Both women stay quiet, the tension choking the icy air as it moves down my throat. I skip down the steps and head for the trees, feet moving faster with every step I take until I’m running, sprinting toward isolation and detachment from the world around me.
I fucked up. I know that.
But what was more insane was that I truly believed that once people heard my reason for what I did, they’d understand. That I’d be met with trepidation, sure, but also empathy.
I killed Mary-Beth to save myself in a situation that didn’t seem to have any other options.
But take the facts into the light of day, and it’s a whole different scenario without the driving emotions behind it.
Hands shaking, I pull the burner phone from my pocket and stare at the blank screen. My thumb makes hasty work of the options, and I lift it to my ear.
It rings. And rings.
The fucking thing rings until his voicemail cuts in, the factory message recited in my ear in cool, detached monotones.
I hang up and promptly throw the fucking phone as hard as I can to get it as far away from me as possible. It’s a poisoned weapon, a promise of forever and the end.
It lies in two pieces at the base of a pine tree.
“Fuck!”
Knees to the littered ground, I set both palms on the cool forest floor and search for stability. Air moves in and out of my lungs, and yet I still feel as though I can’t breathe. I’m too numb to all of this to cry anymore, too depressed to care. And worst of all, I’ve lost any hope of resolution that may have kept me moving forward.
There’s only one path out of here now that they all know.
Only one door left open.
And once it closes behind me, it won’t reopen again as long as I draw breath.
THIRTY-SIX
FANG
“Canwe go look at the horses?” Molly shovels in another mouthful of crunchy cereal and waits for my answer.
“What horses?”
“The ones outside.” She glances toward the window that overlooks the area behind the house.
I push my seat out from the table and wander over to take a look. Sure enough, workhorses drag felled trees out from the stand that covers half the property. The issue is the man in control of the pair.Andy.Or rather, who his sister is.
My Rumspringa fuck-up.
“Please?” Molly appears at my side, bopping on her toes to see them better.
Guess we’ve all got to atone for our sins somehow. “I s’pose.”
“Yay!” She whips her empty bowl off the table and sprints into the kitchen with it. I wince at the clatter it makes when she hastily dumps it in the sink. “I’ll go tell Anna and Jenna.”
“What?” I spin on my heel.Tell who?“Why?”
“Anna might like horses too,” Molly explains with a gentle pout.
“But you said Jenna, as well.”
Her little eyebrows rise. “So?”
Yeah, old man. So?What the hell do I say to that? How do I explain to my six-year-old that Daddy feels too sensitive when he’s around the woman, so to maintain his sense of masculinity, he avoids her like the plague.
