Chapter 24 That Sounded Super Murdery
That Sounded Super Murdery
One Week Later, Now
It took me a week to get the plan sorted. It felt longer because Laurel would not stop bothering me about each phase of the plan. Primarily because I hadn’t told her any of it and, at present, she believes I’m in the middle of full mental collapse.
“So, we’re going on a trip?” she asks, her eyes on Petey as though she might need him to tackle me at some point.
“Yes. All three of us. Like the old days.”
“The three of us have never been on a trip together. Not without…” Realizing her error, she changes course. “We’ll need separate cars. Petey has to head back to Timber Creek for the next session.”
“We’ll be fine. You and I won’t need a car to drive back. I’ve made sure of it.”
“Are you Thelma and Louise –ing us? Is this a road trip to our deaths?”
I laugh, a response she doesn’t appreciate if her eyebrows are any indication.
“This isn’t funny, Charley! I get really uncomfortable when you’re uncharacteristically spontaneous.”
“I’m not going to kill you. You just need to trust me.”
“Please,” she begs, eyes pressed shut. “Stop talking like the husband at the beginning of a Dateline special that ends with a meter reader discovering a troubling number of teeth behind a gardenia plant.”
Petey rubs a circle between his fiancée’s shoulder blades.
“It might be easier to agree to this if we knew even a part of what was happening right now. A super-small part. Like…why does your sister need to bring her fireproof document box?” He works to keep his voice calm as Laurel starts to lose it.
“I think that part’s been a cause for concern for her. Would you say that, Lo?”
Laurel folds her arms across her chest. “It’s only like the fifth-craziest thing she’s done this week, but, yes, the fireproof box request is raising alarm bells for me.”
“To execute my plan, I need your important legal documents handy.”
“That.” She points her finger at my nose. “Right there. That sounded super murdery.”
“Again…” I plead, getting a little annoyed. “Stop falling asleep to true-crime podcasts. I promise I’m not murdering you.”
She eventually agrees to get into the car with me, but not before saving my filmed criminal confession on her cell phone as “collateral.”
We drive for hours without stopping—I half expect Laurel to check if I’m wearing a diaper.
Little does she know that to get us to Wet Ted’s on time, I prioritized love over my hydration addiction.
Laurel eventually lets out a deep sigh of relief when she sees Ethan’s van in the familiar parking lot.
“Thank god,” she gasps out. “I was praying this whole thing was about Ethan.”
Petey lets out a whoop. “Nice one. You had me going for a while. Between the snorkel and the goalie mask—”
“Red herrings,” I confirm, anxiety tightening my skin at the sight of his van.
“And my document box,” Laurel adds.
I shake my head. “That’s still a critical part of phase two.”
“Charlotte Beekman, are you or are you not reverse Gone Girl –ing me?”
Petey tilts his head like a confused puppy. “I don’t think you can reverse that one, babe.”
Usually I’d prioritize absolving myself of such criminal culpability, but my attention is transfixed to Ethan the moment he steps onto the grass.
He’s beautiful as ever in his simple T-shirt and shorts, face alight with his typical charismatic aura.
The sight of him now is no different than it was two weeks ago…
apart from the way my heart has now fallen into my butt.
He’s here. He’s really here.
I stumble out of the driver’s seat, leaving my passengers behind as I force one foot in front of the other. So much careful planning, all in anticipation of this single moment. I smooth my dress and inhale before launching the speech I’ve been practicing for several days.
Yet, despite my preparation, my first sentence tumbles out in an inelegant squawk.
“I kept the straw!”
He frowns at my contextless outburst, the wind ruffling his hair. “What?” he asks, confused.
Fair.
I was supposed to build up to that. When I rehearsed this speech, I must not have accounted for just how much being in Ethan’s presence would unsettle me.
Maybe it’s that I expected him to be more affected by seeing me here, in the woods, unannounced.
Seeing him feels akin to swallowing a beehive.
At the sight of me , he’s startlingly at ease, running a hand through his hair as if I were anyone.
On my inhale, I consider all the ways I’ve loved Ethan and felt loved by him.
The years of messages, jokes, and restrained touches.
The way being near him soothes my brain and lights me up all at once.
