Chapter 9 #2
He smiled sadly and my heart skipped a beat. We were dancing around this awkward tension in the room. Neither of us addressing the real questions he was probably dying to ask. I was annoyed yet relieved he hadn’t.
“How’s, um, the Air Force?”
“Yeah. It’s been good. I was in Florida before here, which was different. I don’t think I’m really a beach person, but it was alright.”
I nodded. The silence lulled between us, and I kept my gaze anywhere but his face. Fuck. This is painfully awkward.
“You can just say it,” I finally said, meeting his brown eyes. He raised a brow in confusion, so I elaborated. “Whatever it is you’re trying to avoid asking.”
He bit down on his bottom lip and adjusted his position on the couch.
“I’ve got a lot of questions. But I don’t want to overwhelm you. I guess…I guess the most important one is if you’re happy and safe.”
My brows bunched, not sure why he wasn’t accosting me with more pressing things, like what happened, what I did, why I left, if I regretted it…
“Um, yeah. I guess so.”
His stare pinned me with an intensity that told me he knew I was lying. I swallowed the saliva pooling in my mouth and wished I had brought my soda with me to the couch.
“So, you’re working at that climbing place?” he asked, shifting gears, like I was a bomb he was defusing.
“Yeah.”
“You like it? I don’t remember you ever mentioning an interest in rock climbing.”
“I, uh, didn’t have one until I got the job. But, yeah, now I really like it. Like the adrenaline rush of being so high off the ground. But, uh, I’m the manager of client services, so I’m not exactly climbing during work hours. Unless someone forgets to clip the belay.”
He nodded and I could see the memory of the day flashing over his face. I cringed, the guilt a stab in the gut as I too remembered his desperation and brokenness.
“The other day…” I stumbled to find the right words. “I mean, I was shocked, and I couldn’t risk exposing myself like that in front of all those people. Never—I never thought I’d get the chance to see you again, Enoch.”
I could see that he was blinking away tears, and it only tore me further apart. I longed to take that hurt away. Swallow it whole. Let it burn inside me instead.
“You’re right,” I continued, “that this is a gift. To be able to give you closure. One I don’t deserve. But you do. Which is why I’m here. I want to answer any of your questions. Anything you need to find peace with what I did. It was…I know I hurt you. Badly.”
His lips twitched with an almost smile.
“Living in the past isn’t going to change our present.”
I sagged with defeat. I knew there was nothing I could do to change the present. I had just hoped that I could repair what I’d broken. But obviously, I couldn’t.
“I want to know your past, Shiloh. I want to know why you hid so much of yourself from me. I want to know why I didn’t get the chance to help you.
Why you never asked for help. What would have happened if you had told me then what you’ve yet to share now.
But the what-ifs and the whys don’t matter.
What matters is that we’re both here now.
And I don’t want you to carry around the guilt I can see you’re holding onto. ”
I shook my head, but he reached for me on the couch. I moved my leg away. His lips thinned and I ground my teeth together.
“So, don’t, Emory.” He paused, my new name unfamiliar to him and somehow wrong leaving his lips. “I forgive you regardless of whether you explain it all to me. Don’t relive that past if you’re not planning to live in the present and stay for the future.”
But I wasn’t planning to stay for the future. I couldn’t imagine one beyond giving Enoch every last secret he asked of me. I couldn’t envision a reality in which I gave him the pieces of me he wanted and I still wanted to keep existing.
My jaw clenched and I stared at him. I wanted to argue with him. Scream at him that he was wrong. That they did matter. That my choices hurt everyone I loved. That the whys made me the fucked-up person I was today. That I didn’t deserve his forgiveness or his patience or…him.
He wouldn’t forgive me if he knew the deplorable things that I’d done.
And I needed to get this over with. I would…
just…my cowardice was winning. His presence was already drawing me back in, making me want to be selfish, making me want to say ‘fuck it all, damn the risks and consequences, this is my last fucking life, and I want to spend it being looked at like I’m the only thing in this world that matters’.
Enoch shifted closer to me and his hand landed on top of mine, stilling my fingers that had been digging crescents through my jeans into the road rash on the outside of my knee.
“Shi—sorry, Emory, I forgive you. Okay? I. Forgive. You.” He implored with a heavy gaze.
I shook my head, my insides twisting. “This isn’t about me. Please. Just…fuck. Why are you always so nice? Can’t you just, like, be angry with me? Shout. Fight. Please. Hate me. It’s okay. I can handle it.”
