Letter Twenty-Two #4
“What have you done?” he asked, the color draining from his face. “Your sweatshirt…”
Leave it to me to chop the bottom half off a sentimental item that had been in our family for two decades for the brief rush of satisfaction it would give me to see the look of devastation on my dad’s face. “I changed it to fit the current style,” I said. “It’s better now.”
“It’s destroyed,” he croaked. “You destroyed it.”
I made a big show of rolling my eyes. “Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic, Nic?”
“Don’t call me that,” he snapped. “It’s Dad. To you, I’m Dad.”
“Nah. A dad is someone I can rely on. Someone who’s dependable and honest and safe. And the thing is, Nic, I’m not sure that title describes you anymore.”
This shook my dad—literally shook him. He staggered back, speechless, before finding his voice again. “Why would you say that?” He held both hands out. “Look, let me take you to breakfast. I’ll be late today, because we need to talk. Whatever this is, we can work through it.”
I laughed. “No, thanks. I’m done talking to you. Done doing what you say. Done with you, Nic.”
I watched him flinch before I grabbed my water bottle and a yogurt from the fridge. Without another word, I headed upstairs, locked myself in my room, and ignored your text asking if I wanted to get a coffee down the street.
That afternoon, I walked down to the kitchen in my sneakers and grabbed a protein bar from the pantry.
“Is that all you’re eating?” You rose from the island, its marble countertop currently covered in the day-to-day clutter of your school stuff. Textbooks. Hastily written class notes. Cups of tea and coffee. Your laptop.
“Leave me alone.” I tucked the protein bar into a crossbody bag with my phone. “I can take care of myself.”
“Where are you going?”
“To Willoughby’s.”
“I don’t think—I mean, have you discussed that with Nic?”
“Fuck Nic. From now on, I’m doing what I want.”
Your gaze dropped to the slice of bare skin between the newly cropped sweatshirt and my leggings. “I’ll walk with you,” you said, tossing your glasses on the counter.
“Stay where you are,” I ordered, thrusting one hand in the air. “You’re not escorting me anywhere. That’s over, too.”
You halted, eyebrows drawn together, eyes full of concern. “What’s going on with you? Why are you so upset with Nic?”
I didn’t even know how to say it. Our dads might be more than friends? Your dad might share his wife with my dad? You and your dad might have way more in common than you think?
While I deliberated, your gaze dropped again, warming instantly, eyes raking over my hips and thighs in those skin-tight leggings. For once, you were looking at my body like you longed to touch it. And I couldn’t even enjoy that, dammit, because my whole life had just imploded.
Keeping my hand out, I backed up, closer to the back door. “I can’t do this right now. I need to go.” I pointed at you. “Don’t follow me.”
Outside, I stopped at the corner of the street, clutching the strap of my crossbody bag to my chest. I hadn’t walked these streets alone since the day I’d experienced that panic attack.
As always, I scanned the square for the mystery woman, but no luck. She hadn’t reappeared since my dad confronted her, which sucked, because now that I knew he’d been lying about the Harrises, I firmly believed he’d been lying about her, too. I needed to talk to her.
Taking a deep breath, I slowly moved down the sidewalk. But all that open air made my skin prickle, a voice inside my head whispering, Go back.
Still, I kept walking, determined not to wuss out. How would I ever make it on a college campus if I couldn’t cross the street alone?
En route to Willoughby’s, I cut through the Garden, hoping to make it through the park without someone coming after me.
I could do this. I could be on my own. No anxiety here.
No one tugging at my leash or ordering me back to the house.
No one coming after me—not Hal or you. To be sure, I glanced over my shoulder, only spotting some lady feeding her kid a snack on one of the benches, then shooing away a squirrel.
A man in a black jacket and sunglasses walked with one hand tucked in his jeans, glancing down at his phone.
At Willoughby’s brownstone, I rang the doorbell. He answered in his trademark white t-shirt and black jeans. “Elliot? What are you doing here?”
“I want to hang out,” I placed my hands on his chest and lifted up for a kiss, but he nudged me back.
“At my place?”
My heart dropped. “Do you have a girl in there or something? Because you seem really hesitant to let me in.”
“There’s no girl here. I got home from class ten minutes ago. I was just about to text you.” Finally, he greeted me with a kiss. “I thought you weren’t allowed to hang out here, that’s all.”
“That doesn’t matter anymore,” I said, letting him pull me into a hug. Three stoops over, I spotted the man from the park—the one with the black jacket and sunglasses—sitting on the steps, scrolling through his phone.
