Page 20

Chapter

Twenty

PIPER

I hate how he can read me so well. Everything he said was spot on.

With a bat in my hand, I wait on the other side of my apartment door, worried the hooded figure will get clever and bust in.

I can’t make out anything other than his height and build, which is tall and lanky. Broad in the shoulders. But he hovers just outside of my peephole view finder until Adon’s truck pulls into the parking lot. As soon as the loud muffler roars, the guy takes off down the stairs.

I fling my door open and chase after him screaming, “Stay away from me!” With a wild swing of the bat, I try to find him, but he’s nowhere to be seen when I run out the back door of the building.

Adon rushes toward me and grabs my shoulders. “Rosy. I told you to stay inside, little girl. Upstairs, now .”

Hustling back to my place, Adon lingers to grab his overnight bag from the bed of his truck and scours the tree line behind us. His hand brushes against my lower back as I open the door. Freckles pounces on him like an attack kitty, but Adon bends down to scoop him up and gives him a few love strokes.

After relaying a detailed recount of everything that happened, I yawn heavily. “I have to work in the morning, and I know you hate it here. If you want to go back home?—”

“Absolutely not. I love being wherever you are.”

We settle into my sofa bed, and I turn off the lamp, then press my cheek against his bare chest. “You were absolutely right, Adon. I’m scared. And feel unworthy.”

His deep bass rattles in his chest as he murmurs, “I love you. Just the way you are. Perfect for me.”

He’s like jazz. Smooth, comfortable, and makes me feel safe . When I think about him and what he’s done for me, who he has been for me, such a patient man by my side, I get tears in my eyes. The chaotic storm in my head grows silent when I’m with him.

“I love you, Adon.”

Voice deepening with sleep, he tugs me tighter. “I love you, Rosy.”

The next morning, he leaves early, but tells me to meet him at an address I don’t recognize after my shift. I dress in an orange paisley short button-up dress with a wide belt and white mod boots, then head to Rainy Day for a much-needed latte.

Maggie eyes me suspiciously as I give her a bright smile. “Why do you look like that?” she asks.

“I’m just happy. And tell Bob I’m paying.” It’s not much, but I’ve saved up about thirty dollars to cover my enormous tab. Bob’s head pokes out from behind the kitchen door, and his jaw drops as he sees me flash the cash at the register.

Grabbing my hot cup to go, I head toward the exit, but am halted when my mother pipes up from an empty seat. “Piper!”

A grimace forms across my lips, but I can make an excuse that I don’t have much time before work. “Hello, Mother.”

“Hello to you, too. Don’t act like that. Sit down and drink coffee with your mother.”

“My shift starts soon and?—”

“Oh, yes. Your little job. Well, you can spare five minutes.”

Slumping into the chair across from her, I wait for some negative comment to spew from her mouth.

“Always so dramatic.” She reaches across the table to grab a few sugar packets and pours them into her coffee, then sticks some in her purse. The motion triggers my memories from that day Meghan was murdered.

“Mom?”

Her green eyes flash to mine. I rarely call her that. “Yes?”

“Did you know Meghan Martinez? Like, before that day?”

She snorts a laugh. “The day before she choked, you mean? I’d seen her around with your father. But I heard he got himself into hot water with that one. Threatening to sue him for sexual harassment. Serves him right.”

My eyebrows meet, and I get a nauseating feeling deep in my belly. I lean across the table, whispering harshly, “Did you put something in her drink?”

A haughty expression coats her made-up face. “Oh, nothing serious , Piper.” She giggles. Actually giggles , as if recalling what she had done.

“Mother, what did you do?”

“Bitch had it coming to her. I put a little liquid stool softener in her coffee, that’s it.”

It feels like I’m having a heart attack. “What if she was allergic to that? What if you…” My voice drops even lower. “Mom? What if you killed her?”

With a dismissive wave of her hand, she laughs. “You’ve always been so dramatic. Embellishing everything. It was nothing . A prank. It’s not like I murdered her. I didn’t.” Instead of a jovial expression, her face changes into something darker. “ Would I have?”

I can hardly swallow the anxious lump forming in my throat as I await her answer to her own question.

Green eyes meet mine with a solid seriousness that steals my breath.

“ Yes . And would be quite happy about it.”

I’ve been furious with my family. Grown to hate them, even. Embarrassed and avoidant, sure. But afraid ?

Not until this moment.

I’m not even sure I tell her goodbye before I stand and leave, wandering toward the library in a rushed haze.

What do normal people do in this situation? Ones without sick fucks for parents. People that can hold more than one feeling at once and be okay with all of them. Perhaps even name them all. I’m sure there are fully productive members of society who have a tangled mess of thoughts like this and know exactly what to do about each one.

Instead, I feel fragmented. Like my body is split into hundreds of shards of who I used to be. There’s a memory of her…but she doesn’t exist any longer.

