Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
FLETCH
Those three dots take their time at first, but then a message pops up.
GracieLou
Arrow, I’m done hiding. My real name is Poppy Lewis, and I know you’re Oliver Fletcher.
What?
What??
My head is spinning as I read.
WHAT??
The next message comes in like a curveball to my helmet.
GracieLou
I lied about spending Christmas with my dad. He died two years ago of a heart attack while he was in prison.
Hang on: Poppy’s dad is dead? How many times has she mentioned him to me? Grace? Poppy? She’s told me stories about him, talked about all those shared traditions … it’s his release party!
Why didn’t she tell me?
Why didn’t I ask?
I drop the phone on the seat, my head swimming, connections coming faster and faster—
Poppy is Grace.
Grace is Poppy.
The thoughts are rushing too fast for me to follow, but as snippets of conversation from the last four days float by, the truth surfaces again and again. The serial killer jokes, the music, calling me a secret softie. She teased about not picking up hitchhikers!
How did I not recognize her?
How could I not feel her the moment she was next to me in line, smiling …
Smiling like a psychopath, she said.
It was Grace all along.
And I wasted so much time …
No, not wasted. I squeeze my forehead, trying to make this all make sense. Isn’t it even worse now? Grace betrayed me. I was already unraveling when I ran out here, but Grace has just given a final tug. I’ve been pulled apart, and I’m lying in shambles on the dirty floor of my dad’s truck.
My phone buzzes with more and more messages from Grace—Poppy Grace—telling me about Darren, the ins and outs of his case that I never knew, and suddenly, I feel sick seeing it from his perspective.
The Evan in that bar was the one I grew up with, not so much a golden boy as an untouchable hurricane, too wild for my dad to control, too brazen for my granddad to bully.
And I know he provoked Darren. I know he picked that fight.
It was one of his greatest skills—taunting and poking the bear until it finally attacked.
But he could always claim that he was the innocent victim.
Man, I hated Old-Evan sometimes.
Yes, what Darren did was wrong, no question. That doesn’t make Evan blameless.
And if I’m being honest with myself—really, truly honest—everything Grace—Poppy!—is saying is right. Darren didn’t deserve to rot behind bars for a bar fight. And if she’s being honest that his life was really as hard as she says it was …
Don’t I want mercy for someone like him?
Like I want it for me?
A sob escapes my throat, but I hold it back.
I’m a hard personality, but somehow in people like Scottie, Grace, Poppy, heck, half the people who know me in Mullet Ridge, I’ve found people who see past my anger and who support me anyway. I’ve found a group of people who now give me the kind of compassion Darren was denied his whole life.
Until Poppy Grace.
I ran from her, online and in real life. Discarded her the same way my granddad did when I was no longer useful to him.
What do I do now?
It’s so quiet in the cab, the only sounds are my ragged breathing and the muted tick of snow against the windshield. My hands are getting stiff. Why didn’t I turn on the truck? Am I trying to punish myself?
I glance down at my phone on my lap, and my eyes fall on two words—five minutes—before the screen goes dark from disuse.
Five minutes?
The dark screen gives me a glimpse of what a mess I am. My hair is untamed in the best of circumstances. Right now, it looks like I stuck my finger in a light socket.
I’m just getting back on my phone when a knock on my window startles me, and my phone drops between the seat and the console.
Crap. My hands aren’t as big as Darren Murphy’s, but I’m six-four.
They’re not small. Another knock sounds on the window, but my hand is currently crammed between the seat, fumbling.
I feel one of the buttons and jam it in my attempt to use my first two fingers as tweezers.
The phone is cold and slips out of my fingers, but I try the move again, and this time, I pinch it and am able to pull it gently up.
It drops to my lap, and I open the phone at the same time that the man at my window starts talking.
“Hey, I’m sorry to bug you, Ollie. I get that you don’t want to see me, but I need to apologize.”
I’m trying to read Grace’s message at the same time that I realize Darren Murphy is at my window apologizing.
