Anangel. I almost want to laugh at the absurd comparison. If only she knew me…before.
When I turn to Lindsay, I find her staring at me, looking…the best way to describe it is baffled.
“What?”
“You babysit the children of Mapletown often while at work?”
I shrug, not understanding her level of shock. “Not that often, but when people ask, I usually say yes.” Unless we’re slammed, I couldn’t imagine denying such a request. I love being around kids. They’re brutally honest and curious in a way more adults should be.
Lindsay mutters something under her breath, and I only catch, “selflessandhot,” before she opens her car door and tosses her purse onto the passenger seat. “Well, thank you for letting me drink for free and not using my inebriated state as a chance to chop me up in little pieces and scatter my remains on the side of the road.”
“Jesus, is the bar really that low?” I chuckle.
Her lips form a stern line. “Statistically, yes.”
I take her phone from my back pocket and hold it out for her. “It was my pleasure, Lindsay Abbadelli.”
A twinkle in her eye makes my heart thump so hard inside my chest I place a hand over it to keep it from bursting through my skin. And the freckles that dot her nose and cheeks––damn, they’re pretty.
“See you around, Dominic…”
“Jennings,” I tell her. “Dominic Jennings.”
She starts her car, and I loathe the sound of her soon exit. My lips part, but I swallow a desperate plea for her to stay before it escapes.
“Take care,” she says, rolling up her window. I watch her pull out of the lot and turn onto Mountain View Road, my feet unable to move until I can no longer hear the soft rumble of the engine, knowing that this breathtaking woman from my past will occupy my every waking thought until I can get lost in her eyes again.
Chapter 3
DOMINIC
27 years ago…
Bear Hollow Park
Ossipee, New Hampshire
“Kenny, no!” I shout as his grip tightens around my forearm. He’s dragging me toward the lake’s edge, and his friend, Donald, is pushing me forward. No matter how deeply I dig my heels into the dirt, they bring me closer to the water. I can’t swim. Kenny knows this. If he tosses me deep enough int0 that water, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get myself out. “Y’all don’t have to do this!”
I scan the beach, panicked and looking for a grownup I can call out to for help, but there ain't any in sight. This is the rocky part of the beach, where the sign to my right says it’s unsafe to swim. The pit in my stomach grows to the size of a boulder.
“This is what you get for eating my chips, shithead,” Kenny sneers.
I feel his spittle dot my neck and want to tell him how rank his breath is, but he’d just punch me in the face, and if I have any hope of not drowning, I’ll need to rely on all five senses.
Donald is laughing behind me, the sound brittle and sinister as he gives me a hard shove, and I jerk forward, but Kenny doesn’t let me roll down the rocky hill. He lets me stumble and scrape both shins on the jagged rocks, but no, letting me go would give me a chance to escape, and he ain’t about to let that happen.
Kenny continues hollering insults at me as he yanks me upright, and a sharp jolt of pain in my shoulder makes my vision blur.
There’s a sound in the distance, I think. A shout from somewhere behind us. Hope fills my chest at the possibility of someone witnessing this and coming to my rescue, but that hope is dashed when the edge of my tennis shoe meets the water.
Time. I need time.
Time to fight back. Time to get away. No matter how pointless, no matter how much smaller I am than my older brother, I need time.
I throw myself backward, trying to create as much resistance and dead weight as possible. When my butt hits the dirt, I use my free arm to scramble backward like a crab on a stovetop. Two feet is the only distance I can put between my body and the lake before I feel Donald at my back, grabbing me by the hair and hauling me to my feet.
My eyes sting with tears as reality sets in. My brother might kill me today. If he throws me in the lake and walks away laughing, which I expect him to do, and I drown, there will be no one to take proper care of Mamaw.
