Chapter Twenty-One
Emily
“Em, you’ve been staring at that same screen for the last ten minutes. Do you need some help?”
I shouldn’t. It’s a basic patient records form, and I’m only updating our patient’s address and adding one medication — a short course of tetracycline — to his history. This is basic stuff, and it’s handwritten on the paper in front of me, but I can’t get my brain to move the information from the paper to the keyboard to the screen.
Because, in the back of my brain, warning bells are ringing; I may not be able to see Jay right now, but I can feel him. It feels the same way my body does right before I come down with a cold: everything feels vaguely wrong, and I just know that the day is going to be terrible. Once or twice I see a shadow that I think is his and I reach toward my cellphone to call the police and report him for violating the restraining order, but then that shadow turns out to be a seventy-year-old woman who absolutely isn’t a threat and just wants to know if she can take antacids along with her blood pressure medication. She can.
“I’m fine, Maggie, thanks,” I say. “Just have a headache. It was a rough night.”
“Oh?”
“I didn’t sleep at home. I actually slept on a couch… At, uh, this guy’s house.”
“Oh?” It’s the same question, different tone, and she leans in. There’s a hint of an interested smile on her face.
“His name’s Nick. He’s Charlie’s dad,” I say. Her eyes widen, and I see the question in them before she even asks it. “We didn’t hook up. I was just babysitting Charlie while he was doing something for work. It got late, and I nodded off. Then he took me out for breakfast this morning.”
Her eyes twinkle. “Sounds like you had almost all the ingredients for a date… except for the really fun parts.”
“Maybe.”
“Would you go out with him again in a non-babysitting way?”
I smile, then turn my attention to the screen. “I have a lot of work to do, Mags.”
“Sure, Emily. You know, that’s one thing I appreciate about you the most: your sense of responsibility. I know that whatever you have going on with Nick is exciting — and I don’t blame you, if I were younger, or if I knew he were into older women, maybe I would… anyway, don’t let that distract you from your work or your studies. Yes, Em, I see you rolling your eyes, even if you won’t admit it. I have to do my part as your mentor and remind you that you’re just a short time out from your paper’s due date and, without it, you won’t be going on to the final year of your degree.”
“I’m aware, Mags,” I say, still smiling. It makes me feel lucky to have someone like her watching out for me, even if I’m acutely aware of everything I need to complete my Doctor’s of Pharmacy degree. And it makes me aware of the fact that there will be no way for me to hide my failure, if that should even happen, because she and my professor have lunch together once a month and have for the last ten years. “You don’t need to worry.”
Which is the truth. She doesn’t need to worry about my relationship with Hunter distracting me from my studies. Because the actual threat to my education, not to mention my physical and mental well-being, is the man that I keep seeing in shadows… who also happens to be the man that I cannot mention to Hunter because I’m sure that the second I do, either he’ll do something rash that might get him arrested and Charlie put into the foster care system, or Hunter will decide that being with me and my stalker-baggage is not worth the risk, and he’ll dump me faster than I can blink.
Which means is that I’m on my own.
“Good. I’m not trying to stop you from having fun. I just really care about you, OK?”
I smile at her. “Thank you. I appreciate it, Maggie.”
She hugs me and then returns to work, while I continue frowning at the computer screen, losing myself in fantasies about Hunter — who I definitely would not say ‘no’ to if he wanted our relationship to be more than just babysitter-client — and waking nightmares about Jay, who still pops up in every third shadow I see.
It’s a long day.
I barely get all my regular work done, and find no time to work on my paper, despite the fact that it’s a slow-as-molasses day and I should have time to write and revise at least a few pages. Disappointment wraps me like a wet blanket as I wrap up behind the pharmacy counter and head to the parking lot. A full day, practically wasted, and all thanks to ghosts and fantasies. I have to get my head together.
Out in the parking lot, after a few nervous glances to scan for anyone hiding in the shadows — and thankfully finding nothing — I walk to my car at the end of the lot.
At my car, something shimmery catches my eye. It’s the metal beneath the paint job.
I frown, lean in, squinting to see just what it is in the dim light.
Ur dead bitch .
The threat hits me like a freight train and I scream. Deep scratches mar the driver’s side door, each one etched with deliberate malice. My breath catches, heart pounding in my ears as I trace the jagged lines with trembling fingers. Jay. It has to be him. Who else would do something so vicious?
I fumble for my phone, my hands shaking as I dial Hunter’s number. Before I can hit dial, I stop. As much as I want to talk to him, or even just hear his comforting voice, I can’t.
He can’t find out about any of this.
It’s up to me to solve this problem.
But first, I need a drink.
* * * * *
“Em, what the fuck? You look like shit. What happened?”
“It was Jay,” I say. It’s a common refrain, and Harper springs into action.
“This first one’s on me. The second one, too,” Harper says as she mixes the world’s strongest cosmopolitan.
