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“Where are you going?” she said. By this time, I’d climbed the hill, and I turned to look down on her as she scrabbled up the bank after me.
“I’m going back to New York,” I said. “Alone.”
Lola froze, and looked up at me.
“No,” she said. “You can’t. We need you. I need you. Alex, that’s your dad down there.”
“I don’t have a dad,” I said, and turned around.
I went into my car, and started the engine. I drove away, hearing shouts and cries in the night. Lola, calling for help. But she was better off alone. As was I.
Chapter 23
Lola
Maxwasgonebythe time I’d gotten back to the lake. I didn’t know where I could find him, or what I’d say when I saw him. I only knew one thing; that Alex was gone.
“You’re an idiot,” I said, over and over again to myself. But for once, I wasn’t talking about myself. I was talking about Alex. How could he think that I had anything to do with Max’s appearance? Why couldn’t he see that this was perfect: that with Max’s testimony, we could prove that the certificate was fake?
When Alex calmed down, he’d be sorry. He’d realize that he hurt me. But for now, I didn’t know what to think, and I couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night.
I took out my phone, but when I looked at the clock, I saw it was five in the morning. I didn’t want to wake Sara, so I decided to wait for the sun to rise in a few hours and get a hire car back to the city.
When I finally set out, carrying my bag with me down the road, it took me an hour. In the stillness of the morning, I was tired and my eyes ached. And yet, I was paranoid, scanning the hilltops, looking through the trees. More than once I thought about trying to hitch a ride into town, but when one came around the corner, I instinctively leaped out of the way and hid in the trees. If Max had followed us up here, then he surely had a car. And anyone might have known where we were by now. He seemed repentant, and sorry about what he’d done to his son. But I still couldn’t take any chances.
I found my way to a hire-car depo when I got to town. There, I presented my ID and my credit card. In town, I bought a map, and got some breakfast at the diner where I’d been with Alex.
“How’s your boyfriend?” said the waitress, when she came to serve me.
“Oh, we’re just friends,” I said. But the truth was I wasn’t even sure if Alex and I were friends anymore.
On the way back in the car, I felt like I was talking to him. At some points I imagined what I’d say to him if he was there.
“Don’t you know?” I said to myself, sulkily, while I kept my eyes on the freeway. “Don’t you know I’d never do anything like that to hurt you?”
I meant it, too. But somehow I couldn’t help feeling like I was getting what I deserved. My friendship—my relationship—whatever I called the complicated mess that was me and Alex Lowe, had never once felt safe, never once felt secure. And without secure foundations, it had been difficult to trust him.
He said it himself: Alex didn’t really have friends. He didn’t have anyone to rely on because he didn’t knowhowto rely on someone else. Sure, I was mad at him. He’d hurt my feelings and left me stranded out here. But if he thought I was going to leave him now, he had another thing coming.
The day dragged on, the sun rising into the sky and beginning to sink into the red, cloudy afternoon hanging over New York state. But I couldn’t stop now, even if I was hungry, even if I was tired. I knew Alex must have gone back to New York, despite the danger. But all we had to do was alert his detective buddy to the situation. It wouldn’t be hard for the police to find Max, and then it wouldn’t be hard to get him to confess to what he’d done. I shuddered at the thought that Alex’s first time seeing his father might also have been the last. Max would be lucky not to go to jail for what he’d done.
How could you run out on your kid like that? I didn’t know, but I knew it couldn’t be me. My parents had loved and cared for me my whole life: even now, I knew I could call if I was in trouble or needed them. And I was. The minute I got home, I was going to take Macy and get a flight out to Wisconsin. There, with my little girl safe, with my family together and safe, I knewmyfoundations would be secure enough to help Alex. My new husband.
It seemed ridiculous saying it, but as New York appeared on the horizon and I began to pass the towns nearby, Sleepy Hollow, Yonkers, I really did think of him that way. We bickered and fought and mistrusted one another. But we really did mean the world to each other. I couldn’t imagine Alex opening up his life to anyone else in the way he had for me. And I couldn’t remember the last time I’d met a man who made me feel safe. Well, I could, of course. It was six years ago, the first time I met Alex.
And hecouldchange. I’d seen it. I knew it was possible now. And if he could change, well…
For some reason, I thought of Macy. I wanted my little girl back with me again, wanted her dark, curly hair in my hands and to swing her around while she giggled. I wanted, more badly than anything, for things to be normal.
I drove into Queens, and when I finally got stuck into the traffic around Jackson Heights, I didn’t even feel impatient anymore. I felt calm, clear-headed. I knew what I was going to do.
I was going to go pick up Macy and take her home. Then I was going to call Alex. I was going to tell him the truth. That he’d messed up and hurt me, but that I knew why, that I understood what he was going through and I could help him.
And I was going to tell him the other thing. The thing I knew, the thing which had brewed in my stomach for so many weeks now it hurt to even say. The thing which seemed too ridiculous to be true.
I parked the car on the side of the road outside my house. I undid my seatbelt and looked around. The streets of Queens were busy and vibrant as ever, and I could hear at least four different languages being spoken as I stepped up to my apartment door.
It was open, weirdly enough, but I could see through the window that Sebastien’s bodega was empty. Maybe he’d gone to get something from the building manager’s office. I stepped through, but it was eerily quiet. I checked my watch.
