The side door ofLilouopened and captured my attention as I walked down the line of windows to theorder side. My heart stilled in my chest, pausing just long enough for me tosee it was someone taking out the trash—not Killian on break. Not that I waswaiting to catch a glimpse of Killian or anything. Because I wasn’t.
I let go of a frozen breath, and myheartbeat normalized again. But only for a second.
“What a relief to find out you’renot dead.”
His voice stopped me cold. Too late.I stood just inches away from him, separated by the thin siding of my foodtruck.
Derrek.
Derrek Hanover. Executive chef.Adjunct professor at CAI. Ex-boyfriend. Nightmare.
I wasn’t a fan of horror movies. Icould tolerate them, but they weren’t my favorite genre. That said, I hadalways watched them with a sort of elevated sense of self. I would imaginemyself in the exact shoes of the heroine in whatever movie and know exactlywhat I would do differently to save myself from whatever horrific situation she’dgotten herself into.
For instance, I would never run upthe stairs if a serial killer chased me around the house. I would fight likehell to run out the door. Or car keys. I would get them in the lock in plentyof time not to be murdered. I wouldn’t fumble around waiting to have my throatsliced. No simple task would stop me from survival.
And yet here I was, a psychopathjust inches from me, and I’d taken the elevator to the top floor and thrown mykeys down a well—probably the same well the girl fromThe Ringlived in.
Goodlord, did I have a death wish?
“What are you doing here?” Again—Ishould have been dialing the police or running away or hiding. Instead, I wasasking inane questions and allowing him space in my new life that had beenconstructed around the entire idea that he didn’t belong in it.
He ignored my question. The answerwas obvious. “I thought something happened to you. I called the cops. I filed amissing person’s report. I didn’t know where the fuck you went, Vera. You justup and left. Who does that? Who just fucking leaves like that?”
“I—”
“Shut up,” he snarled. “You made melook like an asshole. Everyone wanted to know where you went and I had nothingto fucking say becauseI didn’t fuckingknow.”
His eyes burned, pinning me in placewith the intensity behind them. But it was nothing like Killian’s, it wasn’tthe slow, delicious burn that licked its way up my legs and swarmed in mybelly. No, Derrek’s was nothing but searing fire that wanted to scorch me toash, blaze through me until I was nothing but dust.
I tried to swallow but I couldn’t. Icouldn’t even breathe. Panic welled up inside me like an overflowing dam, spillingover my brittle walls of protection in a rush of total destruction.
His voice dropped, gentled. His gazesoftened too. He stopped being the terrifying avenger and transformed into themaster manipulator. “You could have told me you were unhappy, Vera. You couldhave talked to me. I would have listened. I would have changed. For you. If youwould have just talked to me first, we could have figured everything out. Icould have made everything better.Foryou.”
“How did you figure out I wasn’tmissing?” I hadn’t intentionally misled him to believe that something hadhappened to me. But I also hadn’t done a whole lot to reassure him I was fine.When I said I just left, I meant it.
He went to work one day, and Ipacked up all that I could, took him off the one bank account I had anddisappeared. I ran like the hounds of hell were chasing me.
And I didn’t stop running until Dadhad called with the cancer news.
“Your dad returned my hundreds ofcalls. Apparently, you had enough time to let him know where you were going. Hesaid you needed to ‘find yourself.’” He stepped closer to the window, wrappinghis fingers around the ledge. I flinched at the sight of them, at therestrained strength that lay temporarily dormant inside them.
“I’m sorry I made you worry,” I toldhim honestly. “I didn’t mean for you to get the cops involved. I should haveleft a note.”
His lip curled. “You think I careabout that now? I was worried about you! Of course I called the cops. I lovedyou, Vera. I would have done whatever it took to keep you. I would havechanged. I would have bent over backward to make you happy. But you didn’t giveme a chance. You didn’t even involve me in the conversation.” He paused,seeming to gather his thoughts. Then he added, “How could you just leave likethat? How could you walk away from everything we had without saying goodbye?”
The night was hot as hell, but myfingers were ice cold. I took another step back. I needed to close for thenight. I needed to lock the windows and turn off the lights and curl up on thefloor until he went away.
A sob caught in my throat and I startedblinking rapidly to hold back the tears. What if he didn’t go away?
What if he didn’t leave?
He sounded so nice. He was thepenitent boyfriend, heartbroken by the girl he thought he was going to spendthe rest of his life with. But oh, how his selective memory could play trickson us both.
He didn’t remember all the yelling,all the name-calling. He couldn’t recall the time he slapped me. Or yanked meto the ground by my hair. He didn’t remember the bruises on my arms I had tohide. Or the time he’d thrown a plate at me because he didn’t like somethingI’d made. He didn’t remember the days I spent walking on eggshells just to keepthe peace or the nights spent curled in the fetal position trying not to shakethe bed with my frightened sobs.
He only remembered what he wantedto. And he was going to use that idyllic history to paint a picture of ourrelationship that never existed. He’d done it a hundred times before.
The problem previously was that Ialways bought into the illusion. Everyone was flawed. He would try to changefor me. He loved me. He didn’t hit me that hard, I just bruised really easily.I should know better than to talk back to him by now. I shouldn’t have made himso angry.
