“No.” I stare at the woman, dumbfounded.
One cameraman shoves his camera in my face, accidentally slashing my cheek as I try to turn away. “Is it true you’re living with Crystal Glassier, the widow of the man who tried to kill you?” the woman asks.
Fuck this. We can eat takeout tonight. I try to squeeze past them, and another man sticks out his leg, blocking me.
The hell?
“Did you have an affair with her? Is that why he wanted you dead? Is his little girl really yours?” she drones on and on.
I shove the cameraman aside. He trips and mutters something about me assaulting him under his breath.
“Do you have an anger problem, Nathan? Is that why you fled?” the reporter asks.
They continue to follow me as I rush to my car. Faster than they are, I whip out of the parking lot before they get into their van. If they’ve already connected me to Crystal, how long will it be before they show up at our front door?
I flinch when the cold cloth touches my cheek. Crystal gingerly cleans and dries my wound, then slathers a liberal amount of antibiotic ointment over it. Finishing with butterfly closures.
“You were this close to stitches.” She pinches her fingers together. “You’re not even done healing from the hyperthermia, and now you’re getting all beaten up.” She frowns.
“They were asking about you and Natalie. They know we’re together.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry for dragging you into this.”
“How? By existing?”
“I’m putting my family in danger again.”
“Natalie is safe because of you. And we’ll handle those jerks if they show up.”
“I didn’t get the fish.”
She laughs. “How do you feel about Totino’s Pizza?”**
After we finish eating pizza, Crystal asks me to join her on the back porch to look at the stars. We sit for a little while picking out the ones we can name, and she pulls out another picture from her purse.
These little story times have become my favorite part of the day. I take it eagerly. The picture is one of her, me and… Mark.
I feel sick.
In the picture, she’s face down on a lounge chair crying, and Mark is laughing. I’m looking at him with a death stare.
In the picture. And right now.
“We were all snorkeling, and I accidentally surfaced in a patch of sea lice. A little while later, I felt some itchy spots on my face that got more intense as the hours went by, then these horrible pimples popped out all along where I had been wearing my mask. I looked like a rabid raccoon.”
She shakes her head.
“Mark laughed at me when he saw my bumpy face, and do you know what you did?”
“Tell me.”
“You held my hair back and gently rubbed my face with hydrocortisone. You stayed with me all night to make sure I didn’t scratch, and you reapplied the cream every few hours. Weplayed board games and watched TV.” She laughs and squints her eyes. “Would you believe me if I told you that it was one of the most fun nights of my life?”
She takes another look at the photo. “Sometimes we just don’t see what’s right in front of us.”
She meets my gaze, waiting.
