May, Seven Years Earlier
I paced the kitchen. My hands were shaking. Shaking. I gripped a handful of hair, trying to shut down the quivers of anxiety that nipped at my already frayed nerves while I listened to the phone ringing on the other end. I really didn’t want to call him. But where else could I turn?
“Hello?”
Relief sprang from my lungs when he answered, words flying off my tongue with a speed to match my hammering heart. “Oh, thank God, Ben, you answered. It’s Samantha. I need your help.”
“Whoa, slow down, sweetheart. What’s going on?”
“Have you seen Christopher? I need to find him.”
Ben’s disappointment traveled through the phone, or maybe it was annoyance, I couldn’t tell. “You know how I feel about him.”
“I know… but I need to find him. I don’t know what else to do. I tried his parents’ house, but no one is picking up there.” I lowered my voice to a plea. “It’s really important, Ben. Please.”
How bad did it suck that I couldn’t give him details? Ben was my friend, but there was no chance I could trust him with this. He would never understand. I just hoped he cared about me enough to help.
“Sam… you’re moving,” he said delicately, as if he were trying to infuse the idea into my mind. Like I hadn’t spent the last four months agonizing over it. “Why don’t you give this up? He’s only going to hurt you, and I can’t stand to see that happen. This is your chance to get over him.”
But Ben was wrong. Somehow I knew I was the one who’d hurt Christopher. I should have recognized it, the sorrow in his eyes and the grief in his touch.
“Please.”
There was a long pause, an even longer sigh, and I could almost see him rubbing his temples in frustration. “Even if I wanted to, I can’t help you, Samantha. I haven’t seen him tonight. I’m sorry.”
My own frustration knotted somewhere in my chest. I sucked it down and forced out a polite response. “’Kay. Thanks anyway.”
I ended the call, tapped the phone against my palm, searching through my brain for any possible numbers I could remember. It didn’t help that my parents had canceled my cell phone. My mom was going to be completely pissed off when she saw all the calls I’d made on her cell.
My friend Lydia had stopped by the house today to tell me good-bye before we left for the new house tomorrow. She’d told me all the rumors swirling around the school about Jared, that she was pretty sure they were true, that Christopher hadn’t been at school in the last two days.
That fearful broken heart Christopher had left me with two nights ago had suddenly transformed, amplified with a need to get to him. To set things right. I desperately dialed what seemed like an endless slew of numbers trying to find him.
Damned the consequences.
I didn’t care anymore.
As far as I was concerned, my parents had lost their right, had lost their say, because what they had done was wrong.
Five minutes later, my mom’s cell rang in my hand.
Ben.
Fumbling, I answered it, probably a little too eagerly. “Hello?”
“God, Samantha, I’m going to regret doing this, but I’m at a party… at the same house I saw you at a few months ago? Do you remember?”
Of course I remembered.
That house. That pivotal night.
It had set about a change in direction that had woven Christopher so deeply in my heart, when he’d whispered his love and I’d admitted mine. When we’d confessed and I’d completely succumbed.
“Yes, I remember,” I said, holding my breath.
Ben released his in a huge exhale. “Christopher just walked in the door. He’s asking about you. You better get down here.”
“Oh my gosh, I want to hug you! Thank you so much,” I gushed, excitement bursting from my mouth. “I’ll be right there.”
I tossed my mom’s phone on the counter and scratched out a note.
I don’t know when I’ll be back. Please don’t worry, but I have to do this. I’m sorry.
Then I ran. Ran as hard as I could, the rubber soles of my canvas shoes slapping against the concrete. The steady beat echoed out against the deep, dark night. It took me all of ten minutes before I was standing in front of the two-story house tucked far back in a cul-de-sac, away from prying neighbors and passersby.
It was all lit up, lights blazing from the windows, the thump of music vibrating from within. Voices shouted, laughter sang.
And I kinda wanted to sing, too.
He’d never have treated me with disregard. I got it now, felt it deep in my spirit, and the boy I thought I had lost now suddenly seemed closer than he ever had.
I ran up the sidewalk and flung the door open wide. It clattered against the inside wall. I didn’t stop to care that half the people in the room turned to look at me as if I were some kind of deranged person.
Someone who’d lost her grip on reality.
Not when I’d come to reclaim mine.
