CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Brett
One Year Ago
“When were you going to tell me that you used to fuck Hannah?” I ask while sinking my knife into a ripe cantaloupe.
Bowen slowly turns on his heel to face me, “Come again?” he asks, arching his brow with curiosity.
At first, Hannah’s bitchy jabs didn’t bother so much. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized there was something in her voice that was different than just a jealous woman trying to press my buttons. It sounded like…she knows things.
“When—” Slice “were you going to tell me—” Slice “that—” Slice “you used to—” Slice “fuck Hannah?”
Bowen shifts his eyes between me and the cutting board, “Can you put the knife down, please?”
I look down at the cubes of cantaloupe and then at the gleaming chef’s knife. I guess I do look rather unhinged. I rinse the knife, set it down on the counter next to the drying rack, and then turn back to him expectantly.
“Alright,” he continues, “what makes you think I fucked Hannah?”
“Because she said so. Barrett was there, she heard everything, when she—"
“Where?” Bowen cuts me off.
“What?”
“Where was Barrett?”
“At the Rickhouse last night. We went to the restroom and Hannah was standing there at the sink looking at me like I wrecked her whole night.”
“What did she say?”
I can’t read Bowen’s face. It’s an odd mixture of curiosity, skepticism, and amusement.
I purse my lips, “Well, first of all, she was the one who stole my lipstick.”
The corners of Bowen’s mouth relax and any amusement he had is now gone.
I nod with vindication, “Yeah, I went with Hildy one day to check on her cat while she was out of town and, right there,” I thrust my arm out between us, “on her dresser is my lipstick. So, I took it back!”
Bowen bites his lip like he’s trying not to smile.
“And when she saw I had it at the bar, she made a comment about how this house isn’t my house, but it’s your house, like I don’t belong here. And then I called her out and asked her if the only reason she hates me is because you won’t fuck her.”
Bowen blinks, pausing for a moment before he responds, “And?” He’s eerily quiet.
“She gave me this stupid grin like I didn’t know what I was talking about and said, anymore ...” I drawl with a dramatic eyeroll.
“You’re getting bent out of shape because some bitch tried to rile you up at the bar?”
His response catches me off-guard. It feels pretty reductionist and slightly odd that he’s reducing Hannah to some bitch at the bar . Am I the unreasonable one for being bothered that another woman, who is a constant presence in his life, is insinuating that she’s slept with my fiancé?
“Doesn’t that bother you?” I implore.
Bowen leans back against the counter and just looks at me. I try to read him, but it’s impossible sometimes. He only shows emotion when he chooses to.
“Bowen,” I press, “is she telling the truth?”
He gives a half shrug and glances across the living room, “Does it matter?”
I hesitate at first, because I don’t know, “Not on its own,” I stammer, “but when I found her in the house, when she left that picture in our closet, when all my shit started disappearing—”
He snaps his head up, “What do you mean all your shit started disappearing?”
Finally, something got your attention.
“My earrings disappeared before New Year’s, after I found Hannah here checking on Waylon. My lipstick disappeared, obviously. My favorite sweatshirt is gone…” I trail off, remembering that Bowen doesn’t know—and Bowen can’t know—that I know about that one because I snuck back into Hannah’s apartment and saw everything stashed in her closet .
I shake my head and regroup, “You know I’m not a slob. I hardly ever lose things. And now, all of a sudden, things are going missing when it’s obvious that Hannah doesn’t like me and sneaks in here whenever she wants. It’s not OK.”
Bowen’s face softens as he listens to me. Not dismissively, but like he’s finally accepting that something strange is going on.
“I believe you,” he finally nods, “I’ll figure it out. I’ll get my keys from everyone and I’ll get your stuff back.”
“How?” I blurt out incredulously.
Bowen shrugs, “I’ll ask her for it.”
I arch my brow in amusement, “And she’ll just admit it and give it to you?”
“She will,” he says bluntly, “because she listens to me and she’ll do what I say.”
“ Why would she admit something like that to you?” I press him.
Bowen closes his eyes and lets his head fall forward with an exasperated sigh, “I really didn’t want to relive this,” he mutters, “but do you remember me saying that one of my friends died when we were in high school?”
I nod, remembering Amy Lee’s lyrics tattooed up and down Bowen’s ribcage.
“I never slept with Hannah,” he finally admits, “but that’s why she acts the way she does,” he explains, “when our friend died, it messed her up so bad that she hangs on to the way things used to be. Back then, I promised her nothing would change and all of us would still be best friends. Then Hildy married Jay and she freaked the fuck out and nearly had a nervous breakdown when I started dating my last girlfriend. She’s really possessive and has major abandonment issues. That’s the reason she’s such a basket case around you, because she can’t handle anyone new coming into the fold. It’s like time stopped for her after—” Bowen stops short, glancing around the kitchen before letting his gaze fall back to the floor, “You want to know what happened?”
I’m not sure I do, but I know he’s going to tell me anyway.