“Thanks, Harper,” I say, staring down at the napkin that sits on the bar in front of me. In my anxiety, I’ve crinkled the thing into a wrinkly ball. “I need this one. And the next one.”
“So what did the evil fuckhead do this time?”
I tell her what he wrote on my car.
“Seriously? And that’s how he wrote it? I’m fucking pissed, and not just because he threatened you, but because he fucking butchered the damn language. ‘Ur dead bitch’?” She shakes her head. “We should kill him on principle.”
“No killing,” I say.
“Why?”
“Because murder is bad,” I say, knowing it’s a crappy defense, but unable to bring myself to actually defend Jay.
“He seems willing to do it.”
“I’m sure it’s just a threat.”
Those words are nothing more than a flimsy lie that can’t hold a candle to the fear that’s wrapped itself around my heart. Not just fear for myself, either. So many people I care about could be targets for Jay’s malice. I don’t believe for a second that he’ll be content with just hurting me; he’ll want to hurt everyone I’m close to, just to make me suffer.
“Are you?” She says, sliding the cosmopolitan across the bar to me and transfixing me with a knowing look. “Because I’m not so sure, Em. I think we need to strike this motherfucker first. Murder isn’t murder if it’s in self-defense, remember?”
“I can’t just go kill Jay because I think he might try to hurt me.”
“Everyone hates him. I bet people would buy it.”
“Not his friend on the Ironwood Falls PD.”
“Officer Burt Abrams can go suck a fat donkey dick to climax,” Harper says, loud enough that the entire bar can hear it. “That pint-sized prick has bailed Jay out of trouble too many times.”
“And he’d do it again if we try anything.”
“Not if we kill them both,” Harper says.
“Harper!”
“There’s three of us — you, me, Soph — and two of them. You and Soph can go kill Jay and I’ll take out Officer Dickwad. All I’d have to do is squash that little bug under my heel. It’d take like five seconds.”
“We are not committing double homicide,” I say, aghast, yet also flattered how extreme Harper is willing to get for me. Then I remember she once threatened to gut a deliveryman like a trout because he was too rough with one of her packages.
I finish my cosmopolitan and slide it over to her for a refill. She does and makes it stronger this time.
“So, what do you want to do about this?” She says.
I shrug, knowing that my shrug will do nothing. Harper’s like a pit bull. Once she has an issue in her teeth, she just doesn’t let it go until she’s satisfied… or someone’s dead. “I don’t know. I’m trying to figure that out. That’s why I came here.”
“You know my opinion.”
“And you know mine. Since it’s my life, it’s my decision.”
“What it sounds like you’re telling me, Em, is that you’re going to do nothing and let something bad happen to you, and the only thing I can do is watch. Which, if I’m being honest, is the worst fucking deal in the world, because I love you.”
“I love you, too, Harper,” I say and finish the cocktail in a long gulp, and then motion for another. It comes quickly, and I drink that one fast, too. It’s after the fourth one, when my cheeks are hot and my lips are tingling like I’m kissing a light socket, that I open my mouth again. “But I am open to hearing your other suggestions that stop short of double-murder.”
She raises an eyebrow at me. “Really?”
“Really. It’s not like I just want to let Jay walk all over me. I know I need to protect myself, Harper.”
“You’re not talking about taking a self-defense class and learning how to kick a guy in the dick while yelling ‘heeyah’, are you?”
I shake my head and, with a shaky hand, guide my glass to my mouth. “I’m not.”
“You’re talking about something more serious.”
I drink. Then drink again. “I am.”
Harper nods, then chews on her lip for a moment. “I think I know someone. Em, just to be clear: do you want my help to get a gun?”
“I do.”
Harper nods, then returns to chewing her lip. “I love you, and because I love you, I’ll think about it. Give me a little time to make the arrangements, OK?”
“I will. You know I appreciate you, right?”
“Of course. Same goes for how I feel about you, Em. And don’t think I won’t forget about this, either. Next time I want some Xanax, I am hitting you up.”
“Whatever you need,” I say. I’ll never forget how lucky I am to have a friend like her. It’s scary as hell having Jay in my life, but with friends like her and Sophie, I think I stand a chance of making it out alive. Though how close I might be to death right now, with Jay’s threat still scratched deep into the surface of my car, makes me appreciate being alive… and realize how short time truly is. For a long moment, I look at my empty glass and think about ordering another. “I think I’m going to go.”
“Wait a second,” she says, and she pours me a glass of water. Then she takes a pot of coffee from the coffeemaker and pours a cup and sets it in front of me. “Drink both, then another round of each, and after an hour and a few trips to the bathroom, I might be satisfied enough to let you drive home. Until then, relax.”
Grabbing the coffee, I smile at her. It’s nice to have someone who cares, even if it means they’re delaying me from going after what I really want. Life is short, after all .
“What is it?” Harper says.
“I said I was going to go, but it’s not my home I’m going to.”