CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX #2
Fear swamped Tanner as he realized it was a knife. Fuck, this lady was messed up.
The knife was weird though, like it was made of plastic or something, but the tip looked sharp enough to do some damage.
A cold feeling settled in the pit of Tanner’s stomach.
“Darla,” Krista said in a strangled tone. “Don’t do this. Please. Let’s talk about this.”
But she shook her head, sobbing. “You don’t love me and I have nothing left!”
“Darla, listen to me,” Tom said urgently. “You don’t want to hurt yourself.”
She laughed and there was something about it that sent a chill down Tanner’s spine. “What I want is you. I want what we had before. But you left! You left me and you don’t love me anymore and now I’m all alone!”
Out of the corner of Tanner’s eye, he saw Catherine and his mom gathering the kids closer to them. Catherine held her finger to her lips and nodded at the other set of doors at the opposite end of the room from where Tanner stood.
They started moving slowly, edging that way. The kids looked scared and Tanner winced. Oh fuck, he didn’t want them to see what happened. Because it didn’t seem like it would be any kind of happily ever after here.
“You told me you loved me!” Darla screeched, pulling Tanner’s attention back to her. “That you wanted to be with me forever. And then you left.”
“Darla,” Krista said slowly. “We asked you to give us some time, but you started showing up at my work. At the events I did.”
“I just wanted to be with you,” she whispered, her shoulders shaking now.
“You visited our kids’ school,” Krista said tightly. “You scared them.”
“Yeah. Your precious fucking kids,” Darla spat. She turned to glare at Brie, the knife still held to her wrist. “Have they introduced you to their kids? To their parents?”
Brie opened her mouth and out of the corner of his eye Tanner saw Tom shake his head at her. Darla had her head turned, so hopefully she couldn’t see.
“No,” Brie blurted out. “No, I haven’t met them either.”
That was a big fat lie, because Brie had been hanging out with the SAPs tonight. Thankfully, Tom and Krista’s kids were still with them now. Tanner prayed none of them would walk in on this.
Darla let out an ugly laugh. “They won’t. They’ll tell you they’ll introduce you, but they’ll keep making excuses about why they can’t yet. It’s never the right time, you know?”
She dug the knife into her wrist a little and a small trickle of blood appeared.
Shit, shit. Catherine and his mom were still trying to get the kids out but what if Darla hurt herself before they could make it through the door? Tanner didn’t want it to happen at all but fuck, he really didn’t want to see a bunch of kids get traumatized.
Or, honestly, himself.
“Hey,” Tanner said softly, so he didn’t startle her. “Your name is Darla, yeah?”
“Yeah.” She whirled around, glaring at him. “What do you want?”
“Just to talk,” Tanner said with his most charming smile. “That’s all.”
Brie was slowly edging away, her gaze darting to Harper, who was in Tanner’s mom’s arms now. Catherine gave Brie a reassuring smile and tilted her head toward the door.
“What if I don’t want to talk to you?” Darla asked, her gaze darting around like it might be a trap. But she wasn’t crying anymore, so that was kind of a win.
Tanner shrugged. “I mean, that’s never really stopped me before. My mom always said I could talk a de—uh, dog’s ear off.”
She’d actually said a dead person but bringing up dead people to an unhinged lady with a knife seemed like a super bad idea.
Darla looked at him suspiciously and didn’t say anything.
“You know who I am, right?”
“Yeah. Tanner Clayton.” Her gaze flicked across him again.
“Cool. It’s nice to officially meet you. You’re a hockey fan?” He forced himself to lower his shoulders and smile at her, like this was a totally normal conversation.
“Yeah. I have been my whole life.” She lifted her shoulder a little to wipe at her eyes, although the knife still hovered near her wrist.
“It’s the best, huh?” Tanner grinned, relieved because Catherine and his mom and the kids were getting closer to the door now. “The minute I got on skates, I knew I was in love. Bet it was like that for you too.”
“I—I never played.”
“Sure,” Tanner said. “But watching it, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Was it like that when you met Tom and Krista too?” He held his breath because he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea if he brought them up or not. But it seemed like she just wanted someone to hear her, you know? To get what she was going through.
She studied his face for a minute before she slowly nodded. “Yeah. I could tell right away.”
“What could you tell?”
“That they—that they were it for me.”
“It must have really hurt when they weren’t ready to introduce you to their family.”
Her expression crumpled. “I loved them. I didn’t want them to hide me.”
“Do you think that maybe it’s because they—they didn’t want fans to be mean to you?”
“What?” She blinked wetly but she didn’t start crying again.
“Well, fans can sometimes be pretty nasty, right?” he said.
He didn’t really know where he was going with this, but she wasn’t trying to kill herself or anyone else at the moment, so he’d keep rolling with it.
“Sometimes fans say terrible things, yeah? Blame players’ families for them having a bad game or whatever? ”
“Sure,” she said slowly. “That happens.”
“Well, I don’t know Tom and Krista as well as you do,” he said.
“But I think maybe they were looking out for you. Trying to keep you safe from the fans. If everyone found out about you and Tom had a bad game, they might blame you. Say you were distracting him. They might even say even more terrible things because he—well, he and Krista are Black. They do that sometimes, right?”
“Yeah,” Darla said. She frowned. “It pisses me off when they do that.”
“I bet,” Tanner said. “So maybe Tom and Krista were protecting all three of you from the awful fans. Because they cared about you.”
“We were,” Krista whispered. “But you got so upset. You wouldn’t listen.”
“But you don’t love me anymore,” Darla said, her lip quivering.
“I—I still care about you,” Krista said softly. “I really do. But you—you were scaring us. It scares me when you do this. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
Darla broke down crying again. “I just wanted to be with you and you weren’t listening. I had to do something to make you listen.”
“I’m sorry,” Tanner said softly. “That hurts, huh? Feeling like no one is listening to you?”
She looked over at him again, nodding.
“Well, I hear you, okay? I hear how sad you are.”
The knife wavered a little, but she nodded again.
“Do you think … do you think you could drop the knife so I could give you a hug?” he asked quietly.
In the background, Tanner heard a muffled gasp before it was quickly hushed.
Darla hesitated, her gaze flicking in that direction, but she kept looking at Tanner as she pulled the knife away from her arm. A little line of blood ran down into her palm.
Tanner stepped closer with his own palms out, moving carefully, not making any sudden moves. He figured it was a little like dealing with a really angry dog. You probably didn’t want to startle them, or they’d think you were attacking.