“And you couldn’t just have told me?” I ask, turning back. “You didn’t think it was important to come clean with me, even after…” I shake my head.
“After you beat him to death with your bare hands?” she repeats. “While I couldn’t do anything but stand there and watch.”
“He attacked you.”
“You punched him to the ground, then you stomped on his head, and do you know what I thought while I watched you do that?” she asks, tears leaking down her face, the tiredness I saw earlier increasing in volume until I’m surprised she can stand. “I thought I couldn’t tell the difference between you.”
The words hit me like a blow, destroying the narrative I’d built in my head. Pummelling it to the ground, stomping it into pieces. “I escaped from prison to come here and see you, see the baby. Didn’t you think—”
“Are you serious right now?” She stares at me through incredulous eyes. “How the fuck was I meant to know you were going to escape from prison? You carjacked that poor old woman. The entire country kept checking in each news cycle, waiting to hear if she was dead. If you’d killed her. And you want to know why I didn’t tell you the truth?”
She gives a harsh laugh, not even a distant cousin to amusement. “Because you’re a fucking psycho, that’s why. I hope you never get to be a father. You’d probably shake the kid dead.”
I whirl away from her, my heart getting me the hell away from there while my head is still trying to sort out what’s happening. My stride lengthens as I reach the footpath, practically sprinting as I make my way back to the car.
Stupid. Brutish. The overgrown kid who never got used to his size, to his power. Always ruining things. Always breaking things.
I heave out a breath then can’t inhale another. My lungs seize, pain gripping them as I claw open the car door and collapse into the front seat.
Colours and lights twist and tilt in front of my eyes as I struggle.
If I’d known this was waiting for me, I would have put my head down in prison and just served my time, pegging my hopes on a parole board instead of a flatmate who treated me like a cheap bouncer to keep trouble from her door.
Except then I wouldn’t have run into Nadia. I wouldn’t have the memories of her laugh, her wit, the husky vocals as she became excited telling me exactly what she wanted to do to me.
It’s been a long day. A long day with big emotions and none of them resolving satisfactorily.
There’s nothing for me here. All the daydreams of a baby girl or a son who’d take after me in only the right ways, gone. Worthless. No different than if I had conjured them purely from my imagination.
The loss feels like a death. Grief washes over me, taking the last of my hope with it.
I could vanish right now and who would miss me? With Rachel’s betrayal still ringing in my ears, it’s hard to believe that Nadia would, even if she wasn’t sitting in a police station being interviewed right now.
Because of me.
She might be locked in conversation with an officer, worried they’re going to discover her big secret.
Because of me.
My hands grip the wheel. Eventually I put the car into drive and leave the area, winding along the hill roads to Kaiteriteri, remembering Nadia’s stories of staying here with her dad when she was a kid.
I wonder what her dad was like. Did she fall for her husband because she got used to her father’s mean streak? Or was he weak, leaving her vulnerable to being preyed on by abusive men.
More probably, somewhere between the two.
When I reach the camping area, I park to the side and wander to the water’s edge, rolling up the legs of my jeans so I can step farther into the surf.
For a moment, I’m tempted to go much farther, so far, I can’t return to shore.
Then I think of the amber glow of Nadia’s eyes. I think of the small things that make life worth living. Her memory, the unexpected gift I can cling to on all the long, lonely nights ahead.
I think of that, and I turn, heading back to the car, driving it away from the small village, heading for somewhere even less populated, more welcoming to someone on the run.
I want to head down to Christchurch, head to a property with a sundial hiding a deeply buried secret in the back yard and a small woman with a big heart waiting for me inside.
Except that woman is probably in a police station right now, giving evidence or jutting her chin in the air while she refuses to be drawn. That woman deserves the peace she fought so hard to win for herself. Not to get dragged back into my mess, risking another wave of police combing her section, digging up things that are best left buried.
I put the car in gear, twisting the wheel to head back the way I came.
