Chapter Six #3
I didn’t know how long I stood there, watching her, wanting to help but unable to.
A great pity took me at how exhausted she was becoming, but a great pride surged through me at how determined she was to finish her chore.
She was the strongest woman I’d ever met, and I’d only seen a fraction of her struggle.
She rested her hands on her knees, and from here, I could see her shaking at the elbows. The soft sound of her stomach growling drew me forward a step. She was hungry. I didn’t know how I could fix it, but I wanted to.
Mira looked up with frightened, wide eyes as the wind shifted. Straightening, she scanned the woods around me. Her eyes never landed on me directly, but she began to back away as if she could sense my presence. As if she could sense me watching her.
I sank back deeper into the shadows and lowered my head.
She was scared. I could smell the acrid scent of it on the breeze.
It was me she feared, and disgust flooded my gut.
I shouldn’t have come here. I’d been wrong about being able to share this with Mira.
What gave her immunity from the danger of my existence?
I’d immediately decided to shield my family and friends from what I’d turned into, but not Mira. Why?
Didn’t she have enough on her plate just trying to survive?
I sank farther back into the woods as she ran for the front door and slammed it closed behind her.
I imagined her clutching that little rifle she’d brought the day she saved me.
I imagined her staring at the door in horror, waiting for someone, or something, to come in after her.
Her breath trembling, hands shaking, arms weary as they lifted the rifle.
All because of me.
I didn’t want to complicate her life. She was practically a stranger who’d taken a great risk saving my sorry hide. The best thing I could do for her was to hide this from her, too.
****
Mira
It had been a month since Caleb McCreedy.
The weather had changed from the hot and blinding brightness of summer to the cool and dim promise of autumn.
I had passed my final exams and was a high school graduate.
There had been no party or graduation cards.
Just me and Uncle Brady’s mangy old dog, who had decided to show up after three months of me thinking he was dead in the woods somewhere.
He would only stay around if there was a chance of a meal.
There wasn’t for either of us, so he’d be gone again to find something better before long.
I had taken up my favorite sleeping posture in the night sometime, curled up in a ball with my arms wrapped around my stomach. It eased the ache if I lay like this, and because of it, I’d slept like the dead.
A noise rattled the walls, and I lurched upward and covered my ears as they were assaulted by some sound I couldn’t identify in the first moments of wakefulness. Screaming?
My breath was rushed as I looked around my room for something I could use as a weapon. The light bulb above me flickered and went out, and then flickered on and held.
My head swiveled frantically. “What’s happening,” I whispered.
The ghost of Uncle Brady had come back for me. That’s what was happening.
I jumped up and got tangled in my bed sheets on my way off the bed.
I fell to the floor and smacked my knees against the wooden planks below.
One broke in half and dangled under my leg, held in place by two rusty nails that hadn’t quite given up yet.
Scrabbling for the door, I ran for the old record player in the living room, as it seemed that was where most of the sound was coming from.
It was playing an old Elvis record at maximum volume.
I yanked the cord out of the wall and yelped when I saw the kitchen.
Either someone had been in my house, or the magic grocery fairy had come a callin’.
Rows and rows of brown plastic Jake’s Quickstop bags full of food lined the counters and table.
“Morning,” came a deep voice from the doorway.
It was barely light outside, but I would be able to pick out Caleb’s silhouette anywhere. He leaned up against the doorframe, and I swear I could see a smirk in his stance.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. My heart was pounding against my sternum so hard it hurt.
“Do you always sleep in that?” he asked, ignoring my question and pointing to my lack of pants.
My one pair of shorts was flapping around in the breeze to dry outside, so it had been a tank top and undies kind of night for me.
My hands rocketed to cover my front but Caleb was already walking toward the kitchen, apparently not giving a fig about my state of undress.
He wore a tight fitting, gray, V-neck T-shirt and some baggy jeans with a utility belt full of tools slung low around his hips.
His pants had dried paint and smudges of black on them and holes frayed with plain white strands of undyed denim at the knees. Work pants.