From the side, Ben grabbed my arm.
“Hey,” I said, and I could feel the force of my smile as I turned toward him, felt it falter just as fast when I caught the sympathetic concern on his face.
Under his breath, he muttered, “I knew this was a bad idea.”
I blinked, fighting the welling of panic that jumped up in me. “What are you talking about?”
Ben shook his head, seemingly talking to himself. “I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt… hoped he’d changed and realized what he had, but I should have known better.”
A shiver of foreboding slithered down my spine. “What are you talking about?” I repeated.
“Let me get you out of here and away from that asshole, Samantha.”
I tore my arm from his grasp. “I’m not going anywhere until I talk to Christopher. Where is he?”
Ben’s attention flicked to the staircase. “I can’t let you go up there.”
I didn’t hear anything other than up there, and I was on the move, pounding up the stairs as fast as my feet could take me. Somehow I felt drawn to that room, the place where Christopher had seen me at my lowest low and then elevated me to my highest high.
I had to see him. To make this right.
A sense of dread clamped down on my spirit, and I paused at the door. My hand was shaking when I lifted it to the knob. I turned it, and the door swung open.
And I felt the fissure, the jagged cracks that splintered as my world crumbled from beneath me.
Over the last four months, since they’d caught me sneaking home in the middle of the night, my parents had done their best to pound their beliefs into me. To plant them so deeply in my psyche there was no possibility other than for them to take root. To mold their little girl back into who they’d raised her to be.
I’d rejected it all, steadfast in my own belief, a fortress of protection built up around my consciousness, the impenetrable walls made up of the love I had for Christopher and the devotion he had for me.
But this… this scene before me demolished it.
Every naive conviction was blasted away.
Devastating me.
A silent cry roared from my lacerated heart, this unbearable pain that sliced me in two.
As much as I wanted to run, I was frozen, locked in horror.
Jasmine cut her attention to me. A vicious sneer curled up her mouth, lipstick smeared, her naked body one with Christopher’s. She exaggerated the roll of her hips and looked back down at a man I had no clue could be so cruel and vile. My gaze dropped, both terrified and desperate to see his gorgeous face – the one I’d thought held so much beauty, meant only for me.
His head lolled to the side. Through a rush of tears, I watched a disdainful smile spread, green eyes glued to mine, as if he were delivering a message.
One I heard loud and clear.
Then he turned away and drove his fingers into her too-skinny hips.
My gut twisted inside out, and I clapped my hand over my mouth to keep from puking all over the floor. Somehow I managed to tear myself from the doorway, and I staggered down the hall, my hand pressed to the wall for support. I barely made it to the bathroom, and I dropped to my knees at the toilet, purging all the turmoil that wrecked my body.
But there was no expelling this devastation. No balm or medicine or cure. I felt as if I was on fire, incinerating from the inside out. Those flames Christopher had lit, the ones that had once warmed me, were now burning me alive.
And I wept, wept as I retched and wished that I’d never followed him out my window that first time, wished I hadn’t let him fill me with hope and love and belief when none of those things had ever existed.
Wished I hadn’t been such a fool.
I hated that all the warnings my parents and Ben had given me were right.
“How could he do this to us?” I mumbled through the pain.
“Shh… Samantha, sweetheart.” Ben was on his knees beside me, his hand soothing on my heaving back. “I’m so sorry. So sorry you had to see who Christopher really is. I thought I could spare you. He’s not worth it, Samantha. He’s evil. Evil. He’s been with her for months, and when I saw him earlier, I thought maybe…” He squeezed the back of my neck, massaging, trying to give me comfort when none could be found. “Goddamn it,” he swore, “I just wanted to see you happy. I know you’ve been struggling so much. I shouldn’t have called you. You shouldn’t have come here.”
He pushed back the hair clinging to my sweat-drenched forehead, placed a gentle kiss at my temple. “I’ve got you, sweetheart. I’ve got you. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
And I felt so light when Ben scooped me into his arms. Weightless. Because I’d been burned to nothing.
Ashes.
I should have known. Should have listened. My parents had pled, warning me of the immorality I was being tempted into, the spiritual death that came with those sins.
And that’s exactly how I felt.
Like a piece of me had died.
Something vital.
Something right.
A piece that would always belong to him.