Nine
NINE
VANESSA
The frantic rattle of a fist against the glass snaps me out of the trance I’d found myself in while preparing the tables for another busy weekday. Wednesday is always the worst for people needing their mid-week pick-me-up, and I get it. I’m the same after another night of the sleep-panic-wake cycle.
I cross over to where Marianna damn near attempts to break through the locked door and flip the catch. “Sorry. We’re not open yet,” I sass.
“Ha. Ha.” She barrels inside, gaze searching past me.
“Theresa’s out back, taking out the trash,” I state, returning to the job at hand.
My best friend and boss know each other, sure. But they sure as fuck don’t like each other. It’s like having two quarreling cats in heat whenever they’re near.
“Good.” Her upper lip crinkles as she stares at the open back door. “I hate that I have to come here if I want to see you at work. Anyway.” She shakes her head clear and thrusts her phone onto the table beside the chairs I’ve yet to take down. “She accepted. It’s her.”
Swear to God, my fucking heart stops beating for a whole second. Easy now. Not the stylish exit from this life I had in mind. “How can you be so sure?”
“I straight up asked if she’s related to him.” She grins, super proud of herself.
“You the fuck what?” My fingers tighten into the front of my T-shirt. “Did she find that weird?”
“Not really. I came up with this whole backstory.” Marianna spreads her hands in a rainbow. “Said we’d met a few months back, that we’d hooked up a few times, and now he wanted me to move in with him, but I had this weird feeling about it, so I was doing background checks on the guy before I committed.”
“You sound unhinged.” I manage a small smile.
“Well, I’d have to be to want to hook up with him, right?” Her eyes go wider as though unsure she assumes right.
I nod, nudging the phone back toward her. “You aren’t wrong.” My gaze fixes on the screen as it fades to black. “Is she…?” My stomach sours.
“I didn’t ask about your mom,” Marianna says softly as she lifts a chair off the adjacent table and sets it on the floor. “That would have seemed weird.”
“No. I meant— Never mind.” I may not have spoken to my aunt in well over a decade, but I never realized until now how much of a comfort it was to know, on some subconscious level, that I had at least one relative who was unaffected by his lies. The idea of her no longer being free of his influence plucks at something painful in my heart. I can’t be the only one. “So, what now? I just send a friend request myself so I can message her?”
Marianna’s smile turns into a lip-biting grimace. “See. That’s the thing.”
I set a hand on the table to stop myself from buckling.
“She got concerned when I spun the story about him wanting me to move in. Didn’t want to elaborate via Messenger on why, so she offered to talk face-to-face.”
A million scenarios run through my mind. What if Marianna didn’t talk to my aunt? What if it’s him using my aunt’s profile? What if she surrendered everything to him and lives there now, too? Shit.
“Stop it,” Marianna snaps. “I can see the fucking spiral spinning out in your fucking eyes. Spill.”
“It could be a trap,” I manage to whisper. “Maybe it isn’t her.”
“That’s for me to find out, not you. Okay?” She ducks her head, pinning me with a stern glare from beneath her perfectly styled eyebrows. “I wouldn’t bring you into this if I felt it was unsafe.”
“It is unsafe,” I exclaim, abandoning the cloth in favor of walking out my spiking anxiety. “You don’t understand, Marianna. If you arrange to meet up and it turns out to be him, you’re putting yourself at risk. You can’t go alone.”
“Who said I’m going anywhere?”
“What?” I spin and frown at her. “What do you mean?”
“Your aunty is coming here.” Marianna puts her hands together in a prayer position beneath her chin, lips rolled together.
“She wh—“ My fucking voice fails me, words lodged in my throat as Theresa returns via the back door. This was such a bad idea. So bad.
“You.” Theresa’s disgusted accusation sails across the room to an unfazed Marianna.
“Yes, me,” my best friend states, gaze lazy as she retrieves her phone from the table. “How are you, Theresa? Long days on your feet aren’t too much for your aging joints, are they?”
“No worse than the bed sores you’ve earned from spending so much time on your back.”
The women glare at one another. I’ve never asked why they hate each other, but I get the feeling I probably should endeavor to learn their backstory. At least before one of them knifes the other in the back alley.
“You okay, Nessie?” Theresa shakes out a new bin liner, peeking at me between the coffee machine and register as she shoves it into place.
I open my mouth to answer, yet I don’t have it in me to lie. I can’t be assed having to explain the truth either. Which leaves me in a weird rock and a hard place scenario as I tug at the hem of my T-shirt, stretching the fabric.
“What did you do to her?” Theresa sweeps through the swing door, beelining for Marianna.
My friend shoves out of her seat with such urgency that the legs screech across the floor. “Easy on. You know I can afford a better lawyer than you.”
“Fuck’s sake, you two. I’m fine.” I wave a hand between the two women to break them apart, knocking Theresa on the shoulder. “It’s okay.”
“Well, it ain’t, babe,” Marianna offers. “You should sit down before you fall down.”
My shaking arm registers as I drop it to my side. I didn’t think I was that bad.
“You do look pale,” Theresa observes. “What’s happened?” She shoves a chair against my legs, controlling my collapse onto the wooden seat. “Talk to me, sweetheart.”
I shift my gaze from Marianna, standing on my left, to Theresa on my right as she pulls up a chair to face mine.
I laugh.
“Jesus, Ness,” Marianna mutters, resuming her seat. “I need to call Doug after this and tell him I won’t be home for a few nights.”
“No.” I shake my head, closing my eyes briefly. “I don’t need babysitting. It’s okay.”
“It’s clearly not.” I flinch when Theresa sets her hand atop my knee and leans forward in her seat. “Start at the top and tell me what the fuck has been going on these past couple of days.”
“She got a letter last week,” Marianna states.