I should have left to put my shorts on, but I couldn’t quite pull myself away from the sight of Caleb in my kitchen and the ripple of the muscles in his back as he tugged on…
“No! Don’t open—”
He pulled on the refrigerator door, and the smell of the food that had been entombed for the past nine months wafted out like a stinky tidal wave.
“Oh, God.” I gagged and covered my nose with the back of my hand as my eyes watered.
Caleb must have been holding his breath because he ignored the smell and went right to work on dumping the contents of the fridge into a large trash bag.
I went and propped the front and back doors open in hopes that it would help some of the stink escape.
Bolting, I yanked my shorts off the clothesline outside and shimmied into them.
When I came back in, Caleb tossed me a plastic container of sanitary wipes and opened a can of his own.
“Fridge is working. We need to get it clean quick, though. The milk is getting warm.” He stopped and looked critically at me. “On second thought, let me do this and you eat something. I can see every one of your ribs through your shirt.”
The rows of grocery bags were enough to overwhelm me. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because you saved my life. Don’t be stubborn. It’s part of the debt. Just eat.”
He had turned when he was talking, and I could see the red, angry scars the bear had made across his neck.
He had them on his arms, as well, but the one on his neck was what held me.
It tapered and disappeared under his shirt, and I wanted to see more.
I took a step forward and reached my hand out to touch it.
Caleb stood frozen, his face an unreadable mask, and I let my hand fall back to my side.
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
He sighed, and his face took on a hard and distant look. “Do yours?”
“Not until I see them in the mirror,” I said honestly. He’d tried to hurt me by bringing up my scars, but I understood the instinct to use that kind of weapon. I searched for anything to ease his pain. “It gets better with time.”
“That’s hard to believe,” he said, turning back to the fridge to wipe it down. “It’s all anybody looks at anymore.”
His internal struggle was so thick, it settled like a mist on my skin. Did he blame me, too? Did he think he looked that way because of me, like that Becca girl did?
“Can I ask you something?”
“What?” he asked in a gruff voice.
Four freshly killed fish had been dropped on my doorstep over the past month, and last I checked, that mangy old dog of mine wouldn’t have ever bothered sharing his food with me. “Did you bring me the fish?”
His eyes narrowed, as if I was crazy. “What fish?”
“Oh. Never mind.” Embarrassed, I dropped my gaze to his work boots until he went back to cleaning and released me from his impossibly blue gaze.
I rifled through a plastic bag, vowing to take the first thing that was edible and leave him to his work. A box of mixed berry granola bars caught my attention, and I opened it as fast as I could. My hands trembled, and my legs felt wobbly enough to knock my knees together.
“You want one?” I hadn’t meant to whisper, but it was all that came out.
He stopped what he was doing and swiveled his head to me. “What’s wrong?” he asked through a look of confusion.
I wouldn’t risk speaking, so I shook my head and stared at the box of treasures I held clutched to my chest. Nothing was wrong—except that Caleb was marred because of me, and now he was in my kitchen paying back some stupid debt he didn’t owe, and now I’d somehow pissed him off again.
And he felt so big in my tiny home that it was hard to breathe.
Strong and in control, he worked without trying to be quiet, and his strength seeped out of him when he shut drawers, set cans down, or closed the fridge.
He was overwhelming. And beautiful. But mostly overwhelming.
I skittered back into my room, but I could feel his gaze follow me until the door clicked closed behind me. How could I explain what was wrong with me when my feelings were just a mass of confusion not even I was equipped to interpret?
One granola bar package sat on the bed beside me, and I guiltily ate a second.
I wished I could eat up every single thing Caleb had brought, but I wasn’t a dog.
I knew about rationing. If I was careful, this food could last me two months.
I peeked out the door to watch Caleb. He was putting cold things into the fridge with swift and confident accuracy.
I shut the door again and sat on my bed like a coward, clutching onto the box of leftover granola bars as if it would get the wise idea to try and run away.
I didn’t know this Caleb. He was strong, quick, overpowering and intimidating. He was a tornado, as beautiful as he was terrifying. This house had only known the weak and ravaged Caleb born of injury and pain.
A light knock on the door pulled me from my thoughts. Caleb opened it slowly and peered in. “Can we talk?”