Letter Nine #2
I barely made it ten feet from the house before someone called my name. Not you or Michael—but Hal. He stood behind the open driver’s side door of the black sedan, looking like a Secret Service agent in his black suit and sunglasses. “Where are you going?”
I tossed my arms in the air. “For a walk.”
“Not alone, you’re not,” he said, slamming the door.
“Are you kidding? I can walk to the park by myself.”
“You’re upset,” he said, walking toward me. “I’ll go with you.”
“Oh my God,” I groaned, clutching my head. “This is so ridiculous. I don’t need an escort to the fucking park. It’s the park!”
“We need to have a talk, anyway. Come on,” Hal urged, his large hand heavy on my shoulder as he tossed a glance over his.
The whole way there, I wanted to let the frustration, burbling up in my chest, tear through my lungs. Scream so loud everyone within a ten-mile radius, including my dad—at the firm—would hear it. I often felt like this. Powerless. Turbulent. Trapped.
It was one thing for Hal to come after me at nine years old—at ten and eleven, then again at twelve—when I tried running away from one of my nannies.
But coming after me now? At seventeen? Absurd.
I should’ve slipped out back, like I had the day you’d found me freezing in the park, feeding the squirrels.
In the Garden, Hal chose a bench closest to the pond—because he knew I liked that. “What’s wrong?”
“What a pointless question,” I said, laughing to hold back the tears, burning behind my eyes.
“Of course it isn’t pointless.”
“Unless you can change all the things that are messed up about my life? Then, yeah, it is.”
“Let’s talk about it,” Hal said, stretching out his arms across the top of the bench. “What’s going on?”
“Well, for starters, I can’t leave my house alone—but that’s nothing new—and Michael’s being a dick.
Which is fine, I guess, because he’s got a point: I do cause drama every summer.
” I turned my head, watched some woman jog around three tourists who’d paused to snap pictures of the jagged skyline behind the park.
“Sometimes I want to walk away and never come back. Completely disappear.”
Can you believe I said those words, Casey? How weirdly prophetic was that? It’s like, on some level, I always knew.
Only I wouldn’t walk away. I’d be led away in handcuffs—from one prison to another.
“Actually,” Hal said, “that’s part of the reason we need to have a talk.” He waited for me to look at him before adding, “I know Casey’s not picking you up from school like he claims to be.”
My stomach dropped, followed by a wave of nausea. Shit. “How do you know that?”
“By the time I get Casey’s texts telling me not to pick you up, I’m already at the school waiting for you. So I’ve watched you walk off with Tinsley twice now—on one occasion, I watched you walk off by yourself—and Casey was nowhere to be seen.”
This was bad. Despite how tight Hal and I were, I knew better than to believe his loyalty to me outranked his loyalty to my dad. After all, I wasn’t the one who signed his paychecks. “So when do you plan on telling my dad?”
Hal stared at the pond, his dark sunglasses making it impossible for me to read his expression. Dread settled like a stone in my stomach, a sob clawing up my throat.
“I don’t,” he finally said, though I still could’ve sobbed—from relief. “We’ll keep this between us. But here’s the thing: next time you go somewhere—I don’t care where it is or how short the distance—I want you to text me, so I can take you there myself.”
“Why?”
“It’ll make me feel more comfortable.”
“But Tinsley’s place isn’t all that far. It’s a fifteen-minute walk.”
“Ell, text me.”
“No,” I said.
Hal yanked the sunglasses off his face. “I beg your pardon?”
“No. No one drives in Beacon Hill or Back Bay. No one I know has a driver or an escort. It’s weird. Casey’s letting me do this so I can go places—so I can do normal things, like a normal person—and if you’re taking me everywhere, like you usually do, that’s not normal.”
“Do you want me to get in trouble with your dad?”
“No.” I’d take the fall myself before letting that happen.
“Do you want Casey to get in trouble with your dad?”
I crossed my arms. “No.”
“Then you’ll text me. You still get to go places. You still get to do normal things,” Hal said, leaning his shoulder against mine. “But I can make sure you get there safely.”
“Safely? What are you afraid I’ll do? Cross the street before looking both ways? Take shortcuts down dark, secluded alleys?”
Hal stood up. “You want me to agree to this arrangement or not?”
“Fine,” I grumbled as I rose from the bench.
As we approached the house, I asked, “Is my dad secretly, like, a mob boss or something?”
I could picture it. For someone who’d been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Nic also had the world-worn, jaded look of a man who’d been through some shit.
I don’t know how many times I’d watched him come home from work, pour himself a glass of scotch, and drain it before he’d even loosened his tie.
Hal, whose sunglasses were now tucked inside his jacket, rolled his eyes. “You watch too many movies.”
“So it’s the other reason, then.”
“What reason?”
“I’m dangerous. That’s why I can’t go anywhere alone.”
“You aren’t dangerous, Ell. Other people are.”
“What people?”
Hal sighed as he peered into the distance, his gaze fixed on something over my shoulder. “Look, the Bancrofts aren’t exactly beloved by everyone in this city—so I worry, okay?” He jutted his chin at the house. “Go. I’ll see you in the morning.”