He huffed out a soft laugh under his breath and closed his eyes for a moment. “Sorry. I can’t hate the only woman I’ve ever loved.”
My eyes bugged with disbelief. “Hell. You’re insane.”
He chuckled harder this time. “Probably. I still think I might be having a psychotic break. Maybe all of this is only happening in my head.”
I bit my lip, a sadness washing through me at the thought of him being in such distress the other day that he had thought he needed psychiatric help. And I did that. I did that to him.
“Look. How about this? Three questions. Just three. And if you don’t want to answer you don’t have to. Alright? Just, you’ve got to promise you’ll be honest with me.”
His warmth, his scent, his hopeful expression. I couldn’t resist. I’d light myself on fire if he asked me to.
“Okay,” I whispered in the small space between our bodies.
He nodded before slowly leaning back, cool air rushing into the void his absence created and the phantom of his hand still on mine.
“How did you end up in Witness Protection?”
My eyes shuttered and I took a moment to steal myself for the memories that were going to try to slip past my defenses—out of the darkness I’d been burying them in for years. I opened my eyes and focused on running my finger over a patch of the couch cushion between us.
“I was given the chance to join the program in exchange for my testimony in court.”
“So, you witnessed something and the police offered to protect you if you testified to what you saw?”
“Sort of. It was more in exchange for a lot of different information, not just one event.”
He let my answer sit in the silence between us and I felt compelled to fill it with more details.
“I was involved with a criminal organization.”
Enoch’s brow furrowed and he looked to be measuring the truth of my statement.
“What criminal organization? You mean, like, a gang?”
I nodded.
“In Granby? I didn’t know there were any gangs in Granby. Did they hurt you?” The concern etched on his face made my stomach sour. Yes, they hurt me, but I hurt people too.
I didn’t want to shatter his allusion, so I shook my head. Fuck, I was so selfish. A coward. Weak fucking puta.
“Wow, I feel so stupid. I didn’t know there were gangs in Granby. And…” he shook his head to himself. “When did you get involved with this gang? Was this after your brother died?”
Fuck. You can do this for him.
My nails scraped against the fresh pink skin that covered the back of my hand.
“Yeah.”
“Did you get involved with the intention of being an informant to join the Witness Protection Program?”
I chewed my lip for a moment, wishing that I had an easy answer for him. One that painted me in a better light.
“No. I was approached by the FBI only a day before the, um, the suicide.”
“So, you…wow.” His eyes went wide again. “Just out of the blue, and then they faked your death the next day?”
I took a deep breath, trying to find the right words to explain to him how everything happened.
“Not exactly.” He stared, waiting for me to continue. “I wasn’t put into WITSEC for another year and a half. Technically the gang was the one who faked my death.”
He blinked, probably even more confused.
“Why?”
I dug my nails into my scabs again.
“For a job. I didn’t know, I swear,” I implored, “I didn’t know that they were going to fake my death until that night. I thought I’d get a chance to give you some sort of explanation, not…suicide.”
He stared at me for a moment before finally nodding.
“Why didn’t you come to me for help? Or move in with Sebastian when he suspected something was wrong? We could have helped you before they…before you disappeared.”
Enoch frowned. He was clearly hurt that I had chosen not to confide in him. My chest constricted and I struggled to get oxygen into my lungs.
“I had my reasons for keeping you in the dark. One of which was to keep you all safe.”
He pursed his lips. “Any chance you’re gonna elaborate on those other reasons?”
“Probably not.”
He nodded, not pressing the matter. I studied the disappointment in his eyes. Disappointment in me. He thinks I made the wrong decision. That if I had just told him the truth none of this would have happened.
And fuck, did my mind not imagine that future too. The one where I had never joined the gang. The one where I didn’t lose the good parts of myself.
But that reality was never an option. Not when I had already been corrupted by violence. Not when I let myself be blinded by revenge, greedy for justice and a redemption I thought I could earn.
After a few moments of silence, he spoke again.
“We’re the only ones to know you’re alive? I mean, from those who knew you before.”
“Yeah.”
“So…why did you get involved with this gang? I’m not trying to judge you here. I just...I’m trying to understand is all. Was it because you needed money? Or something to do with your dad and his addiction?”
The weight on my chest intensified and I struggled to let the words free from my throat.