“In her own words,” Theresa warns, glaring at my friend.
For fuck’s sake. “I got a letter last week,” I deadpan, echoing my bestie’s words. “From a lawyer acting on behalf of my stepfather.”
“Oh.” Theresa leans back, arms folded to settle in for the story.
“It came with medical records for my mother. Cancer,” I relay. “Terminal. He sent a letter that said it was my fault and that I killed her.”
“Jesus, Joseph, and Mary,” Theresa mutters, dragging a hand over her face. “This is the guy you’re hiding out from, right?”
I nod. I’ve given her snippets over the past month, but not much for her to know the extent of what or who exactly I avoid.
I refuse to say run from because I stopped running years ago.
And I refuse to say escape because I never truly did.
I just avoid him and everything he encompasses.
“I’m so sorry for the loss, honey.” My boss offers her hand, and I take it, connecting us in this weird therapy triangle by reaching for Marianna’s, too.
I’m generally pretty shit with physical touch, but it’s yet another thing from my past I want to actively undo. So, as fucking awkward as it feels to hold their hand, I do it, grateful for having people who want to offer me their touch at all.
“I don’t know if she’s actually gone or if this is just his way of manipulating me into going back there.”
Again, I refuse to call it home. Home is where the heart is. That place is where mine broke. Home is also wherever you lay your head. And I haven’t set mine down on his fucking patch of dirt for a long, long time.
Nope. That hell isn’t home.
It’s just where I was formed.
“Where are these records he sent you?” Theresa asks, searching around me like I’d have them on my person at work. Well, I guess I did before.
“They’re at home.”
She sighs out her nose. “If you bring them in, I’m happy to phone the hospital and ask outright if she’s still receiving treatment there.”
“They’re a year old,” I tell her. “I doubt she’d still be there.”
“Maybe not, but her treatment records would be if she’s still attending appointments.”
“They won’t let you access them,” I say with a frown. “You aren’t related.”
“No?” She winks, placing her free hand on her chest as she takes on a woeful voice. “I’m so concerned, Ma’am. My sister cut off contact with the family, and we’re worried she’s not taking proper care of herself.”
I smirk. “You do sound convincing.”
“I’ve had some practice manipulating people for information over the years.”
“You don’t say,” Marianna mutters.
The animosity between them pulses through our joined hands, pinging through me as a conduit from one woman to the other. I pull free and set my palms on top of my legs, rubbing back and forth.
“Not my fault you didn’t think of doing it,” Theresa bitches without looking Marianna’s way. “What have you done to help?”
“Ness said she has an estranged aunty who might know the truth, so I reached out on social media.”
Theresa lifts an eyebrow and gives a humph, reluctant to admit she did well. “And?”
“And she’s on her way here to meet me face-to-face.”
The goddamn room swims again. I lean forward and deep breathe. For fuck’s sake. I believed I was better. That I was halfway to being somewhat normal with how little my anxiety and panic attacks had disrupted me since moving to Temperance. But all it took was one fucking letter, and I’m fifteen and disassociating amongst the crowd while my world slowly burns all over again.
Shit .
“Babe, it’s okay. She’s coming to talk to me,” Marianna assures. “You don’t have to see her.”
“And she’ll probably clam up and bolt the second she realizes you’ve lied to her.” Theresa shakes her head. “Why does she think she’s coming here anyway?”
“To talk to me about her brother. Vanessa’s stepfather.” Marianna lifts her eyebrows. “So, you know, it’s like fucking untrue and all that.”
“Fuck you.”
“Ladies,” I growl. “Seriously.” The need to know their backstory grows more dire by the second. Later. “When does she get here?” I ask, doing the math in my head. It’d take my aunty two days to drive here but only two hours to fly. “Is she driving or flying?”
“Flying. I bought her the ticket.”
“When?”
“She arrives in three days. Saturday morning. I’ve got an open home to wrap up that day, and then I’ll pick her up from the airport.”
“Is she staying the night?” Theresa asks. “Or flying home the same day.”
“Same day.”
I set my elbows to my knees and hang my head. “I want to come.”
“Honey, no.” Marianna tilts her head. “You need to stay under the radar.”
I shrug. “They already know I live here—they sent the letter here. What does it matter if she knows, too?”
“She has a point,” Theresa cedes, slouching in her seat. “Are you sure you want to do this, though? You seem affected enough by the thought alone. Phoning the hospital would be a lot easier.”
“No.” I draw a deep breath and sigh before I continue. “I’ve got other questions she might be able to help with. I’d like to talk to her anyway.”
“Well.” Theresa rises from her seat and sets it back on the table. “I think you should take your friend's suggestion and have her stay the night. You need the company, Ness.”
I smile softly and shake my head. “No. I need the time to sit and work through what I want to say.” I turn to Marianna. “Thank you, though.”
“I’m keeping my phone on.”
“I’m sure you would.”
She glances down at the aforementioned device and sighs. “I need to carry on. The people buying the farm are riding my ass on the details.”
“Someone’s buying the farm?” Theresa calls from behind the counter.
“Yeah.” Marianna’s shoulders straighten as she stands a little taller. “They’re paying asking for it.”
“What the hell for?” My boss throws a dish towel over her shoulder. “That place has been abandoned for years. It needs major work.”
“They know.” She shrugs. “But I guess they don’t care. They want to make sure nobody else will get it.”
“Odd.”
Marianna offers me her hand, guiding me to my feet. “Call me—no matter what time it is—if you need me.”
“Thank you.”
She pulls me into a quick hug, aware it feels awkward for me as much as I need it. “Manifest good shit from this, babe.” She pulls back, hands on my shoulders. “Maybe this is a step closer to closure for you.”
“Maybe.” I shrug, and she drops her hands. Or maybe it’ll be a step closer for him.