Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Zander
Iknow the second I get her message.
We’re done. Someone told her.
It doesn’t come as a surprise. I’ve heard it all before with hesitant smiles and comforting handholds. I don’t blame them. I know I deserve the snap judgement. I don’t deserve the space to explain or rationalize.
I just somehow believed Adelaide would see past all of it.
I know she hasn’t when she asks me to meet at the gazebo in the park. She wants to have this conversation in public because she doesn’t trust me in private. I won’t lie and say I’m not hurt by that. It stings. But I will do anything to make her feel comfortable.
Sunday morning, I park in Gran’s driveway and walk with Lucy to the park.
Usually, she’d be trotting up ahead, smelling every lamppost and fire hydrant, greeting everyone who crosses her path.
Today, she stays glued to my side. If I go home today depressed, disappointed, and a little heartbroken, at least I’ve been blessed with this dog.
I attempted to make myself as unthreatening as possible: generic pair of shorts, a half zip sweater, freshly shaved, old running shoes, my trusty sidekick dog, and a coffee. Maybe it has the intended effect. I don’t know. But my hand shakes holding Lucy’s leash.
I reach the gazebo before Addie, which is a curse. It gives me too much time to think. And overthink. And pace.
I drop Lucy’s leash when she lays down in one spot and refuses to move with me. Her eyes track me back and forth. A small whine escapes her. I pause. She raises her head.
“You’re too good to me,” I say.
She pants, gives me a golden retriever smile. I bend down to her and she presents her white-blonde belly. I chuckle and give her a good, long pat.
“Pretty girl,” I say as she wraps a paw around my arm, forcing me to stay right here instead of getting up to pace some more. “I get it. I’m not going anywhere.”
I plant my ass on the ground and Addie’s coffee down beside me. Lucy scrambles to maneuver herself into my lap, which sends me sprawling into the grass. Fifty pounds of dog lands on my chest and knocks the wind out me. Lucy frantically licks my face.
“God, Lucy,” I say.
She relents, nuzzling underneath my chin.
She nudges me with her nose until I continue petting her.
With an eye roll, I do. She sighs in contentment, and I feel my heartrate slow.
I scooch her out of my neck and kiss the top of her head.
It’s in this slight head tilt that I notice someone standing at my feet.
Adelaide.
She is a vision in teal, cheetah printed biker shorts.
They cling to her body, with the briefest note of her hipbones poking against the fabric.
She clutches the strap of her tote bag, frozen with one foot lifted, as if she’s hesitant to come any closer.
A smirk plays out on her lips, painted a light shade of peach today, and I know I haven’t lost her fully, yet.
“Hey,” I say, barely above a whisper. One of her hands moves from the strap and waves. “Do you want to sit?”
Lucy takes this opportunity to move her full weight off me. She calmly sashays away from me, only her wildly swinging fluffy tail betrays her true mood. She plants her nose against Adelaide’s knee and nudges. Adelaide huffs out a laugh and pats Lucy’s head.
“Yeah, I’ll sit,” she says and crouches down next to me.
She runs her hands along her legs, drawing them to her chest, then shrinks into her oversized sweatshirt.
Her hands disappear into the sleeves. I slowly raise into a seated position, mirroring her movements.
She doesn’t look at me. Her gaze stays fixed on the ripples blowing through the pond. Lucy settles in between us.
“Did you make that?” I ask.
“What?” She turns to me. The spark is gone from her eyes.
“The sweater. The embroidery on it.”
“Oh,” she says, glancing down at the goose front and centre on her chest. She bites her lower lip as her cheeks go pink. “I did. I didn’t intentionally—didn’t realize when I put it on this morning.”
“I’m sorry.”
This shocks her. She blinks at me and shakes her head.
I exhale, unsure what to say. I fidget with a pocket on my shorts as I mull over the words. I open my mouth to start three times, but nothing comes out. No matter how many times I’ve told the story publicly, even though I have it written out in a best-selling memoir, this part never gets easier.
Adelaide’s hands cover mine. She unsnarls my fingers and twines ours together.
“Zander, it’s okay. What are you sorry for?”
“Myself,” I say then fully cringe. Way to be dramatic, dude. “Sorry.” I laugh. “Sorry for being so awkward. I just—someone said something, right? Something I should apologize for?”