“Her name was Evie.” Bowen lifts his eyes to the ceiling as though he’s already told the story a million times over, “Someone took her into the woods, shot her, beat her up, fucked her, choked her out, cut off her hair, slashed her up with a knife, and then stuffed her in a sewer pipe.” He lowers his gaze to me, his eyes going dark, “Can you imagine?”
I cringe, “I don’t want to.”
“No,” Bowen shifts his weight, “I mean, can you imagine the rage involved in doing that to someone? It wasn’t enough to kill her, she had to suffer. She had to be stripped of everything until there was nothing left except a used, broken, mutilated pile of skin and bone. And then, even after that, she was so meaningless that she was stuffed into a pipe to show everyone she was nothing but trash, sunk into muddy creek water to rot back into the earth. What do you do to deserve that?”
I shake my head, “She couldn’t have done anything to deserve that.”
“Well,” Bowen looks up gravely, “someone thought she did.” He speaks so bluntly, probably numb from years of marinating on the horrific details of Evie’s death. Bowen shakes his head, “Hildy still can’t accept it—not really. It’s too fucked up.”
A shiver runs across my shoulders, “Who took her out to the woods?”
“It was someone who knew her,” he states with confidence, “otherwise, there’s no way she would’ve ended up that far out. That’s why it took so long to find her. My granddad was the one running the whole investigation and they would’ve found her sooner, but she wasn’t even in their search radius.” Bowen pauses, his eyes darkening again, “But you know who did find her?”
I cock my head and wait for him to speak.
“This one guy who was obsessed with her.” Bowen clenches his jaw, a hint of pain in his eyes, “Of all the hundreds of people searching, he’s the one that finds her. He put her there,” Bowen growls, “and he went back to find her.”
I stare at him, stunned, “So, why isn’t he in prison?”
Bowen shrugs, “Hell, if I know. She was in such bad shape, there’s no evidence of anything. And that’s what messes with Hannah—that the guy who did that is still walking around. But I told her nothing would happen to her or anyone else. That’s why when she loses her shit, I’m the one who has to bring her back down.”
“Bowen,” I say gently, “that’s really unhealthy. It’s really codependent.”
His eyes wander across the room to Waylon and the hum of his usual snoring, “Have you ever noticed how Waylon and Brody act when they’re together?”
I glance at Waylon. His ears twitch once and his legs spasm, probably dreaming that he’s running after a squirrel—back when he could run fast.
“In what way?”
“Waylon was four when Hildy and Jay got Brody as a puppy. They’ve spent most of their lives together. They’re basically brothers, but Brody knows Waylon’s in charge. It’s the most obvious when they eat. Back when Brody was a pup, Waylon had to teach him to wait his turn, and if Brody got into Waylon’s bowl, he’d growl and nip at Brody and knock him across the room to show him who was boss. After that, if Brody got too close to something that was Waylon’s, all he had to do was show his teeth and Brody would back off. After Brody got older, he learned how to communicate, and we don’t even see it now. But, once in a while, Brody acts like a dumbass and Waylon has to put him back in his place.”
It's hard to imagine Waylon moving quickly at all. But that’s how animals are, isn’t it, they leap into action when they have to or risk starving or being killed ?
“They’ve lived with each other so long that they know what the other’s thinking,” Bowen continues, “and if they want to live outside a cage, they know how to fall in line. If Brody’s in my house, he knows it’s me, Waylon, and then him. If they went nuts every time someone dropped a piece of bacon on the floor, they’d be useless. Sometimes, Waylon will let Brody have something of his, but only because he allows him to take it. And that’s how it is with Hannah—I might let her get away with some things because I know what all this did to her. She knows I have her back, but there’s still a hierarchy, and if she steps too far out of line, she’s always going to get put back in her place, especially if she’s fucking with anything inside my four walls.”
I glance down, concentrating hard on the woodgrain, “Does that include me?”
For a moment, I’m afraid to know the answer. I’m not part of their past or the specters that haunt each of them in their own way. I don’t know how to deal with broken people who lash out at me for existing.
Bowen pushes off the counter and places his hands on the granite on either side of me, “Listen very closely, Brett,” he lowers his voice, “ you are my fourth wall. For a long time, I felt like something was missing, but when I found you, it all came together again.”
Sounds like how I felt…
He reaches up and cups my face in his hands, “If you keep listening to me—the one who cares about you more than anyone—I’ll keep you safe, because I promise above all else to take care of you.”
The brown of his irises fades into black the longer I stare at them, glinting in the light like the moon over dark water. I reach up and squeeze his wrists, giving a nod before pressing his lips to mine. I don’t know what I expected Bowen to do, but I believe him now, because he keeps his word and when he says he’ll do something, he does it.
Bowen returns his hands to the countertop and taps the granite with his thumb, “Hannah might bitch and moan about it but, in the end, she listens to me because she remembers what happened to Evie.” A look of disdain washes over his face, “And Evie would still be here if she’d have just fucking listened to me, too.”