Chapter 19
RUE
Letters. He sent me letters.
The thought sticks, as I help my mom from the wheelchair and into the bed, pulling up the covers around her. I drag the wheelchair back, way out of her reach, and then fold my arms across my chest.
“You said you keep the mail that I get here?”
Mom eyes me, pretending to act exhausted by my question. “Yeah, I do. I told you I did.”
I keep my voice steady. “And where do you keep it?”
“I can’t remember… It’s been a while since anything has come for you, honestly.”
“Right, but I got an email that I had something accidentally sent here from work,” I lie, stumbling over my words. “It’s—”
“Why would a digital marketing job send something here?”
“Because not everything is digital,” I counter, narrowing my eyes. “Just tell me where you put the mail. If it was addressed to me, then it’s mine.”
She glares at me. “I don’t remember.”
She’s full of shit. I know she is.
But I swallow it. “Okay.” I take a deep breath and spin around, thinking about the gun safe my parents had in the spare room. I’ll start there.
I head out of my mom’s bedroom without another word, leaving her there, tucked in for the night.
“Rue?” She calls after me. “Where are you going?”
I shake my head, and slip into the spare room, heading straight for the gun safe in the corner. I stare at the keypad, trying to remember what the hell the passcode is.
Oh right. I punch in my parents’ anniversary and shift the lever as soon as it beeps. The hinges groan, as I swing open the door.
“Rue! You do not have permission to get in that safe!” My mom’s voice is shrill, and borderline panicked as she screams from the bedroom.
But I don’t care what she has to say.
My eyes pour over the rows of papers and documents, not stopping until I catch sight of a shoebox unlabeled at the bottom. I pull it out and flip the lid open.
“Holy shit,” I whisper, my heart jumping to my throat.
There, in the box is tons of letters, Ruth Iverson scrawled in pencil as the addressee. Noah (Anders) Peterson is listed in the corner, along with multiple jails and prisons.
He’s been writing to me since he was arrested. I can’t even freaking breathe, as I start trying to sift through them all. I’m shocked at the sheer number, but once that wears off…
There’s nothing but fucking anger.
“Rue.” My mother’s voice is suddenly closer, and I whip my head around to see her standing in the threshold, her frame casting a shadow that reaches my face. “You need to put those back.”
My eyes rake over her, and my anger only grows. “So, you can get around just fine?” I gesture to the way she’s putting weight on her bad ankle. “I thought it was broken.”
She shifts, immediately taking weight off it. “I was just trying to get to you.”
I narrow my gaze. “Right, so I guess that’s why it’s not even bruised any more? Because now, I’m just fucking confused as to why I’m here.”
“I told you, I needed your help.”
“Did you?” I shoot right back. “Because to me, it just looks like you got sick of being alone. Guess you started feeling empty when Mr. Wilson was no longer around to keep you company?”
“You better watch how you speak to me,” she sneers, her eyes growing dark. “You had no idea the life I lived.”
“I know you were fucking Mr. Wilson long before Dad ever died.”
“Yeah, and you murdered someone,” Mom cackles, tipping her head back. “I don’t think we’re on the same moral page. I didn’t kill anyone. Your father was never the same after he had to cover up what you did and let that Anders boy go to prison. It made him sick.”
“I never asked him to cover for me,” I choke out, my chest constricting. “I would’ve paid the price for what I did.”
She rolls her eyes at me. “Yeah, right.”
I shake my head at her and take a step toward the door. “Let me through.”
She arches a brow and doesn’t move. “You’re going to make yourself miserable by reading all those.”
“I don’t care,” I snap. “I’ll just go turn myself in.”
“And you really think they’re going to believe you? That you killed a man who was twice your size? Noah was there. I read the letters. He saw the whole thing, and quite frankly,” she pauses, glaring at me, “It only makes me more convinced that I raised a monster.”
Every ounce of me wants to come unglued on her, and show her exactly that, but honestly, I’d rather her just rot away in her own fucking misery. So, I just shove past her, knocking her off balance.
