“Aspen looks like a mini version of her,” he continues.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you want to know.”
He’s right. I do want to know, but at the same time I don’t.
“She might be a witch, because as soon as they left, she told me to come out from hiding. She fucking knew I was there,” he says.
I can’t help the laugh that bursts from my chest. “Maybe you’re just not as invisible as you think you are.”
He smacks me in the arm. Not in anger, but in a friends-sharing-a-secret-type of way. It feels good. Like it used to be when we were younger.
“She knew who I was too.” He turns toward me and props himself up on an elbow.
This piques my interest, but I reason she knew him because of the family photo Rachel and I included in our adoption file. We wanted whoever gave us their baby to know who we really were. We didn’t want to deceive anyone in to thinking we were something we weren’t. We didn’t hide the club.
“Bill helped her,” Dirk says.
Betrayal drifts like poison through my veins, mixing with the toxins left behind by Rachel’s unfaithfulness. They both deceived me.
Dirk puts his hand on my chest as I try to sit up. “I know what you’re feeling. I felt it too at first.”
I work my jaw, trying to swallow the bile that’s slowly rising in my throat. Both my wife and my president deceived me? Who else knew?
My friend reads my mind better than anyone. “No one else knew.”
He drums his fingers over my chest, and I see he’s thinking deeply on how to explain this bit of news. “She was in a bad place, brother.”
“I was in a bad place too, but I didn’t hide from anyone.”
His eyebrows pull together, and he frowns. “She’s been at the brink many times, Raffe. Lily pulled her off the ledge once, and then Rachel did the same damn thing.” He rubs his temples. “She cut herself in front of Bill, Raffe. She was that desperate for him to keep her secret. Jenny couldn’t face the world. It would have killed her.”
I sit up, letting his hand fall away from me. “I felt like that, but I survived. You brought me up here. We could have done that for her.”
“In a way that is exactly what Rachel did … she took her someplace she could heal. It just didn’t happen as fast as it did for you.”
I listen as he tells me about Bill’s funeral, and how it was the first time she ever left the property she’s been living on.
My hand reaches out and grabs his arm. “I saw her. I saw her at Bill’s funeral in the trees!”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“It was just a brief glimpse. I thought nobody would believe me, and everyone was already so upset …” My words trail off as I realize I haven’t been crazy. She was really there. It wasn’t my mind playing tricks on me.
Jenny is alive! Oh god, this is real. She’s really alive. I’ve seen her. Dirk’s seen her.
His eyes meet mine in the dark. “I’m sorry for the things I said earlier. I was taking my pain out on you.”
“I’m sorry too. Especially the stuff I said about Jess. I didn’t mean any of it.” I run my hand through my hair. “Is Jenny …?”
He gives me a small smile. “She’s good. I mean, don’t get me wrong, she’s still got a ways to go, but you know how that is. We always have room to grow. Even me.”
We both chuckle. It’s not often Dirk admits he’s a human being who is evolving too.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right there. Every time I think I’ve got things figured out, something sends me off on another crazy adventure.”
His face turns serious. “I’m scared.”
