My phone woke me up the next morning and groggily I answered it. At first there was no response to my hello so I said, “Mitchell…is that you?”
The voice on the other end finally said, “No, Parker, it’s me…”
I sat straight up in bed, suddenly wide awake. “Quinn! Are you okay?”
It was hard to hear because he had to whisper, but I made out, “I’m okay…I’m alive at least. Be careful of Mitchell, you can’t believe him, do you hear me? Baby, I love you and miss you so much…I just want you to be safe. Do not trust him at all, he’s working with Elizabeth and she…” the phone cut off at that point.
I screamed into the phone, “Quinn! Quinn! Answer me!” I looked at my phone and it said call ended. I didn’t even get to say I love you back.
My breath caught in my throat. Surely he's mistaken about Mitchell. He cannot be working with Elizabeth that’s impossible. If I can’t trust Mitchell, I have no one left. Why would Quinn lie to me though? I know he wouldn’t. That means that something has caused Quinn to feel that way and it must be pretty convincing. Anytime I have been in trouble before there is no one he would have trusted to protect me more than Mitchell. I paced the room thinking about what happened the night before…the kiss.
My hand went to my lips as the memory of his lips on mine, our body’s pressed against each other, the feel of…Okay, Parker, get a grip. The big picture, the question of the moment, can you trust Mitchell? Things began to fall into place though. He spoke to her on the phone and she let him talk to Quinn, but she played games with me. Mitchell might have kissed me to try and break us apart. But that's crazy he loves Jackie, doesn’t he? Not to mention, he was locked in a cave and no one led me to him, I came to the idea to go there on my own. There's no way he would have set it up for me to find him there. Then again, someone has been messing with Will and Jackie’s minds, what if they have messed with mine as well? Flopping down on the bed, I took the pillow and placed it over my face as I screamed into it. What am I going to do now?
There was a tap on my window, I removed the pillow and looked over slowly and there was Mitchell holding up a take-out bag and smiling at me. He was so sweet; there's no way he can be a bad guy. If he was, then I am all alone and I'm not ready for that to be true. I stared at him and it must have been too long because his smile faded and he started to look worried. He mouthed, “Are you OK?”
My face must have said 'no' because he frantically tried to open the window. I waved my hands at him to stop and then walked over to the window and opened it for him. He slid inside, threw the bag on my desk, and grabbed my shoulders. “Are you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Did you hear from Quinn?”
Backing up from him, I stuttered, “How did you know that?” I fell backwards on the bed and scrambled to get up.
Mitchell looked confused, “What's wrong, Parker? You're acting like you're scared of me.”
This can’t be happening. Mitchell is the only person I can still trust. I had my back to him and he put his arms around me and nuzzled his face in my neck. “I'd never hurt you Lupita.” His arms around me felt so comforting; I let myself relax in his arms. Quinn had to be wrong.
Turning to face him, I said, “I’m OK, Mitchell, I just had a bad dream. Yes, I heard from Quinn and the phone cut off and I don’t know what happened to him.” Yes, some things were left out, but I didn’t want to upset Mitchell…or tip him off.
He hugged me again, “I’m so sorry, Park.” He pulled back and looked at my face. “I brought you breakfast. Will you sit and eat with me? You need your strength so we can go looking for Quinn today.”
I smiled at him and agreed with a nod. If he wants to look for Quinn, it has to be a good thing. Please let Quinn have been wrong.
“Oh yum, chocolate chip muffins! My fave!” I exclaimed as I opened the bag and looked inside.
He laughed, “I know, they're Jackie’s favorite too and she told me that was a tradition for you guys when you would have breakfast together.” My appetite disappeared at the mention of her name. I closed the bag and set it on the desk and sat down on the side of the bed.
“So, where do we start looking for Quinn today?” I had to change the focus because we had more important things to worry about. He walked past me, opened the bag and pulled the muffin out. He started to unwrap it and handed it to me.
“Eat first, please…for me?” Hesitantly, I took the muffin and as soon as I took the first bite my appetite returned, it was delicious. After I had finished, my senses seemed to return as well. “I’m sorry Mitchell, for freaking out on you this morning…it’s just been…”
He put his hand on my leg to stop me. “You don’t have to apologize. It's all good, don’t worry.”
