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She offered me a warm smile in the glow of the hallway lights. But, even in the dull lighting, I could see that the smile hadn’t reached her eyes, and the sparkle that was usually there had burned out. “I will be now. Thank you, Callum.”
* * *
Had I had any idea of what was going to happen that night and in the following days, I would have done something different. I’d have doneanythingdifferently.
I’d replayed so many scenarios in my head and talked it over with Charlie until it made no sense. Yet he had always steered me back to the same conclusion. I had no idea what Miss Simpson was planning or the reason behind her coming to our house in the middle of the cold, dark night to ask her favor.
But now I knew, and that night I’d gone back to bed without any clue I had Alina’s entire future in my hands. My inability to take action had set her world in motion to come crumbling down around her. I hadn’t just pushed her away like she believed I had.
I ruined her life before she even took that first step toward her escape.
* * *
With the neck of the half-empty bottle of whiskey gripped in my fingertips, I stumbled around the hunting cabin barefoot.
I’d stopped pouring the liquid into a glass and was taking swigs direct from the bottle. It seemed like an unnecessary waste of my time to fill the glass, and I let out a chuckle.
It wasn’t like I’d planned out my time, but the quicker and more direct I could dull the ache, the better off I figured I would be.
Being doused with alcohol had done nothing to keep the demons away, though. Alina being back was my very own portal to the past, my personal hell, which I could no longer turn my back on.
I hadn’t been to the cabin for years, not since the last time Dad had brought Charlie and me up to chase deer.
The first time Dad had taken us to hunt, Charlie cried the entire time out on the hunting ground. Eventually, Dad’s patience wore thin, and he sent Charlie and me back to the cabin.
Those days felt like a lifetime ago. In some ways, I guess they were. I knew I was a different person then—a stupidly naïve and innocent kid with no perception of the real world.
I’d spent the last two nights wrapped in a wool blanket, sleeping on the lumpy, dusty couch, trying to stay warm. The cabin had been icy when I’d arrived, and the fire had done little to warm the room when the wind crept through every crack and gap. The whiskey had numbed my throat and warmed my belly but failed to remedy the ache in my chest or derail the thoughts in my head.
By my own fault, I had been left stranded inside the cabin with a racing mind plagued by Alina and the past without being able to escape.
I remember my dad coming home from work. He had shut the shop early, which was unusual, and he’d come to sit on my bed. He looked miserable and kept fidgeting with his watch. Finally, he’d turned to me and said the cops had picked up Alina’s mother. They’d taken her on suspicion of murder.
All the kids had been talking about it at school, theories and stories flying every which way. Nothing like that happened in Beddington, so it was a hot topic, and the kids in my class were eating it up. Every morsel of rumor and gossip was devoured like they were feasting on Christmas lunch.
It had explained the time she had been missing from school. I hadn’t seen or heard from her, and it had been the longest we’d gone apart since the previous summer.
I had run as fast as my feet would carry me out of the house and into the garage. Then, jumping on my bike, I flew out onto the road with wild abandon, only to be greeted by the sound of a car horn as I dodged it narrowly.
I remembered feeling sick to my stomach and prayed as I pushed the pedals down harder, trying to move faster, hoping to discover when I got to Alina that it would all turn out to be lies. I expected a wave of relief as I approached, hoping to find Miss Simpson in the garden and Alina on the porch swing. But instead, I had been greeted by an unfriendly two-story house standing completely abandoned in the dark.
I’d waited on their top step, thinking the worst. Scared, Alina wasn’t ever coming home. Fear took hold, and it hasn’t ever left. It cycled through my life like a cyclone, dipping its toe in the depth of that first night Miss Simpson came to my house. It hung like a dark cloud behind me, and I didn’t need to look over my shoulder to see if it was still there.
I could feel it.
ChapterEighteen
Alina
The tractor hadn’t missed a beat since Charlie had given me the operating instructions, keys, and his over-confident smile. I’d already turned over half the field.
Turning it by hand would have taken three times as long, if not longer, so for that, I owed both CharlieandCallum.
I pumped the brakes before shutting down the engine and jumped down from the seat before dusting my hands against my jeans. I trekked back through the field toward the house in need of a drink from the dusty work. I was parched.
Callum still hadn’t returned, and I was wondering if he ever would. It had been days, and the guilt I felt over the hurtful things I’d said to him only multiplied with every sunset and each day he stayed away.
The past had its way of crippling the present, and I wished I could forgive him for the heartbreak and hurt he’d caused me. Except, I wasn’t sure how not when it still felt so raw to me.
