Chapter 7 #2
I point to an empty barstool on the end of the counter, and he nods but stops short when he notices Noah in a booth. He pivots, and for an old guy, the man keeps me in tow with ease.
“Noah. Didn’t know you’d be here,” Old Man John says, his shaky hand lifting his cane to flick it toward the unoccupied side of the table.
Noah smiles up at him before observing my arm tangled with his.
“John.” Noah nods. “Good to see you out and about. That peach pie you left my mom the other week has left a hole in my heart I simply cannot fill. Came here looking for something to fill the void.”
John chuckles and my brows crease. They’re familiar with each other. Which makes sense, I suppose. With this town being the tourist trap it is, the locals are tight-knit and the vibes among them very “small-town.”
“Why don’t you join me?” Noah asks.
“Mighty kind, Noah. Mighty kind.”
I help Old Man John into the booth and take his order to avoid Noah’s scrutiny. It takes me a few minutes to tend to some other people, and I hurry back with Old Man John’s black coffee. Both men are deep in conversation, so I slide the mug onto the table and turn around to hustle into the kitchen.
“She’s a sweetheart,” Old Man John tries to whisper. Except it’s nowhere near a whisper and the words reach my ears all the same.
It could be vanity or curiosity, damn if I know, but I slow my pace waiting for Noah’s response. There’s a brief grunt and words too low for me to understand.
I roll my eyes. Whatever.
When Noah’s turkey club is ready, I inwardly groan and rush to pick it up before trudging, reluctantly, to the table.
“Turkey club and fries,” I say. “Can I get you anything else?”
“Just ketchup.”
I tip my head toward the ketchup flanking the napkin holder, and he offers me a weary smile.
“Thanks.”
“Yep, and yours will be right out, Mr. John.” I place my hand on his shoulder, giving it a tiny squeeze.
Noah fixates on where my hand meets Old Man John’s shoulder, and I snatch it away, unceremoniously shaking it out.
Is that overstepping boundaries here? It’s not like John hasn’t been in here twice a week for the entirety of my hire here, but regardless of my running around the United States and Canada for the past six years, I’m from Mississippi—habits die hard, I guess.
I leave them alone and make myself useful refilling napkin dispensers since there’s a lull in diner traffic while mulling over my next hike. Colder weather is festering in this part of the state, and I don’t have the gear to do some of these longer, higher hikes.
Checking for Mitch’s watchful eye, I pull my phone from my pocket and open the album of screenshots. All the hiking gear I’ve researched, maps, future towns and locations I’d like to hide myself in—I screenshot everything, to the detriment of my phone storage.
I scroll through, adding up the cost of the equipment. It’s not that Mitch doesn’t pay well, he does, but … it’s a diner. Not exactly a salaried job, and I’m only part-time. Hardly enough hours a week to warrant a two-hundred-dollar coat.
After tucking my phone away, I fist a stack of napkins and shove them into the dispenser with force.
When the door to the diner opens, a blonde wrapped in flannel strolls in.
Her platinum hair hangs loose with soft windswept curls that blow back in the slight breeze as she floats inside.
Put her in a bikini and plop her on the beach with a strawberry daiquiri and she’d be Malibu Barbie. Figures.
Her perky figure gets a little more pep in her step when she notices Noah at the booth to her right. Discreetly, I abandon my restocking duties in favor of the coffeepot and work my way down the counter refilling any near empty mugs.
Noah quirks his lips upward and lifts his hand in a casual wave.
“I saw your truck outside and thought I was hallucinating. Don’t you normally eat with your mom on Saturdays?” she asks, moving to slide into his side with him.
His eyes flick over to me and my heart leaps. I drop my gaze, replacing the coffeepot.
Must be a girlfriend. Though, judging by the way Noah scoots over without a kiss or arm around her shoulder, makes me question if that’s true.
I’m not sure why it matters.
“Lily!” Mitch’s angry bark from behind me makes me jump. My teeth clack together, sending a jarring sensation through my jaw, and several of the customers jerk to look up at me when I let out a string of curse words.
“Damn man is going to give me a heart attack,” I mumble.
Retreating into the kitchen, Mitch stands by the phone, still a cherry-red landline that he shakes in his hand. “Lily. Who the hell’s calling you at work?”
I come up several short paces from him. That’s a great question. Hell, if I know.
As he shakes the receiver in his hand, I squint at the phone.
Who is it? Too bad I can’t see through to the end of the line.
It could be the hospital, I suppose. With all the paperwork I had to fill out from my stay there and my stitches removal, I had to provide my place of employment’s phone number.
Perhaps they need something. They better not have reneged on the financial aid they said I qualified for.
I can’t afford for them to decide I’m not who they want to use their grants on.
The kitchen buzzes as I take the phone, offering Mitch a shoulder shrug and bringing it to my ear. “Hello?”
Silence.
Well, sort of.
“Hello?” I say again, louder this time.
At first, there’s nothing, maybe some static. The phone is like one hundred years old. But then—a slow, deliberate inhale. Heavy. Raspy. Wet.
My stomach drops. My hand freezes midtwirl of the spiraled cord. The breathing continues, steady and methodical, like whoever’s on the other end wants me to hear it.
“Who is this?” My voice wavers despite my best effort to sound unbothered.
Still, there’s no answer. If anything, the breathing deepens, like the person is closer, right in my ear. It’s too intimate. Too … familiar.
My pulse quickens as memories sink their claws into my mind, morphing the heavy breaths into the disgusting grunts of demanded pleasure. Everything is too bright, too exposed. I’m too exposed.
“Who is this?!” I snap, my voice rising enough to garner the kitchen staff’s inquisitive stares.
The breathing shifts and then there’s something else, the faintest scrape of … movement?
I end the call, slamming the phone down as my hand trembles. The memories are coming—it doesn’t matter what I do.
The air is suddenly heavier somehow, and I stumble back assaulted—the squishy forest floor, the groans entangled with my pleas, the broken trust, the hurt. It hurts so much.
Clutching my stomach, it twists and churns into knots so tight it feels like someone fists my insides. Heat prickles at the back of my neck, sweat forming in the onslaught of memories, and bile threatens to climb from my belly into my dry throat.
I gasp, throwing myself into a run toward the single stall bathroom at the very back of the diner. The waves of nausea toss and dip—blunt nails digging into my wrists, the chill of the crisp air against my stripped body, the jingle of a belt buckle coming undone.
My stomach lurches, and my knees collide with the yellow-tiled floor as I claw at the toilet seat, fumbling to get it open. Shaking, my hands slip once, twice, before I manage to lift it.
The nausea crests and I heave, my body curling over the bowl as bile sears the back of my throat. Tears sting my eyes, blur my vision, and the ragged retching sounds echo off the closet-sized bathroom.
For a moment, I grip the porcelain, forehead pressed to the cool rim as the sick worry subsides.
Slumping over and leaning against the wall, the quiet heavy breaths over the line ebb and flow.
I shift, but I’m wrung out, limp, and my damn neck.
The muscles feel stretched too tight, radiating from the base of the skull to my shoulder.
The twinges cause fiery soreness in my dry mouth, but I’m too weak to pull myself up for water. Too weak.
I can’t stop the barrage of thoughts and making excuses for them. It was a prank call and I’m just too damaged to comprehend that. Or maybe there was a bad connection, and the person was speaking on the other end—I just couldn’t hear.
Damn it!
I bang my head on the stone wall. This can’t happen and there must be an explanation.
There must.