Are my parents murderers ? My hands slap at my cheeks. What if they were in this together?

I believe my feet make it into the library. My hands hang my jacket up on the coat hook. Thighs help me sit on a chair.

But I’m not here .

Do I call the police?

Just thinking about that makes me want to vomit. Sure, my parents have been horrid, but they are still the ones who raised me. So I shouldn’t turn them in, right?

“Piper!”

My attention snaps back to reality as Shanna barks at me.

“What?”

“You remember you’re staying late today, right? I’m heading out.”

“Um, yes. Closing,” I hear myself say absently.

Visitors bring books to the front. The machine beeps. Hushed whispers float through the air. Book covers crinkle. My phone buzzes repeatedly. Somehow, it ends up being quitting time. I put on my jacket and step outside.

Am I falling into another hole? Go back to my place and hide?

Another vibration in my pocket makes me shake off the doldrums for a moment, but my heart sinks when I read how many missed calls from Adon I have. Oh…no.

Hurriedly, I press his number.

“Rosy…seriously. I stayed there for an hour. You never answered my calls or my texts.”

“Please don’t be mad. I forgot.”

He stays silent and guilt slams into my guts like a pallet of bricks.

“I-I’ll meet you at the address now! I swear!”

“Fine.”

It’s only two blocks over to the address Adon gave me, but by the time I arrive, I worry I’m at the wrong place. The glass front store has brown paper covering the windows and looks abandoned. Parts of the old sign are visible, but not readable, broken. Possibly, it was shattered at one time.

Just like me.

I don’t even hear him approach, but his irritation is palpable. “Why were you late?”

Tears line my lower lids as I glance up at him. “Oh, you know me.”

“Rosy…I wanted to give you a gift. And it doesn’t seem like you’re very into it.” One of his hands rubs against the side of his head as he sighs deeply. “Very into me.”

That just makes me burst out in pain. Sobs wrack my chest as I shake violently. He’s so wrong about that. But maybe it’s for the best.

Huge arms collapse around my chest as he carries me toward the annex that holds the front door, away from the people mulling along the street. He sets me on my feet to face him and lifts my chin up with a crooked finger underneath.

“You have to tell me. What’s going on? And I don’t want to hear about your day; I mean, who did this to you? ”

My wails don’t stop, even as I huff out some explanation. “My parents. My sister. No one. Me. I did it to myself.”

From his back pocket, he produces his soft handkerchief and presses it to the flowing tears over my cheeks. His gesture gives me time to take a deep breath, but I can’t look into his eyes.

“What is this place?” I ask, hiccupping air.

“Let me show you,” he says, reaching around me to open the glass door. “Realtor left it open for us.”

Instantly, I sneeze at the dust that blows out to the street and the scent of mildew lurking inside. The dank and dark interior hasn’t seen a soul for years, I’d imagine. But it’s a little store. One with two glass counters, a space for a table or two, and a swinging door to a back area.

Adon looks around the walls, then finds a light switch and flips it on, then holds my hand and leads me to the back.

I gasp, inhaling more of the cloud of old air. “It’s a bakery.”

Stainless-steel industrial looking ovens and a large refrigerator line the back wall. On the side is an oversized sink for dishwashing. Pastry racks on rollers are strewn about the small area. In the center is a large table for rolling dough. Pink tiles cover the floors. It’s quaint and cute. The kind of place where I’d love to bake some cookies—well, after a good cleaning.

“You wanted to show me a bakery?” I ask as Adon kneads his thumb into my palm.

“I wanted to buy you a bakery.”

I clutch my chest. “What? Adon, I can’t accept this from you!”

Large hands grip my shoulders as he turns me to look him in the eyes. “Do you want to be with me forever?”

The sadness from outside strikes me once again. It’s now or never. And I can’t lose him over this, over keeping this locked inside. “I have to tell you something,” I tell him shakily.

“Anything.”

“Maeve had a boyfriend in high school named Noah. She was so in love with him. One day after school, he was waiting for her to come home from student council and I let him in. He wanted to hang out and get to know ‘ Maeve’s little sister ’ better, he said. Being older and one of the cool guys in school, I saw him as really cute, and I liked him, but I was only thirteen at the time and didn’t really know any better.

“After trying to impress him with my punk rock knowledge, he said he didn’t believe that I had as many records as I did. And I fell for it, even invited him up to my room. We were sitting on my bed, and he said that he felt terrible because he had a bigger crush on me than my sister. I hate that it made me feel like I’d just won something over her. That I’d one upped her in some way.”

It’s hard for me to continue, so I take a pause and swallow. Adon remains still for a moment, waiting. Then he grabs my waist and hoists me onto the stainless-steel table until my legs wrap around to his back. We’re face to face, like I can’t escape the words that are about to come from my mouth. But if he wants to be with me forever, he needs to know this. To understand me completely.

