Chapter 20: Bethany
I was in my room when the phone rang. I went to answer it—I had left my phone in the hallway in my coat. Thank Heavens I had left the door open, or I would never even have heard the tone.
“Kyle?”
I was amazed. I had seen the messages from him earlier, but then had forgotten in the aftermath of seeing Luke.
Lunch. Dammit!
I couldn’t believe I had managed to forget about something as incredibly important as going to lunch with Kyle.
“Kyle! So sorry! I forgot about the…”
“My mom’s in Colorado.”
I frowned. “What?” I was surprised. And confused. What the heck did that mean? “Sorry, Kyle?”
He was laughing. I was starting to get a bit worried about him. This wasn’t like him at all.
“Kyle?”
“My mom!” he said, his voice incredulous. “She’s been in Colorado all this time. He never told me!”
I frowned. “Kyle? Back up. Please? Your mom? I thought she was completely out of contact with you and your dad.”
“She never was!” he was sobbing. “She thought I’d be ashamed of her.”
“What?” I frowned. “Whoa, Kyle. Tell me from the beginning. Slowly. Okay. I think I’m missing something. So. Your dad knew where your mom was? All this time? And he didn’t tell you. Or let you see her—am I right so far?”
I shook my head. This was confusing.
He sighed. “Yes. Yeah. That’s right. My mom left us because she couldn’t cope. Because she was using alcohol to cope. They thought I’d be ashamed of them.”
“Who would be ashamed of what?” I decided to get some fresh air. Maybe I was the one who wasn’t making sense. “Hang on, Kyle,” I said. I lifted my coat and went outside.
“Okay,” he sighed. “I’ll tell you from the beginning.”
“Great,” I said as I shut the door behind me and walked into the garden. I sat down on the lip of brick around the window, closing my eyes in the late-afternoon sun. “What happened today?”
“Well, my dad and I had a fight,” he said. “Long story short, he told me things he never said. Like the fact that Mom was misusing alcohol all those years. That was probably what a lot of the fights were about. Or maybe they fought a lot and that was what got her into using it as a coping mechanism. I don’t know. But anyhow. She was drinking and that was why she left us. Went away. I never knew.”
He was sobbing. I sat in the sun and let him sob. It would be better for him than anything else I could do. Anything else I could say.
“I want to see her,” he said, sniffing. “She’s in Colorado. At the ranch my dad bought. She chose to take that in the divorce settlement. He told me that later. She lives there now, around-the-clock. I need to see her now.”
“Of course you do,” I said slowly. “When can you go down there?”
“Next week,” he said, voice strained. “Earliest I can get off work.”
“Hell,” I said. “That’s hectic. Well, I think you have to go.”
He sighed. “I do. I can’t believe it. I can’t tell you how amazing it’ll be. I always thought it was my fault.”
I remembered him telling me that.
“I…” he sighed. “I just can’t believe it.”
“Me neither,” I said truthfully. “Kyle, it’s amazing. At least you finally know, now.”
“Exactly. I know. Whew. This changes everything.”
“Yes. Yes, it does.”
At that moment, I saw him. He was by the hedge. Watching me.
“I have to go, Kyle,” I said quickly.
He sounded upset when he replied, saying: “Bethany? I need to talk to you. Just a few minutes. Please?”
“Kyle,” I said, urgently. “Please. I want to help, really, I do. But I need to go now.”
I closed my eyes, realizing the instant I had said it that Luke must have heard me from where he stood at the hedge.
“You’re okay?”
I sighed. “Yes. Yes, I’m okay. I just need to get in the front door, now. Call back in a minute, I promise.”
“Okay,” he said. “Bye for then.”
“Bye.”
I pressed the phone off just as he came into the garden. I panicked. My key was grating in the lock. I was shivering and terrified.
“Bethany!” Luke had shut the gate behind him and was striding up the path. The key went in. Turned. I fell in and slammed the door shut, driving the bolt home. He tried the door just as I locked it fast.
“Bethany?” he yelled through the door.
“Luke!” I yelled. “Go away. Come on. Go!”
“I know you were speaking to a new boyfriend,” he yelled through the window. “You were, weren’t you? I told you I wasn’t ever going to give you up. I told you.”
I was terrified. I had always known Luke was unbalanced. I hadn’t realized he was that unbalanced. I stayed where I was, behind the door, terrified. Mom was out until six fifteen—at least that was what she had said. If she was with Claudia, she could be much longer. I was here alone.
“Go away!” I yelled. “I’ll call someone if you don’t.”
“Come on, Bethany!” he said. “You wouldn’t do that.”
“How would you know?”
I dropped to the floor so that he couldn’t see my shadow through the thick wavering glass in the panel in the door. Then I crawled under the front window and stood where the curtain hid me.