He leaned toward me and it was obvious he was coming in for a kiss. I backed away and put out my hand to stop him. “I thought we both agreed to just be friends, I love Quinn and I'm not going to cheat on him.”
Mitchell looked hurt. “I spent all last night thinking about that kiss, Parker. It felt right to me. Hell, it felt fantastic and I know you felt something too. Jackie's with Will now and, for all we know, Quinn is with Elizabeth. He made two calls to you now. How does he keep getting a phone, yet he can’t get away from her? Seems to me he wants to stay there. So I say, let him! And you and I can move on with each other…”
I couldn’t listen to any more of this so I smacked him across the face as hard as I could. “Get the hell out of my house and don’t ever come back,” I screamed at him. I didn’t realize how loud I was until my dad burst in the room and saw Mitchell sitting on my bed and the tears on my face.
My dad yanked Mitchell up by his shirt and hauled him toward the door. “Son, I don’t know what's going on here, but you don’t belong in my daughter’s bedroom, and I especially don’t like the look on her face right now.”
He tossed him into the hallway, Mitchell turned back to me, “I’m sorry, Parker. I shouldn’t have said that, please…”
I walked toward him, said “Get out!” and slammed the door in his face. I heard him trying to reason with my dad while they walked downstairs and heard the door downstairs slam. Like father like daughter, I guess.
A few minutes later, there was a knock on my door, “Princess, it’s me, can I come in?” I got up and opened the door for him. I threw my arms around him and thanked him for protecting me. “What happened, did he hurt you?” my father asked. “Because I can do a lot more than just throw him out of this house.” Shaking my head, “No, not physically. He just said something that was hurtful, but he didn’t know it would hurt me…I mean it wasn’t vindictive.”
His hands went up, “As long as he didn’t intentionally hurt you, I'm good. I just wanted to make sure you're okay. It seems pretty clear you don’t want to talk about it, so it’s fine.” He kissed my head and turned and walked out, shutting the door quietly this time.
I grabbed my hoodie off the chair, zipped it up, and crawled out the window and down the trellis. I didn’t want to worry my dad by running out on him after that. Someone steadied me as I took my last step, I turned around ready to punch Mitchell. “Will! What are you doing here?”
He smiled awkwardly, “Were you expecting someone else? I would've thought that punch was meant for me.” We stood only inches apart and it made me a bit uncomfortable. I stepped aside to open up the space between us.
The irritation in my tone was unmistakable because I was tired of dealing with all these liars, “Yeah, I thought you were someone else…so as I said, what are you doing here?” He looked like he was trying to find a way to phrase his answer so I took a deep breath and started to walk away.
He grabbed my arm, “I’m worried about you. You haven’t been to school and Jackie and I feel terrible about what happened. I came to tell you the truth, about everything, including Quinn.”
I let out a huff, “So now you k
now who Quinn is all of a sudden? That's convenient.”
He looked down in embarrassment and quietly said, “Can we go somewhere and talk privately?”
Motioning for him to follow me, we got in my car and drove for a while. I pulled over on the side of the road and turned the car off. “So, tell me the truth,” I said annoyed, as I turned and faced him.
He looked ashamed, but started with, “I remember Quinn, and you and I never dated.”
My head hurts and I couldn’t take much more of this, “What the hell does that mean? Why would you lie about that? I freaking thought you had been brainwashed, you and Jackie both!”
Will continued, “You were so hurt by him leaving that Jackie and I thought it would be better to pretend as though he never existed. Jackie and Mitchell were done and she thought you were both better off without those guys so she came up with the idea for me to act as if we dated. You'd been in a cave for a while and you had an infection in your body so we knew your memory would be foggy. We never expected to fall for each other in the process and we ended up ruining everything and pushing you away. Neither of us wanted that."
"We think Mitchell's back in town now. Jackie has been getting strange calls and she's scared. He didn’t cheat on her like we said…The truth is, he almost killed her and I had to save her life by staking him. We locked in him a cave, the one where you guys thought I was buried, but he got out somehow and now we're worried he's going to come back, so we had to make sure you knew not to trust him. He and Quinn lied about me being dead and I'm not sure why. They left me in the woods and I had to heal myself.”
