This time,I’m ready for him.
I’m dressed, fed, and properly caffeinated. No more embarrassing messy-haired wake-ups and piercing alarms.
I can tell he thinks the door alarm is silly, but he wouldn’t think so if he’d read one of the letters. The last one was the final straw for me. I was gone within a week, and the more I think about it, the more I realize I had no reason to stay anyway. My parents don’t live in the country, and my friends hit the road when everything started to spiral even more out of control. Nothing weeds out fake friends like crisis. And, it turns out, they were all fake, almost every last one of them.
The letter came, sounding even more desperate and irate than the others. I’d dealt with his resentment and anger plenty of times before, and I let him say what he wanted because he needed someone to hate. I swallowed his hate, let it sink down into my stomach and join the guilt that never left me, and the two ate at me like battery acid. The real person he hated was his wife, but it would hurt him to acknowledge that, so I shouldered his hatred for her. It was the very least I could do, and it made me feel the tiniest shred better to do something,anything, for her. But the last letter had a fantastical, hysterical edge to it.
“Maybe one day I’ll show you what it feels like to have everyone you love taken away,”he’d written.
The previous letters went on and on about the terrible human being I was, how one day I would pay for my sins. He called me party-girl, drunk, waste of space, scum, and that I should be in the ground instead of his wife and baby. Even though I know I didn’t hit them on purpose, even though I know I never had a choice, I agreed with him.
I’ve gone over and over the moments leading up to that one second, and I see how many things I could’ve done differently to not be there, driving down the street at the exact moment that Amy Prince decided to end her life, and the life of her four-month-old, Samuel.
Every day I’m haunted by what happened. It took only one second to alter the course of my future. To change Eric Prince from a loving devoted new father, into a vengeful, bitter man. His grief morphed, became malignant with hatred, and he changed the narrative. All he needed was ammunition, and I had it in spades.
Never mind the eyewitnesses who saw Amy Prince do it.
Or me, who met her eyes just as she decided to go through with it.
Or the hours of questioning by the police, only to be released without charges filed.
Eric Prince needed someone to hate, and naturally, that fell to me. I really didn’t mind, until his letters turned threatening.
So, yeah, the door alarms are necessary. I think I did a good job of covering up my destination when I left Phoenix, but I can’t be too careful.
After locking my front door and double-checking it, I wait for Conner in the rocking chair. The outdoor sounds are the same as they were last night, but the bird is different. Not a hawk, but twittering, sweet birds. Prey, instead of predator.
I hear Connor before I see him. His truck growls, turning a corner. The dent is still there, not that I really thought it would’ve disappeared overnight. I feel bad that I put it there. Connor thinks I was careless and froze in a moment of danger. What would he think if he knew the truth? He might fire me, and he definitely wouldn’t like me.
Assuming he does.
I mean, I think he does. He’s kind, and his eyes stay on me for a few seconds longer than they should sometimes. Yesterday he was patient with me, and very good about where his body was in position to mine when he was showing me how to do something. But still, there were those touches that came when he sensed my pain.
He pulls up to the curb, engine idling as I come down the steps and walk to his truck.
“Good morning,” I say, opening the door and climbing in.
“Hello,” he says, reaching for a thermos. He takes a drink and offers it to me. “Coffee?”
I stare at it until he sets it back down in the cup holder. I’m still not used to his kindness.
“I don’t have cooties.” He shifts into drive and the truck eases forward.
“You might,” I respond, instantly piqued. What is it with this guy? Why am I so ready to charge into battle with him?
“I promise, I don’t,” he mutters, looking both ways before turning left onto the main road.
“Anyway,” I say brightly. I’m determined to be at least civil and keep my job. “How was your night?”
His jaw clenches. He reaches up, his hand gripping his jawline, and rubbing in a circular motion.
“What happened?”
He lets out a short, frustrated sound. “Nothing happened. Again. Night after night, I stand in front of my canvas, and nothing happens.” He shakes his head, his brown hair bobbing around with the movement. “Maybe I’ve lost it.”
“Lost the…” I pause, confused. “What? Talent? I don’t know if you can lose talent.”
“Not that, exactly. The muse. The excitement. I have the desire, but not the capacity. It’s like…like…having all this love and nowhere to put it.” He glances at me from the corners of his eyes. His cheeks pink when he catches my gaze and he looks back to the road. “Sorry,” he says, clearing his throat. “You’re probably praying I stop talking about feelings and say something manly.”
