FIFTEEN
Everything happens in slow motion.
In one moment, Arlo is carrying me away from the eyes of the monster that haunts my dreams. Arlo’s touch is soothing, and although I’m freezing, the sound of his beating heart brings warmth in front of me.
He lowers me down on the back seat of the car and gets inside with me. Meanwhile, I’m still shocked. Paul Simmons was right there, staring at me. He looked so different, yet too much like how I actually remember him. He saw me. He recognized me.
He took years off my life.
It’s time for me to finally get my power back and to get my revenge.
For the little girl he hurt and for all other women he’s been hurting ever since.
In the next moment, Arlo’s eyes close, and panic starts settling in the pit of my stomach. His forehead is sweaty, the white strands of his hair wet. His hair’s too messy – something I’m only taking notice of right now.
Despite his face being emotionless, his eyes smile, like they always do when he’s looking at me. He looks me up and down a couple of times, almost as if to make sure I don’t have any injuries, before slowly letting his eyes close.
“Arlo?”
Reluctantly, I place my hand on his shoulder, shaking him lightly.
He doesn’t respond.
“This isn’t funny,”
I say. “Say something.’
No response comes from him. Instead, his head slides over the seat until it falls on my lap. That’s when I notice that the back of his long coat has two holes. Piece by piece, a puzzle starts forming in my mind until the last piece falls into place.
Arlo was shot.
“Drive us to the hospital,”
I instructed the driver. “Now!”
My hands tremble as I stroke his hair. Eternity seems to pass, and I can barely feel the vehicle moving. My head gets clogged with thoughts, the vivid images of Arlo dying in my arms starting to consume me. My eyes swell with tears, but I don’t miss the slight movement of his chest, rising and falling.
“Please,”
I whisper, tears rolling down my cheeks. “Just be okay.”
At this moment, I seem to have forgotten about the camera in Arson’s collar. Arlo is dying on my lap because I acted like a little, spoiled brat. If I hadn’t run away, none of this would have ever happened.
There’s no one else to blame if he dies, except for me.
It terrifies me.
Because I can finally understand that the reason I’m crying, the reason my hands are trembling, combing through his hair and whispering sweet nothings into his ear, comes all naturally to me. All because somewhere along the road, I started caring about Arlo.
Despite having put a camera in my pet’s collar, and presumably all over my previous home in Long Grove, I’ve never felt as safe as when I’m with Arlo. He was always there, lurking in the shadows, prepared to protect me and kill for me if he deemed it necessary.
He’s always been protecting me, and I started noticing the moment his life was threatened.
How pathetic of me.
I try telling myself that it’s not my fault, that it would’ve happened regardless, yet the guilt that rears its ugly head to the surface is telling me otherwise. His face is getting paler and paler, and I’m terrified his skin tone will match his hair.
When the driver finally pulls up in front of the hospital, everything is hazy. It’s going quickly; nurses and doctors are all over him, and when his head is no longer on my lap, the fear sinks in.
Silently, I follow behind them, trying to understand their muttering and words, but it’s all fading into the background. Seeing Arlo’s body on a stretcher, with many hands on him, just forces me to remain rooted in my spot.
The hospital is full of people, and anxiety starts building in the pit of my stomach.
My palms are sweaty, and one of the nurses is with me, asking me too many questions. I don’t even know the lies that I tell her, slowly starting to detach myself from the situation. I don’t remember much, as if it’s a fever dream I can’t wake up from.
In the next moment, I find myself sitting in the lobby of the hospital, with a thick jacket covering my body. My eyes scan the area and widen in shock when I spot a big clock on the wall, and it’s past midnight.
I must’ve slept for at least four hours.
With a sigh, I stretch, my body aching from being in an uncomfortable position for way too long. Given the size and model of the jacket, it belongs to a man. It doesn’t smell like Arlo, and it’s not his style. Someone else put their jacket over me to warm me up, and the fact that I slept through it makes me uneasy.
As I gather my thoughts, minutes pass, and I spot a nurse. Quickly, I toss the jacket on the chair next to me and rush toward her.
“Excuse me,”
I yell over before she can leave my field of vision.
She turns with a warm smile. “How can I help you?”
“I’m looking for…”
I trail off, not knowing Arlo’s last name. “A young man, white hair, he was shot a few hours ago.”
“He’s asleep right now, but he should make a full recovery.”
Relief washes over me, and I can’t help the smile that breaks on my face. “Can I see him?”
Skeptically, she tilts her head to the side. “It’s late; you should come back in the morning.”
“Please,”
I don’t bother hiding my desperation. “Just a few minutes.”
She’s reluctant but ends up sighing. “Fine, follow me. You have ten minutes.”
“Thank you.”
I follow the nurse down the long corridor until we reach one of the rooms. The nurse reminds me of the time limit, to which I nod, because it’s more than enough time. My hand shakes when I reach for the doorknob, pushing the door open.
Arlo lies on the bed, eyes closed.
Silently, I inch closer, as if some higher power is dragging me toward him. I pick up the empty chair and put it next to his bed, then sit on it, just looking at him.
My hand clasps over him. If I let go, all of this will become too real, and the whirlwind of my emotions is something I’m not prepared to handle – I can’t handle it.
“I’m so sorry,”
I breathe out, as quietly as possible. “It’s my fault you’re in here. I’m so sorry, Arlo.”
I hadn’t realized how much of a crybaby I was up until this point. A tear rolls down my cheek, and I can’t stop it. He looks so peaceful, his breathing soft and his chest moving up and down, at a better pace than in the car.
