Is Will like his dad? Did the man really rape and kill little girls? What sort of sick fuck is his father anyway? Would Will do something like that?
Those words, the rumors, they hurt. Everything hurts. All of it.
Everything.
“So.” Dr. Sheila Harris’s pause is heavy, full of all sorts of unspoken questions. She’s watching me, her iPad resting on her lap, her expression expectant. I’d come to this appointment reluctantly, exhausted from having to constantly analyze my behavior, how I feel. It never stops, that how are you feeling question. How are you doing? Blah, blah, blah.
I’m over it.
“So?” I raise a brow.
Sheila’s lips twitch. So happy I can amuse her. “How are you doing?”
There it is, right on time. Do I tell her the truth or lie? I’m supposed to be completely open with Sheila. She’s the only one I can trust to give me an objective opinion. Mom and Brenna are on my side. They’ll defend me no matter what. Forget Ethan, Will, whatever the hell his name is. He wronged me. He tricked me. Therefore, he’s the bad guy. Never to be given another chance again.
It’s so easy to think along those terms, especially when I don’t have to see his face, hear his voice. If he were here, right now, standing in front of me, how would I react? Throw myself at him and pray his arms would wrap me up tight?
Or show him exactly how angry I am by saying horrible, awful things?
This is my daily struggle. I thought it would be so easy, to forget him, to move on, to be so unbelievably angry at what he’s done to me. Most of the time I feel exactly that. His betrayal cuts deep.
But there’s a secret, soft, dark spot hidden inside me that wants to forgive him. Wants to draw him back into my life. This is what happens when your heart is so thoroughly involved.
Lately, I wish I didn’t have one. That way it could never be broken.
“I’m . . .” Awful. Horrible. Devastated. Alone. “Okay.” I take a deep breath, holding it in before I slowly let it out. Trying to cleanse my mind, my heart, my soul.
It doesn’t help. The ugly, crippling blackness creeps back in, wraps itself around my mind, my heart, my soul. I’m . . . angry.
No one wants to hear that, though. Not anymore. I should be getting over it by now. That’s what my sister wants, and my mother.
Easy for them to say. They weren’t the ones who’d been so thoroughly lied to.
“Just okay? Last we talked, you were very down.” Sheila keeps her expression completely neutral. Something she’s extremely good at. How I wish I had her poker face.
More like I was depressed. I’ve moved past that. I’ve focused on my anger about what happened and it’s fueled me. Pushed me forward, encouraged me to do what I want for a change, even be a little defiant.
And I haven’t been defiant since I was twelve.
“I got sick of crying.” I shrug. I’ve shed enough tears to last fifty lifetimes.
Sheila smiles. “You’re acting rather unusual.”
“How do you mean?”
“I want to say rebellious, but I don’t know if that’s the right word.” She taps her finger against her lips, contemplating me. I sit in the chair, my arms crossed, my expression stony. I can feel how still I am as I watch her, wait for her to continue. I’m thinking rebellious is the perfect word. “Stubborn? Nonchalant? Like what Ethan did to you was no big deal.”
She brings him up. Of course. My heart freaking skips a beat every time I hear his name. Tingles sweep over me. The whole romance-novel thing happens all over again and I despise it. Even though I also miss him.
It’s infuriating, missing someone you’re angry with. The conflicting emotions seem to be in a constant battle.
“It was a huge deal,” I say quietly, unwrapping my arms so I can clutch my cold hands together.
“Have you spoken to him? Face-to-face?”
I shake my head. I received a text a week ago. That was the first and last one. Seeing his name appear on my phone screen made my heart leap into my throat. I didn’t know how to react, how to respond. What could I say to him?
Please talk to me.
In the end, I didn’t. I didn’t reply. How can I? He lied to me. Lied. Over and over again, all while pretending he had my best interests at heart. More like he was concerned with his own interests.
Afterward, once I calmed down and could think clearly, I realized so many things. Like I’m a fool. An idiot. I fell for him and he knew all along that he was tricking me. Playing me.
I remember watching the old Superman movie with Dad when I was a kid. Before all the bad stuff, when we used to spend time together and he didn’t look at me like I was tainted. Damaged. As we watched the movie he loved as a child, I couldn’t help but think Lois was a total idiot for not realizing Clark Kent was really Superman.
I’ve become Lois Lane. Ethan is my Clark Kent. Will was my Superman.
Frowning, I blink hard and return my gaze to Sheila.
“Has he tried to contact you at all?”
The text from Ethan came after my last weekly appointment with Sheila, so she doesn’t know about it. “He texted me.”
“Did you respond?”
I shake my head again. Don’t say a word. I remember the sound of his voice instead. Warm and deep and steady and true, my name falling from his lips. I can hear him now.
Katie.
No one else calls me that—I don’t allow them to. After everything happened, Katie was dead and gone. When I returned home I became Katherine. Until Ethan came along and started calling me Katie again and I found I didn’t mind it. Now I understand why he called me that from the start.
To Will, Katie is my name.