No. Definitely not the same man. Couldn’t be.
A little while later, I pushed Willoughby onto his couch and straddled him. “I want to go all the way.”
“Are you okay?” he asked, shivering as I nipped at his ear.
I lurched back with a huff. “Definitely not the response I was hoping for.” I traced the collar of his t-shirt. “So, um, that party you threw over the weekend. Did you take a girl upstairs?”
He stroked my braid. “I thought we agreed not to talk about that?”
My heart leapt to my throat. Maybe you were right. Maybe I, of all people, couldn’t be okay with this type of arrangement. “Just—if you slept with her, tell me now.”
“I didn’t,” he said, lifting his gaze back to mine. “I promise. I don’t want to do that with anyone but you.”
So there was a girl. I shoved the thought away and kissed him again, letting the warmth and pressure of his mouth dull the sharp edges of my rage. When he slipped his hand underneath my sweatshirt, mouth hot on my neck, I took his other hand and guided it to my hair. “Pull my hair. Hard.”
Willoughby pulled hard enough to jerk my head back, but I needed more. “Harder than that. I can take it. Make me scream.”
“What?” he asked breathlessly.
I wanted pain. Needed it. Craved it like a drug, desperate for another hit, my true desires springing to the surface. The real me.
I even said, “Or what if I bend over this couch and you spank me? Leave your handprint, baby. I’ll like it.”
“What?” Willoughby pushed me off him. “Jesus, Elliot. What happened to you as a kid? Did your dad hurt you? Did he spank you and shit?”
There it was. The dreaded recoil, Casey. Maybe I only asked him for the dark things so I could prove it to myself: I’m too much. Too dark. A freak.
“My dad never spanked me. He never did anything to hurt me.”
Except grab my face in the back of the car with Hal. Except lock me in his office that time. Except lie about everything.
Willoughby’s razor-sharp gaze never left my face. “Then how do you know you’ll like it?”
“I don’t.” The truth. “I just think I will.”
Willoughby didn’t believe me.
I tried tugging him back down to the couch, but he wouldn’t budge. “I just get like this sometimes, and pain makes me feel better. I don’t know why.” My eyes stung. “Don’t be mad. Don’t look at me like that.”
Willoughby’s expression softened. He finally sat down and pulled me in his lap. “What’s wrong? Talk to me.”
I couldn’t tell him about my dad and the Harrises—what if he talked?
—so I told him about my mom. How I’d hoped the mystery lady watching our house had actually been her, coming back for me.
I told him how, with the one-year anniversary coming up, I kept thinking about what had happened with Greer at his Halloween party.
Because I had been thinking about it—quite a lot, actually—before Bree told me about our parents and the shock of that had taken precedence over everything else.
We didn’t have sex, obviously. The pain stuff had killed the mood.
When I left, I spotted my dad outside, leaning against the black sedan, arms crossed over a black suit and bright blue tie. Hal sat behind the steering wheel, staring straight ahead.
“How long have you been out here?” I asked through clenched teeth.
“A couple hours now,” he said, opening the back door. He gestured at the back seat. “Get in the car.”
I backed up on the sidewalk. “No.”
“Get in the car. Right now.” He stepped forward. “Or I’ll make you.”
I laughed, glancing down at his feet. “In those shoes?”
Nic looked like he would, Italian leather Oxfords be damned. Over his shoulder, I spotted Hal stepping out of the car, the hefty bulk of him—especially in black—enough to scare most people into submission.
Me, though? I’d never had a reason to fear Hal, but something in the determined set of his shoulders—in the firm set of his square jaw—made me halt on the sidewalk with a racing heart that day.
“Come on, Ell,” he said, lowering his sunglasses and stepping onto the sidewalk. “Get in the car.”
Hal meant business, his brown eyes turning dark, no longer exuding warmth and kindness like they usually did. This man could easily throw me over his shoulder and toss me into the car, and I wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing to stop him. Except maybe scream.
Would Hal do that? Would he really come after me?
I backed up, testing him.
With a look of determination, Hal stepped forward.
He would, I realized. If Nic told him to, he’d snatch me up and force me into that car in an instant.
A young girl, probably nine or ten, came skipping down the sidewalk, ushered along by an older, sour-faced woman I took for the nanny—they all had the same world-worn look about them.
Curiosity prompted the girl’s dark brown eyes to snag on mine, and I knew: if I ran, I’d traumatize this happy kid by letting her witness a kidnapping in broad daylight. So I didn’t run.
Call it my good deed of the day.