Or maybe I just need to tell someone.

“Anyway, he started kissing me, and I thought it was amazing. In fact, all the things he did seemed great… Until they weren’t. I didn’t want to have sex with him.” My fingernails rake against my chest where he ripped off my shirt. It’s harder to breathe as I get to this part. “I just sort of fought , you know. But he was so much bigger. And…”

Wiping away the tingles in my forehead, I say the words as if they happened to someone else. Not me. “And he raped me. He held me down while I screamed. To silence me, he slapped my face. None of it was the way I wanted it. It hurt.”

Saying what happened aloud makes me feel like I’m on a roller coaster. And now that I’ve started, it’s impossible to stop. I keep talking in a stream of consciousness while Adon maintains his fierce gaze on my face. “After, he sat up and made me feel good about what happened, or just more confused. Somehow, he convinced me that I wanted it. That we were covertly together or something.”

My hands swipe at my cheeks to gather some tears there. “But I didn’t want it to happen again…or maybe I did. I’m not sure. There was blood everywhere.” I look at the counter beneath me, but all I see are my blue and red sheets coated with russet stains. “For a week, I didn’t say anything. He didn’t come back for a few days, and when he did, he’d wink at me over Maeve’s head, like we had some secret. That’s…that’s how it started. He’d tell me not to say anything or Maeve would break up with him, and I didn’t want to cause a fight. But I never enjoyed myself.”

I try to steady my voice. “Finally, a few weeks later, I was sick of it. The guilt was tearing me up inside, and I didn’t like the smell of him on my body anymore. No matter how many showers I’d take, I couldn’t wash it away. And those fucking stains on my sheets… So, I told Maeve and my mother. Told them what he had done to me.”

I lift my eyes up to my boyfriend, who holds his breath in his broad chest. “And?” he grits out, like he wants to say more.

“And they didn’t believe me. Noah already told Maeve that I was flirting with him too much. And that I had a little crush on him. He was even telling them I made him uncomfortable .”

Adon’s hands ball into fists on either side of my hips. “What about your father?”

I shrug. “He said to stop being so dramatic. My mom had already told him that I was delusional. That I made up stories and tried to ruin the family. It got to the point that I was questioning myself, wondering if it truly happened. To feel something real , I would take a box cutter and slice pieces of my skin just to watch it bleed, then place the drops against my sheets. It was the same. Like some genuine piece of evidence that I hadn’t imagined it. So was the pain.”

Shaking my head, I relax into my body. It’s heavy, tired. “I didn’t even trust my own memories at that point. Maybe I was lying and didn’t realize it. If my thoughts weren’t real, if I wasn’t real, if my own family knew I lived in a dream state, then what was the point of living? It’s not like I’d be giving up anything… So I tried to cut deeper and deeper. Until I cut deep enough that I woke up in a hospital.”

Adon’s hand moves to my back as he caresses me slowly, gently, almost hovering with his warmth to encourage me to finish my story. “And then a psychiatric ward. I went to therapy for years after. But I convinced myself that even she didn’t believe me. Maybe because I didn’t believe myself. No one did.”

His forehead rests against mine as he speaks against my mouth, allowing me to breathe in his validation. “I believe you. And it wasn’t your fault.”

“It was… I should have never?—”

“Piper. Stop.” He grabs the back of my neck. “It wasn’t your fucking fault.”

I don’t think I’ve seen him this angry, and the fact that he believes me, the intensity of his stare, makes me melt against his chest. His arms encircle me tightly as he clings to me as much as I do to him.

“Rosy, if you think that changes shit about how I feel, you’re sorely mistaken. I’m so glad you felt okay to tell me. But this doesn’t break you. It’s just more evidence of how broken everyone around you is. You were a child, and people should have been there to take care of you. They let you down.”

He gives me a little space, leaning on his hands resting on either side of me, and says, “Piper, you survived . Look at you. You’re here. You made it.”

Glancing around the room, I don’t see a dusty old kitchen.

I see a life I never allowed myself to dream about because those were always slaughtered in my brain.

I see the man who loves me enough to take all my past and fight for me.

“I love you, Adon. I do. Thank you.”

My nose is so swollen, and I can’t breathe when he places his lips to my heated ones briefly. “I love you, my rosy girl. And you deserve this.” His hand waves around the room as he stands, but I grab his shirt and tug him back toward me.

“You really want to buy me this place?”

“Okay, well. I’m buying it under the Griffin Family Motors company, but I do need an employee. So, I’d be your boss, but yes. I need a baker.” I’m stunned into silence for once, and he smiles. “Good thing my girlfriend is an amazing one.”

Latching onto him like a koala, I squeeze his huge body while envisioning something I haven’t ever allowed myself to imagine.

A future.