It hurts so much to think of him, to imagine his handsome face. The way his eyes would crinkle at the corners when he smiled. The words he said, the promises he made. How he would touch me, almost reverently, as if I were fragile and could possibly break.
He was right. I feel like I might shatter at any moment.
“How about Lisa Swanson? Has she reached out to you again?” Sheila asks gently.
“Yes. She really wants me to participate in another interview. A sort of counterpoint to Aar—” My voice hitches and I can’t . . . I can’t say his name. Having that problem to this very day says a lot I’m sure. “To his first interview from prison.”
“His only interview,” Sheila interjects.
“Right.” I take another deep breath and release it slowly. “He’s never spoken to the media until now.”
“Are you curious to hear what he has to say?”
“No. Not really.” A tiny part of me is curious, but mostly I’m repulsed that he’d think now is the appropriate time to talk. Is it because of my earlier interview with Lisa? It has to be.
What does Ethan think about this? I shouldn’t care, but I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that Ethan is in fact the son of Aaron Monroe. Spending time with Ethan, I never caught even a glimpse of violence or hatred within him. He wasn’t mean. He was always kind, always sweet and respectful.
The brief, harrowing time I spent with Will, and during our contact afterward, when we would write and call and text each other, he was always sweet to me then, too. Though with an almost resentful edge, as if he needed the contact with me yet hated it all the same.
It’s hard to remember the Will I knew before, without letting the Ethan I know today shadow my memories—to the point of changing them completely. I know what happened between us when we were kids. There’s no forgetting it. My tortured mind won’t let me.
But Ethan, my current history with him, invades the past, meshes everything together. Confuses things, which makes me angry—and my anger blinds me to everything.
No tears threaten and I’m proud. Sadness leaves me feeling useless. I’d rather clutch hold of the anger. It makes my thoughts, my intentions, clearer.
“It must be very difficult to know that people are so eager to listen to whatever
he has to say,” Sheila says.
“It is.” I huff out an irritated sigh. “Why people are fascinated with him . . .” I hesitate, breathe in deep as my anger threatens to permeate my every pore. “I don’t ever want to hear him, see him, to . . .”
“Remember?”
I press my lips together, my eyes watering. I refuse to cry. I refuse.
“Is that why Ethan’s betrayal hurts so much? It makes you remember?”
I nod before I can catch myself, swallowing back the lump that’s formed in my throat. I wipe at the corners of my eyes, blinking away any moisture. “I felt used. For the first time, there was hope that I could start over and be normal, you know? But I hadn’t realized I was starting over with . . .” I catch myself before I say “Will.” Ethan.
They’re the same person. Interchangeable.
Mind blowing.
I had a nightmare last night. I was back in that room, the chains heavy on my wrists and ankle, trapped with the smelly mattress, the hot, stifling air. I was alone. No scared boy to come and save me. Will never appeared, but I knew he was there. Somewhere. I cried and cried, my fate clear. I was going to die.
Thankfully, I woke up before that happened.
I change the subject and talk about my sister and my mother, avoiding Sheila’s probing gaze, playing along like a good little patient would. I don’t want to talk about Ethan and Will and Aaron Monroe and Lisa Swanson and interviews. I’m so tired of that. That isn’t all I am.
I read somewhere recently that your life is your choice. If I choose to be sad and miserable, I will be. If I choose to be happy and strong, then that’s what I am. I’ve been choosing wrong for the last eight years. Yet I finally catch a glimpse of happy, of something real and solid and tender and . . . loving, and it ends up ruined. Ripped from my hands and thrown away.
Lies. Deception. All of it.
As I leave Sheila’s office forty-five minutes later, I blink against the light drops of rain that fall from the gloomy sky. My car is parked close by and I dash toward it, unlocking the door quickly and sinking into the driver’s-side seat, the familiar scent of my own perfume and body lotion lingering in the air.
Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath, searching for calm. For strength. I need to remember that I get to choose. Only I have the power to find inner fulfillment. That sounds like a crock of crap, but it’s true. If I choose to be unhappy, I’m unhappy.
If I choose to be angry and let my anger push me, then that’s my choice, too.
For once in my life . . .
I choose me.
The text came on a late Tuesday afternoon, the familiar ding ringing loudly from across the room. My phone sits on the coffee table. I’m sitting in my recliner¸ tapping away on my laptop as I answer an email from a client.
When I finally send off the email, I get up and go to my phone, hitting the button to see who the text is from.
And proceed to drop the phone on the floor, I’m so startled by the name flashing on my screen.
Katie.
What do you want to talk about?
It’s been a week since I sent that one text during a weak moment, when I was feeling particularly low and sad. I’ve taken care of myself my entire life. I don’t remember my mom. Dad was rarely around and didn’t care. I coped. I dealt with shit on my own and I preferred it that way.
Katie reenters my life and she’s like a bright light I can’t resist. Her warmth, her sweetness, the way she made me feel like a goddamn hero every time she so much as looked at me, I’d never experienced anything like it. I began to crave her. Need her. And once I lost her . . .
I’ve never been so utterly alone, felt so incredibly lonely as I do now that she’s left me.