I try to keep my eyes on my screen while turning my face to Darren. I hold a cold finger up. “Hold on!”
And then I read her last few messages …
She’s giving me five minutes to respond or she’s deleting the app.
HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN?
What am I even supposed to say?
My eyes fly to the dash clock, but I’m the idiot who didn’t turn the car on, hence why it’s friggin’ freezing in here.
My cold fingers barely work the screen. The phone screen dims, then flickers.
Of course. I’ve been sitting here in freezing temperatures for—how long?
Ten minutes? More? I tap frantically on the screen, but it’s frozen. WHAT? I tap again and again.
“AAAAGGGHHH!”
I turn the phone off. Back on. Nothing. I swipe out of the app and try to get back in. In a final act of desperation, I reset it.
“Come back on! Come back on!” I say, dimly aware of Darren’s patient, hulking presence right next to my door.
The phone powers up, and I go immediately back into the app and go to read Poppy Grace’s message, but the green dot that says she’s online isn’t there. It’s not red, saying she’s offline, either.
It’s gray.
I’ve never seen gray before. I press her name, and a box appears.
Profile not found.
My fingers have gone white, thumbs trembling on the frozen screen. Her last message was time stamped seven minutes ago.
I need you, she said.
While I was reeling, falling apart, processing, and then panicking, she must have been watching.
She thought I ghosted her, again.
She’s gone.
I feel like I’ve sunk through the seat and into the freezing earth below like it’s pudding. Nothing can compare to how low I feel.
“Ollie, are you okay?” Darren Murphy says through the window.
The only person in that entire church who came to check on me is the man I’ve heaped all of my anger and blame onto. I study his wide, earnest face. Then I stuff my phone in my jacket pocket and exit the truck.
Darren backs up, giving me space. “I’m sorry to pester you. I just wanted to give you a chance to say whatever you need to say to me. I know I deserve it.”
Boy, do those words hurt. Is that how I made him feel? Like all the work he’s done to become an apparently upright citizen is just a suit he’s borrowing?
“You don’t deserve anything, Darren. I don’t blame you for what happened.” I can’t even look at him. I can’t pull my eyes from the snow-covered pavement.
A year after the sentencing, Darren mailed long, rambling apologies to our family as part of his anger management program. I shredded mine after barely skimming it, furious he was trying to buy absolution with some buzzwords he’d learned in therapy.
Maybe if I’d read it, I would have understood he was never my enemy. I swallow a regret as hard and cold as an ice cube. “I should have forgiven you a long time ago.”
“I understand why you didn’t,” the broad man says.
“You don’t need to say that. It was never about you.”
Darren nods like he understands. “I ran into Evan at a support group meeting where he was speaking. I don’t think he knew I’d be there.
After the event, I asked him if we could talk, and he agreed.
It was a good talk. We understood each other, and he was nicer than I thought he’d be.
A few weeks later, I asked him if he’d speak to another support group. And we just sort of became friends.”
I sniff and nod. “That’s actually really nice.”
“I know I can never make it up to your family, but I’m not the same guy anymore.”
“I know. I’m glad, Darren.”
He nods. We both have our hands stuffed in our pockets. I feel like an abandoned igloo—a frozen exterior with nothing inside.
“Hey, the way your grandpa talked to you isn’t okay.”
I laugh. “Yeah, I agree.”
“No, I mean it. A real man doesn’t talk to people like that. I didn’t realize he’s a bully. I hate bullies.”
The frigid weather freezes the tears welling in my eyes. I blink them away.
“Thanks, Darren.” I hold out my hand, and he takes it eagerly.
I expect him to drag me back inside, but he hesitates. “I know it’s none of my business, but you seemed really upset on your phone. You okay?”
“No,” I say. He starts walking, and because I have nowhere else to go, I walk with him. I’m about to say, “It has nothing to do with you,” but that’s a lie. It has a lot to do with him. I simply didn’t realize until now that it wasn’t his fault.
This is the man Poppy Grace wanted to save.
If I’d only let her save me, too.