“You bitch!” My mom screams, as I leave her planted in the middle of the hallway. I head straight for the front door, whipping it open, the box of letters still under my arm.
Bullet prances along beside me, and I head for my car, fishing the key fob out of my pocket. My mind is already running a hundred miles an hour, as the harsh winds whips through my thin sweater, the moonlight glinting against the metal of my SUV.
I rip the driver’s side door open, and climb in after Bullet hops in, starting the engine to keep from freezing my ass off.
I kick the heater all the way up, and fish through the letters until I find the very first one, postmarked almost a decade ago.
I tear through the envelope on accident and then unfold it.
Rue,
I don’t know if you remember me. I want to believe that you do, but I’m not sure.
So, I’m just going to cut to the chase. I’m the kid that lived next door to you for the first eleven years of your life.
We used to be really good friends. I told you everything about myself, except my first name…
Thomas. That was my father’s, and if there was one thing I didn’t want from him back then, it was his damned name.
He was an abusive asshole, and I shared the external bruises with you, but I never shared the internal ones. Those were the long lasting kind… The kind that lasts a lifetime, takes you down paths you don’t really understand, and ultimately leads you to places just like this. Prison.
Speaking of – Matthew Zendetti was your fiancé, yeah? Well, I just got sentenced to ‘life without the possibility of parole’ for murdering him.
Your dad is the main reason I’m here, but I think you know that. I think you know a lot of things… Like who really killed Matthew. I didn’t write you before trial, because I thought it would be better if I didn’t. I didn’t want to implicate you. It’s all over now.
But still, there’s only three people who really know the truth about what happened that night. You, Matthew, and me. I was coming to collect a debt, probably just beat him up pretty bad. He tried to give us your dad’s truck to pay it off, but there was nothing we could do with it.
You knew that, didn’t you?
I saw you on the dock with him that night. I saw you arguing, and I saw the hatred in your face when you yelled at him. Why were you with him, if you hated him? Maybe you can answer that. Maybe I misread the look on your face. I don’t know.
But I saw you rip that ring off and throw it in the lake. I saw the way he grabbed you. I saw all that anger shift to fear as he shook you, and screamed in your face, your eyes wide. I started coming for you then. I wouldn’t have let him get far.
But you beat me, you pulled out something, and started stabbing him. It was wild and gory, and unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. My heart broke for you, and all the pain that escaped your lips as you sobbed and screamed.
You shoved him in the lake.
And I watched you. I watched you fall to your knees. I listened to you cry. You hugged your dog. I wanted to hug you.
But you didn’t recognize me when I showed up to Matthew’s cabin a few nights before. We made eye contact, and all I saw was the same fear that you had when you stabbed Matthew to death…
And I didn’t want you to feel that anymore than you already were.
I’m glad I’m here, and not you. I would’ve done the same thing you did, if I would’ve gotten there in time.
I don’t mind taking the fall. I don’t mind living the rest of my life here…
But… Can we talk? Can you tell me how you went from the happy go-lucky little girl Rue to the woman I saw that night?
I’ve always wanted to make my way back to you. But I wasn’t good enough for someone like you.
I don’t want your everlasting love, like I dreamed of as a kid. You don’t need a man who’s got a life sentence. Maybe if I was out, it’d be different. But honestly, I just wonder if maybe there’s something in those woods that made us both this way. Still, those were the best days of my life.
Yours Truly,
Noah
I stare at his name, scribbled across the bottom of the paper. Tears blur my vision as I fold the letter back, and shove it back in the envelope. I sift through the remaining letters until I find the most recent one…
Dated one fucking month ago.
I tear it open and furrow my brow at the one slip of paper with a single line.
You abandoned me. FUCK YOU.
I stuff it back in the envelope, shut the shoebox, and then set it on the floorboard of the passenger seat. I reach into the back and grab a small throw blanket I keep in the car, then toss it over the box. I doubt my mother will waste her time coming out here, but it’s not worth the risk.
I shut my eyes for a moment, steadying the panic rising in my chest with a deep breath. I know exactly what I need to do.
I won’t abandon you again, Noah. I promise.