He paused for a moment and added, “He locked you in that cave and left you to die, Parker…Mitchell did, and he convinced Quinn to go along with it. It must've been hard on Quinn. I guess the guy did care about you somewhat, so he left town and that's when Mitchell attacked Jackie. You have to believe us; we were doing what's best for you.”
My head was spinning now, all these stories, all these lies or truths, I don’t know what to believe, who to trust. I don’t know anything anymore. My stomach was overcome with nausea. I put my head against the steering wheel trying to collect my bearings.
“Parker?” Will reached out and touched my arm.
In anger, I knocked his hand away and screamed, “I am so sick of this, I don’t know who's telling me the truth anymore! You and Jackie were my friends, but you’ve been lying to me. Mitchell was my friend, but what he just did…” I stopped myself mid sentence realizing I was supposed to pretend Mitchell was still out of town.
Will looked alarmed, “Have you seen Mitchell? Parker…tell me! You could be in danger.” Opening the car door, I stepped out to get some fresh air and he was right behind me getting out of the car. He came over beside me and put his arm on my shoulder, again I smacked it off.
“Stop touching me, Will!” Desperate to get away, I took off running into the woods and Will took off after me yelling my name.
The trees were blurry as I kept running and looking back. He was right behind me. I tried to outrun him, but it wasn’t working. He screamed my name again. I turned around to see where he was and all of a sudden I was tumbling on the ground and rolling around with someone’s arms around me. I fought to get free. “Let go of me, Will. Let go!” I was hitting him and realized it wasn’t Will, it was Mitchell and I was on top of him. I jumped up screaming and stumbled backwards. Mitchell stood with his hands up in surrender. “it’s just me, Parker. I'm not going to hurt you…but he might,” he said as he pointed at Will, who had reached us.
“Parker, did he hurt you?” Will asked. My head was swimming in uncertainty. My stance was wide so that my balance didn’t waver and I kept looking back and forth between Will and Mitchell. My stomach was in knots, I was petrified because I didn’t know which one was trustworthy. I know now that one of them has betrayed me on purpose, no brainwashing involved.
Will reached into his pocket and a gulp of air caught in my throat, until I saw he pulled out his cell phone. He dialed a number and put it on speakerphone. “Jackie, it’s Will, I have Parker here and Mitchell's here too…” Jackie screamed on the line, “What?! Did Mitchell hurt either of you?” I turned and looked at Mitchell, who rolled eyes and yelled, “Jackie, what the hell are you talking about…I'd never hurt anyone and you know that. Tell the truth!”
Will spoke this time, “Jackie, I need you to tell Parker what’s been going on. She's confused and doesn’t know who to believe, I know she'll believe you.” He held the phone out to me, but I shook my head 'no,' I couldn’t take anymore. “OK, baby, I'm going to leave you on speaker, go ahead…”
Hearing Will call her baby made me cringe and I could see it affected Mitchell as well. Jackie’s voice sounded, “Parker, Mitchell tried to kill me. He and Quinn tried to get rid of Will. We didn’t want to tell you because I knew how hurt you would be. You have to believe me though sweetie, you can’t trust him. We locked him in a cave and somehow he got out…”
I cut her off, “Shut up! All of you have lied to me and I'm sick of it. Just leave me alone! If any one of you cares about me, you will leave me the hell alone.”
Will stepped toward me and Mitchell growled at him and I ran as fast as my legs would allow.
The road was coming into sight, I could see my car up ahead and I got to it as fast as possible. As it started up, I saw Will step into view. He yelled my name, but I ignored him and drove away. My phone rang and it was Jackie, I didn’t answer. My phone rang again and it was Mitchell this time. What am I going to do? I have no one I can trust, including the man I love. I wanted to be at the waterfall, I could think there, but it would be the obvious place for them to look for me. My inner thoughts were screaming in perplexity.
My hands were shaking; I glanced in the rearview mirror to make sure no one was following me. The phone rang again, but this time it was my mother, but I was not in the mood to talk to her right now. I silenced the phone and, as my eyes went back to the road, something jumped out in front of my car and I swerved to miss it and ran off the road, almost hitting a tree.
Chapter Nineteen