You’re willing to talk to me?
I hit send and wait anxiously for her reply. Within seconds I get it.
Yes.
Running my hand through my hair, I realize I’m sweating. Shit. How are we going to do this? Like two civil adults who can barely speak to each other? Will she want to meet me in public? If it’s somewhere private, at her place or mine, forget it. I’m done for. I won’t be able to keep my hands off her.
Do you want to meet me somewhere?
It’s best to be in public, I tell myself. That way I won’t do something stupid and risk freaking her out, causing her to leave.
How about the coffee shop you first took me to?
Her suggestion is perfect. It had become our meeting place. Close to the amusement park—which is closed for the season. Near the ocean. In a public place, where I have to be on my best behavior. My fingers literally itch to touch her and I clench them into fists before I straighten them out and type an answer.
That sounds good.
Tomorrow at three? Or is that too soon?
I smile at her response. Is that too soon? It’s never too soon to see Katie again.
Tomorrow at three is perfect.
I tell no one that I’m meeting with Ethan because it doesn’t need to be said. Mom would freak out and Brenna would barricade herself in my house and forbid me to leave. I made the mistake of telling them immediately after I found out the truth, and their shock and horror over who he really is reaffirmed my decision to run from him.
I needed that affirmation. The doubt that plagued me after everything happened left me so confused. I barely functioned, in a fog for days afterward. It took my overwhelming, nearly suffocating anger to put everything into crystal-clear focus.
There’s some regret in telling my family what happened between Ethan—Will—and me. They’ll hold this against him forever, not that I can blame them. But there’s telling your family things that are happening in your life in order to gain their comfort and sympathy, and then there’s telling your family too much.
I went the too much route and it was a mistake. But what’s done is done. There’s no turning back now.
Nerves eat at me as I make the drive and my mind races. Am I wearing the right thing? Do I look pretty? Do I want to look pretty?
Yes. I want him aware of me. I want him to feel that same dull ache in the pit of his stomach that I feel. I want him to hurt, knowing that I’m so close but he can’t have me.
But am I trying too hard? What do I say to him? What will I do when I first see him? Will I be able to face him, look into his eyes, find my voice and actually speak to him? Or will I want to run away? Worse, will I want to lash out and hurt him? Never physically—he could overpower me in an instant.
With words, though, I could hurt him. Say all those horrible things I know would tear him up inside. Do I want that? Is that what I truly seek in meeting with him right now?
The realization scares me.
It can never be the same between us. I know this. Yet despite my anger, I’m still sad that what happened is too large of an obstacle for us to overcome.
For me to overcome.
Somehow, I end up at the coffee shop. I hardly remember parking the car, walking along the street, and entering the warm, fragrant building, so many people inside buzzing with energy, chatting excitedly as they sip their coffee. I look around, my entire body quaking as my gaze searches for him, but he’s not there.
Disappointment makes my heart drop and I tell myself to shake it off. I’m early. Glancing at my phone, I see I’m here a whopping fifteen minutes before our planned meeting time, so I go back outside, the cool, salty air like a balm to my overheated, overstimulated body.
A park bench sits out in front of the building and I settle on it, my shoulders hunched against the cold, my head bowed so my chin dips into the soft infinity scarf around my neck. I wore black leggings and an oversized charcoal-gray sweater, my hair up in a bun, my scarf a bright red color that probably draws too much attention. Pearl earrings that my grandma gave me for my twelfth birthday, minimal makeup, black flats.
I didn’t want to stand out, so maybe the red scarf was a mistake? I look up and glance around, hoping to spot Ethan making his approach, but so far he’s nowh
ere in sight.
What if he doesn’t show?
Get a grip. You’re worrying over nothing.
Pulling my phone out of my tiny cross-body purse, I open it up. Check my email. Boring. Just endless sale messages. I’m not on Facebook, not on Instagram, not on anything. I check my text messages, though I don’t have any unread ones. I reread the chain of messages between Ethan and me, my fingers hovering over the keyboard. I’m tempted to say something, but what?
I’m here!
Too eager.
Are you coming?
Way too anxious.
Where are you?
Too demanding.
Sighing, I shove my phone back into my purse and zip it closed. I’m being ridiculous. The more I wait, the more I want him to appear, whereas on the drive over, I had contemplated that his not showing would be a good thing.
Clearly I make no sense.
“Katherine?”
The familiar female voice causes me to jerk my head up, my eyes widening when I see who’s standing before me.
Lisa freaking Swanson.
“What are you doing here?” I breathe, glancing around, hoping like crazy Ethan doesn’t choose this particular moment to appear. If he does, we’re done for. Lisa will jump on this like a shark smelling blood in the water. She’ll grab hold and never let go until we’re both dead.
She sends me a look, one I can’t decipher. “I could ask you the same question.”
I gape at her. Is it really any of her business? “Having coffee.”
Lisa’s head dips, her gaze locked on my empty hands. “Hanging out first before you go get a cup?”
I say nothing. There’s no point in defending my actions. I’ll just scramble and trip over my words and look like a liar—exactly what I am.