AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I head down the stairs, shaking my head at myself, at the situation, and at Danny, because I wish he’d come to me.
I make it into the car, then drive out of the garage in a daze. I’m still stuck in paranoia mode, because for a while I think someone’s following me, but it turns out I just got in the middle of two people who were following each other.
When I’m sure it’s safe, I make my way to the Blue Ridge Parkway, to Danny’s spot.
My breath catches in my chest when I see his car there, but I’m not comforted. Because what if someone followed him out here? What if someone hurt him, or he got lost, or a raccoon bit him?
It’s not easy being on crutches in the woods. Less easy when it’s full dark and the moon is just a sliver hanging low in the sky, but I make my way toward the bench.
There’s a figure lying on it. Danny’s figure. I’d recognize him anywhere—those long lanky legs, his wavy mop of hair. One of his arms is draped down, the fingertips skimming the tops of the leaves piled around him.
Oh my God, is he dead?
My mind, fed on a diet ofThe Murderer Next Doorand those binoculars sitting beside the armchair, kicks into overdrive. My heart beats like a scared rabbit’s, and my hands shake as I try to make the crutches do what I want them to on the uneven ground covered in leaves and sticks and probably twenty different kinds of animal shit. I feel like I live my whole life in that instant in which I’m seesawing—yes, fucking seesawing—between realities where Danny is alive and ones in which he’s dead. It’s then that I know, really know, exactly how I feel.
“Danny!” I shriek, and the reclined body on the bench sits bolt upright, making me shriek louder until I realize he’s perfectly alive and also that he looks terrified.
“Mira?” he asks, his voice shocked and frightened. He jumps to his feet and comes to me and my eyes are accustomed enough to the dark that I can see him, or see him well enough. His eyes fixed on me, intense and alive, and full of worry. When he sees that I am also alive, some of it washes away. But only some of it. “Why are you here?” His hand finds my face, then weaves into my hair. “Why are you here?”
He sounds worried. Maybe even a little pissed off.
SuddenlyI’mpissed. I’d push him if it wouldn’t result in me completely losing my balance and falling into the wet leaves. “What amIdoing here?” I ask, pushing one of my crutches at him. “What areyoudoing here? Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been? I thought something terrible might have happened to you. I thought you could be dead.”
He’s silent for a long time, so silent, and a dark foreboding falls over me. Finally, he swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing deliciously in his throat, and says, “I didn’t think about worrying you. I should have. I’m bad about…” He waves his hand. “I should have called you back. I didn’t know what to say yet. It takes me a while sometimes. I had to sit out here and think. I needed to be alone.”
“What happened, Danny?” I ask. Then, because we need a moment of levity, even if it’s fleeting, I add, “Did you really hate the bar that much?”
His hand flexes in my hair, and he laughs, but only for a half a second. Then he tugs my hair slightly and bends to me, kissing me so hard I can’t breathe, and I kiss him back the same way, because I can tell that whatever happened he thinks I’m lost to him—and him to me. He sucks on my bottom lip, my tongue, he kisses the corner of my mouth, and I feel tears in my eyes, because I was so, so worried, and I’m not comforted by what I’ve found.
“I liked it in there,” he finally says, pulling away slightly but keeping his hands on me. “It felt like you.”
“Too loud and too much.”
“But in exactly the right way.”
My heart throbs in my chest, wanting to grow bigger, also on the verge of breaking. I can tell it was still overwhelming for him, but I believe him. I’m too much too, but he makes me feel like I’m just right. “What happened?”
Sighing, he says, “It’s all catching up to me, Mira.”
“What happened?”
He helps me over to the bench, and I sit next to him, our thighs pressing together, and it strikes me that this is a place of confession for us.
He tells me about Big Mike, and how he left before he could say anything useful or meaningful. Classic negging. The guy’s been all over Danny for the last few weeks, and when Danny finally pays him attention, he acts like he has more important things to do.
Then Danny moves on to recounting his meeting with Daphne and her offer. Herthreat…and who the woman across the street actually is.
“That bitch,” I mutter to myself. “You can’t give in to them.”
His jaw flexes, and I see something I don’t want to—part of him is tempted. Part of him would like nothing better than to be a member of this group that lets him do the thing he loves doing.
“You’re not—”
He takes my hand and squeezes it. His eyes meet mine and hold them prisoner. “Of course not. I might have fallen for it before, but now… She was acting like she’d be setting me free, but it would be another trap. They’d be telling me what to do and how, and I’d be at their mercy, especially if they were hiding me. No. I’d never agree to that. I’d never let them take me away from everything that’s important to me.” He’s looking at me when he’s saying that, his eyes glittering in the slight glow of the stars, that sliver of a moon. His hand flexes around mine. “I’ve decided to tell Big Mike everything. I’ve already texted him asking for a meeting, but he says he had to leave town and won’t be back until next week. I’m meeting with him on Monday.”
Fear pulses through me, because if Big Mike has been spying on Danny because he wants to build a case against him, then Danny might really go to jail. “But Danny, what if—”
“Then I deserve it,” he says, meeting my eyes. “I’m not going to let my ex-girlfriend hide me away in another country.” He pauses, looking out into the night. Swallows. “I could be in big trouble, Mira. It’s hard enough being with someone who has limitations like I do. I might appreciate your bar, but I don’t fit in there. I don’t fit inanywhere, not really. Even with the guys—my best friends—I have to go off to be by myself. You…you’re so full of life. You deserve to be with someone else who’s like that. Someone who can keep up.” A humorless laugh escapes him. “I’m not even in the same race.”