Her eyes flick between mine and our joined hands. “I mean, I guess. I guess I don’t really know what it is, though. Most of what I’ve heard has been vague and, I know it’s bad, I do, but part of me doesn’t recognize the man they’re all warning me about in you.”
I let this sit. I should have expected Beaver Creek to gossip about me.
I fly under the radar when I’m with Gran, under some impression she keeps me in check.
But I’d unknowingly started courting a Castor.
The town is obviously going to have something to say about that.
I’m just too fucking stupid to realize this straight up.
I should have quit before I even started.
Lucy harrumphs as a rabbit crosses our path. I track its movements to the gazebo, where it shimmies in through a gap in the latticing around the bottom. My eyes stay trained to the spot while I listen to Addie’s calm breathing.
“I should have expected that.” I grimace. Squeeze her hand. “Sorry to put you through that.”
“It’s okay.”
“Why didn’t you look me up? I thought you stalked my profile. This town knows my story, obviously. I’m just surprised you don’t.”
“I guess I’m not that professional of a stalker,” she says, and her eyes dance.
“Which is a lie. I stalk for a living. When I looked at your page, I just wanted to see you. It’s your memoir, right?
I didn’t look it up. I didn’t want to see the internet’s opinion.
I don’t want your story from other people. I want it from you.”
“Okay. Here I am. Before I forget,” I say, grabbing her iced coffee, “I got this for you. It’s not poisoned or drugged or anything, if you’re worried.”
Her lips press together in a sad little smile. “I wasn’t.”
I try not to let myself jump at this platitude.
She could very easily lose trust in me by the end of this conversation.
She brings the coffee to her lips and takes a sip.
I see the idea take form before she actually puts it into action and find myself laughing when she slips her hands from mine and starts clutching at her throat.
“Sorry,” she says through a giggle. “It was too tempting. Figured you might need the tension broken, as well.”
“Thank you,” I say. I lower my hand onto Lucy’s back and Adelaide does the same. Our fingers touch and I swear it feels like a spark shoots up my entire arm. We don’t move away. “I’d like to know what you’ve heard.”
“Not much,” she says but turns her face from me. She looks down at her knees and a wave of brilliant red hair obscures her profile. I have to stop myself from tucking it behind her ear. “My cousin, Willow, told me you nearly killed someone.”
The air leaves my lungs. My stomach clenches and vomit burns its way up my throat. I take shuddering breath after shuddering breath. The world blurs in front of me, so I close my eyes, only to be faced with flashes of the worst day of my life.
The white hot rage.
The blood.
The screams of terror.
The sharp pain of my knees hitting pavement.
“Zander.” I hear through the roar of my brain. There are hands on me. One on my chest, over my heart, one on my upper thigh. “Zander, it’s okay. Breathe.” A dog plops in my lap. “Look at me, please.”
I open my eyes. Adelaide is crouched in front of me, hovering over top of my outstretched left leg.
She shifts, planting herself firmly on the ground with her legs draping over mine, then takes my face in her hands.
I have no choice but to ground myself in the midnight sky of her eyes.
The freckles dotted across her nose and cheeks act as their own constellation.
Lucy curls in the space between my legs, resting her head against my pelvis.
I almost start crying. The emotion tightens in my chest and I forcibly swallow it down.
“You don’t have to get into it.”
“I do,” I say, shocked to have found my voice so easily. “I just haven’t heard it phrased like that in a long time.”
“Where did you go?”
“Back to that night.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
I let out a huff of air and nod. Addie’s hands drop back to her lap, taking one of mine with her. I stare at our hands, her long, dainty fingers curled around my calloused ones.
“You don’t have to be so kind,” I say. “I know it’s not a pretty story.”
“It might not be pretty, but it’s yours.
You’re still holding guilt over whatever you did.
I don’t know what that is. I don’t know if the guilt is warranted.
Maybe my feelings will change once I know the full story.
I don’t know. But I saw you suffering and I wanted to help you.
I’m not being kind for show. I’m being kind because you deserve it. ”
“Do I?” I say with a self-deprecating laugh. “Don’t answer that. I—I appreciate it. Is that all you know about me?”
“You went to jail. Some people warned me that you were shady in school here. I didn’t want to believe anything until I could actually talk to you.”
“Okay.”
I close my eyes and put my life into the same neat little compartments I used in my memoir. I prepare to launch into the same spiel I’ve parroted at every talk I’ve done since the memoir’s publication. And then I stop. Fuck it. She deserves more.