closes the door.

“You know, I have no idea which one of you is crazier.” With that familiar gleam in his eyes, he approaches me step by step, and all my words are lost as if someone had sucked them out of me.

“You’d better tell us everything you know.

My dad isn’t a particularly patient man, and you lied to him. ”

I want to push past him, but the old fear inside me paralyzes my legs.

“None of what happened at Kensington had to happen. It was your fault. I would have protected you, but you didn’t want me to.

” He laughs as if he’s genuinely amused.

“The wonderful Kansas Montgomery... A sack of rice in China is more interesting than you.” He pushes me roughly into the stall, making me stumble and crash into the wall.

A stabbing pain shoots through my shoulder.

I want to react, but he’s faster. He grabs me by the neck and presses me angrily against the cold tiles.

“I have no idea why I wanted you.” He kicks the stall door shut and locks it with his free hand, without loosening his grip on my throat.

“I have no idea what Tanner wants from you. Or you from him.” He bends down to me from above until his face is close to mine.

It seems inflated and huge, like a floating helium balloon.

I want to scream, to fight back, but it’s as if I’m stuck in the past. I’m paralyzed.

He stares at me without blinking. “Do you know what pisses me off the most about this whole thing? It’s that you chose that freak over me.

The freak who only goes on stage in his stupid demon mask like a fucking coward.

Yes, he’s Asher Blackwell, but he’s also a sick asshole!

The loser that a nation mistakenly cheers.

A ruthless egomaniac who only loves himself and no one else.

He used you! And you let him use you!” He shakes his head in disbelief, and his fingers tighten around my neck. Panicking, I tug at his arm.

“Put your hands down,” he says dangerously soft as he squeezes even harder.

I do as he says. I can hardly breathe. My throat burns like a thousand fires.

“Girl number three, Betty Dawson? She was just as stupid as you. He almost had her there. She almost got better, but she pinned all her hopes on him. Well... She stuck to him like chewing gum. When he told her that he only wanted to be friends and that there would only ever be one girl for him, she freaked out and overdosed on sleeping pills. Thirty Valium. That wasn’t a cry for help. ” His words make me dizzy.

“She’s dead, Kansas. And it was his fault.

” His face is still close to mine. I want to turn my head to the side, but his grip is too tight.

His vinegary breath, which stinks of pickles, sickens me.

“I’d love to know everything he told you.

Everything he promised you.” He presses me against the wall with his body.

It’s like before. I can’t get away, and he does what he wants.

“Did you think he could save you? Save you from what? Your miserable, pathetic life in Cottage Grove? Did you try to run away from us all?”

I try to swallow but can’t. Stop! Let me go! I want to scream or whisper.

Chester’s eyes glow and darken. They’re so close to mine that they fill my field of vision. Like a black flood that pushes me underwater, suffocating and burying me. “You’re going to regret this, Kans,” he whispers. “All of this. This whole summer. Today and at Kensington.”

At that moment, I realize he doesn’t yet know that I can speak again. James hasn’t told him, and neither has my dad.

Do it! Scream! You can do it!

I open my mouth, but the next moment, he whirls me around, grabs me by the back of the neck, and slams my forehead into the tiles. “Hold still!” Tears well up in my eyes.

He presses me face down against the stall wall with his hand on my neck, and I hear the clinking sound that comes from unbuckling a belt.

Scream!

My throat, however, feels like it’s in a noose. I barely notice what’s happening, only feel Chester’s brutal grip, his body close behind me, and the red panic that divides the moment into sequences.

I’m helpless again, and for a second, I want to let myself fall back into the silence, where everything hurts less, but then I feel something against my leg, on my thigh. It pinches because Chester is pressing me so tightly against the wall.

Oh God!

My heart is racing. Chester is tugging at my pants, and my fingers are groping nervously for the black pendant that I’ve carried with me since River gave it to me.

With a strong tug, I pull the metal pin out of the signaling device, and a deafening shrill sound fills the stall so loudly that Chester suddenly releases me.

“Help!” I scream as the noise frees me from my paralysis. “Help! Fire! Help!”

Chester’s eyes widen when he understands. He immediately grabs me and covers my mouth.

“Turn that thing off, now!” he growls as he searches for the pin, momentarily distracted. This is my chance. I kick him in the shin as hard as I can with the heavy-duty hiking boot and shove him to the side. I unlock the door, pull on the handle...

And run straight into my brother.