The way he makes me feel normal and weird in all the best ways.
His passion for life, the environment, music, and now, me.
His fearlessness. His generosity. His kindness.
His patience. Ethan’s so tender and wholehearted.
To be the person he gives all his love to, even if only for a little while, I’m almost certain would be worth any risk.
“That night at the hospital, you told me you loved me, and you were right—I wasn’t ready to hear it.
But I couldn’t let you go either, so I kept it.
I kept the straw.” I pull the straw out of my pocket and use it to ground my thoughts.
“Even when I didn’t hear from you for a year, I kept it.
I use it all the time, you know, which is insane because it looks ridiculous—I look ridiculous—but I can’t get rid of it.
It’s my last piece of you, and I think you’re one of the only people that’s ever made me feel safe.
You’re this stabilizing force, and it keeps you with me even when we’re apart and I’m missing you so much. It hurts how much I miss you, Ethan.”
He doesn’t say anything in response. He just stares, and it sends a strange twinge of anticipation through my abdomen.
“So I quit my job.” My words are spewing out of my mouth and collecting at his feet in a jumbled mess.
“Then I fully freaked out, because I can’t pay my mortgage without a job.
I mean…I couldn’t pay it with a job. Now I’m hearing myself say the word ‘job’ a lot, and it feels like someone is scooping my lungs out of my chest, but it’s fine. ”
This is not going at all the way I planned, but I can’t make myself stop.
“I’m honestly fine, because it occurred to me that I hate my house.
It’s big and cold and the air-conditioning does this clicking thing at night that drives me nuts.
And that bed is so giant and empty, and I don’t want to sleep in a bed you’re not in, because I don’t want to be anywhere you aren’t. ”
His expression remains impossible to read. God, this is terrifying. Like I’m dangling over the ledge of a very tall building, waiting to see if the man of my dreams will yank me back into the safety of his arms or let me fall to my bitter end.
“So…since I can’t pay the mortgage on a house I hate, and it’s not like I have furniture or anything, it only made sense to sell it to my neighbor’s son.
I worked my entire life to put down roots, and I undid it all in a single week, but I kind of feel…
amazing. Growing up, I always thought that it was the constant change that scared me, but it wasn’t.
To me, love was this…delicate thing. A rope that could slip right through my fingers if my feet weren’t firmly planted on the ground and the conditions weren’t exactly right, and it was up to me to make it right.
But you…” I step forward, feeling emboldened by his nearness.
“You love me, and it makes me braver. You make me feel like I can jump off cliffs.”
His eyes trail all over my face. “Yeah?” His voice is so quiet. Reverent.
“Yeah.” I chuckle, wiping at the tears forming in the corners of my eyes with the back of my wrist. “If you give me another chance, I know you’ll wake up every day and love me, because you always have. Even when I didn’t know it, I felt it.”
In the way he treated me, accepted me, valued me. It was always there. I was simply too stubborn to see it.
“And I know I’m going to wake up every day and love you,” I promise him. I won’t have a choice. I’ve been doing it so long it’s the only thing I know for sure how to do.
An ache settles over his face. I’m too late , I worry. No. I won’t accept this as the end. Not without telling him everything.
“I have it all figured out, you know. Well, the broad strokes anyway, since I’m homeless and jobless.
I’ll have to return my car too, since that’s a lease.
” I shake my tumbling thoughts back into place.
“But that’s fine, because I’ve recently come into possession of a gently used van home.
” He smiles a little. Just enough to make my stomach swoop.
“I bought your van. I made the offer under an assumed name.”
His brow furrows. “An assumed name?”
I nod solemnly. “?‘Sutton River’ isn’t a person. I made the offer with a fake email account.”
“No.” He gasps. “Two fictional characters from Aurora Falls aren’t joining as one to buy a van from me?”
“I didn’t think you’d put that together,” I mutter. “But it’s my van now. Our van. I don’t want you giving anything up to slot into my life, and I don’t want to twist myself into yours. I want to try something new, together.”
His lips lift. It’s tiny, almost imperceptible, but I can see it and nearly collapse in relief at the sight. It’s a raft in choppy waters, and I grab on for dear life.