His eyelashes are dark, a stark contrast to his hair. They’re thick and long, simply gorgeous. It’s laughable how it took him almost dying for me to realize the smallest details: the one stray strand of hair that won’t stay put no matter how many times I brush it off his face, the freckles on his nose, and a tiny black dot, a beauty mark right on the cupid’s bow of his upper lip.
He has a scar on his chin. It’s small and rather pale, meaning it must’ve happened quite a long time ago. But it’s in such an odd position and shape that it must have a story of its own, a story that I now want to know.
The truth is: I know nothing about Arlo.
However, he knows everything about me.
My deepest, darkest secrets, my biggest fears, and my weaknesses.
Arlo was the first person I trusted enough to tell who I truly was and the first person to tell every single detail of my life, the details that I’m still struggling to process.
He knows exactly how I killed my mother and stepfather.
I planned it a whole year before it happened.
I’d dreamed of the day I was going to be freed of the torture they put me through. I was locked up in my room, with no education and no human contact aside from them and the men that were paying my parents to use my body, time and time again.
Food was delivered by slipping the plate through the small crack under the door that was otherwise sealed shut. I preferred my prison time over the time at home any time. At least, in prison, I didn’t fear that someone would come to abuse me in the worst ways imaginable.
One day, I was bold enough to steal a pocket knife from one of the men that had come to see me.
He loved cutting my flesh, watching me bleed. It was never enough to scar, just enough to draw blood. No matter how much I cried, begged, and screamed for him to stop, he wouldn’t. My pleas were just fuel for him, and he continued with more violence each time he visited.
One day, one of his knives slipped.
I noticed it.
He didn’t.
And I pushed it under my bed while he wasn’t looking.
Ever since, I have guarded it with my life. I kept changing the hiding place in case my mother decided to either trash my room or clean it to make it presentable for their new clients. At times, I had it hidden in my socks, in my underwear – anywhere her filthy hands never touched.
And for a year, I thought of how to proceed.
My mother, like the drug addict that she truly was, often had times where she was barely able to walk, talk, or even think for herself. At those times, she was often in my room, hitting me and blaming me for everything that went wrong in her life.
It happened so frequently that I’d memorized the days when she was taking harder drugs. Taking her out was easier than I anticipated. She never saw it coming, and she ended up dying by choking in her blood, gasping for air, eyes filled with hatred as she saw me above her body, smiling ear to ear.
My stepfather was a different story. He was taller and much bigger than me, so I was careful with him. Although he never hit me, he followed my mother’s lead and listened to every single word she’d said. I had to play dirty and do it in a way he wouldn’t see coming.
When my mother was struggling for her last, pathetic breath, I screamed for him.
He was shocked.
Mother had too many stab wounds to count, her body nearly empty of blood. The color started draining from his face when he saw her, and I used the shock aspect to my advantage.
I jumped on him, stabbing him in the shoulder.
I’m not sure if it was sheer luck, or perhaps the deities above had finally decided to grant me some sort of mercy and allow me to do it, but I managed to pull the blade out and stab him in the throat, pushing it until the handle was the only part of the weapon outside of his body.
Blood splattered all over my face, his eyes wide in shock. He was gurgling as streams of warm blood continued to fall all over me.
For the next two hours, I continued to stab every part of his body, then move back onto my mother and repeat. The sight gave me nightmares for years to follow, but at the time, I didn’t care.
I’d never seen so much blood in my life, and I’d never so much as hit a person before that. Then, my trial began and finished, labeling me as a convicted murderer, destined to spend the rest of her life behind bars.
Then, I sat on the stairs, crying while talking to the police on the phone.
The only way out was death, and I chose it to be theirs, not mine.
Because of that, I met Arlo.
Just for him, I needed to get stronger, mentally and physically. He saved me and, quite literally, took the bullet for me. It’s time for me to return the favor. For myself. For the man who sneaked his way into my heart in less than a week.
For the first man who vowed to help me heal.
I’ll help him heal, too.
Softly, I press a kiss to his forehead, leaving my lips to linger on his warm skin for a few moments longer than necessary. I’m afraid to leave, afraid that this will be the last time I see him. But as much as I wanted to stay put, I couldn’t.
With instant regret bouncing in my chest, I make distance between the hospital bed and myself. I glance at Arlo one last time, then turn around.
Only then do I feel the movement of his hand, sneaking around my wrist and preventing me from moving. My head turns to the side, looking at him with shock.
“Were you about to leave a wounded man all alone?”
His teasing voice makes my heart skip a beat.
His lazy smile and droopy eyes make me turn to give him a better look. I step forward, allowing myself to take in the sight. He doesn’t look to be in any sort of pain; he looks extremely content and happy.”
“I have to leave,”
I whisper. “Arlo, I’m so sorr–”
“Say it, I dare you.”
His voice has a sharp edge, but it’s exactly what I needed to hear. “I heard you the first two times. It’s not your fault, butterfly.”
“How are you feeling?”
“I’ll feel a ton better if you stay.”
A laugh comes from me, though it resembles more of a snort. With his thumb, he rubs the inside of my wrist, soothing my inner turmoil. The impact this man has on me is insane.
“I’m being serious,”
I chuckle. “You’ve been shot. Does it hurt?”
He lifts a shoulder. “You can always kiss it better.”
“I’ll pass. Anything else I can do for you?”
He pouts, then grins. “Stay.”
It’s the easiest decision I’ve ever made. I don’t care about the consequences or the fact that the nurse came in to tell me my time was up. I didn’t care how it must look to anyone that decides to drop by, and I don’t care that it’s one of the most illogical things I’ve ever done.
For the first time, I listen to what my heart tells me, and I stay.
Because I finally found someone worth living for.