Luke was still waiting at the door. I had no idea what to do. I was trapped here, more or less, until he went. Not that I couldn’t have moved if I wanted to. I guess I could just pretend he wasn’t there, go upstairs and start working. It wasn’t like he could get into the house—not without breaking in and I would have heard him. But still. I wasn’t just walking away until I knew where he was.
I couldn’t risk leaving him standing in the front garden. What if he took it into his head to lurk there till Mom came home? I didn’t want to risk him doing something to Mom.
I could see him from where I hid. His face was tense and his eyes trained on the door where I had been. I leaned on the wall, heart thudding.
“Bethany?” He called through the door.
I stayed where I was. I didn’t want him to catch sight of me. Somehow, I felt that if he saw me, he might take it into his head to hurt me. I stayed hidden and prayed he’d go away.
He stayed there for about two minutes. Then I heard him shift on the path, the crunch of stone under boot soles. I let out a sigh of relief. He was going.
That was when my phone rang.
It was in my pocket.
Instantly, he came over to the window. I reached into my pocket and pressed it off, but it was too late. There he was, standing outside the window. He looked in. I shrank back against the wall. Luckily, he couldn’t see me. But now he knew where I was,
“I know you’re there!” he yelled through the window. “I’m not leaving this place. I will find a way in. You know me.”
I licked dry lips, wanting to shout something back. “Go away!”
He didn’t move.
“Luke, please. Go away, or I’ll call the police,” I sobbed. “I don’t want to call them. You know I don’t. There was a time when you meant a lot to me. But this is wrong.”
He laughed. “Go ahead. Call them. I’ll walk out and then you’ll have to explain to the police why you called them for no reason.”
I sighed. “Fine,” I said. “If it’ll make you go away, I’ll call them.”
I poised my finger above the phone—I had the police on my contacts list—and then stopped, knowing that I wasn’t going to phone them. If I did, he would walk away and I would be left explaining to the police why I called them for no reason.
If I just hung on long enough, he’d either have to go—he must have to go somewhere, it was nearly six o’ clock now—or he’d have to go because someone else in the neighborhood would send him off.
“Right,” I sighed. “I’m going to call them if you don’t leave on the count of ten. One, two…”
When I got to ten, he hadn’t moved. I sighed.
“Luke, please. I don’t want to threaten you.”
I heard a long exhale. “Bethany,” he called. “You know it’s me. Won’t you come out and talk?”
“Not after you threatened me, I won’t, Luke. No! Go away.”
“Bethany…” it was the sorrowful voice again. “Come on. It’s me.”
“No,” I said again. “I know it is.”
He laughed. “I didn’t do anything. You know I wouldn’t hurt you. Trust me?”
I closed my eyes. “Luke, I did trust you. A lot. Now I don’t anymore.”
“Bethany?” he said. “You did trust me. If I promise not to touch you, will you come out? I just want to talk face-to-face.”
“No,” I said. I was adamant about it. He had threatened me. And my fear was not baseless—he had hurt me before. Tried to choke me at least once.
“Fine,” he said. “But I will find out who you were talking to. You know I will. If I see him here just once, it’s tickets.”
“Luke!” I was horrified. Then I realized the ridiculousness of it. I was leaving.
“I mean it,” he said.
“No, you don’t,” I called out. “You’re being silly, Luke. You’re not a murderer.”
“No, I’m not,” he said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Come out, Bethany. Now?”
“No!” I was desperate. At this point, my plan was to keep him talking until Mom got back. But I couldn’t let Mom come back with him out there.
I decided to call Rodney. He could do something. I took my phone out and as I did I noticed that the missed call was from Kyle. I closed my eyes in concern. The last person I wanted to call was Kyle right now. Luke knew Rodney and if he turned up he wasn’t likely to kill him. I keyed in my code and dialed Rodney.
“Rodney?” I said. “Listen. I need you to come around now. Are you finished work?”
“Bethany?” he sounded horrified. “Listen, what’s up? Are you okay? Is it Mom? What’s wrong?”
“There’s someone here, threatening me.”
“What?” he sounded horrified. I saw Luke shift, trying to see me through the window.
“Listen, Luke is here,” I said. “He’s threatening me.”
“No, I’m not,” Luke yelled. “I’m trying no such thing,” he shouted. “I’m perfectly reasonable.”
“No, you’re not,” I yelled. “You’re threatening me. You said that if you ever saw me with another guy, you’d kill me.”
“Bethany?” Rodney yelled from the other side of the phone. “Listen, I’m coming down now.”
“Thanks!” I called back. I hung up. Almost as soon as I had, the phone rang again. I picked it up. It was Kyle.
“Oh hell.” I slammed my finger onto the off button. Luke was still out there.
“Bethany, you liar,” he yelled through the window. “I never said anything like that! How dare you try and lie to your brother about me?”
“I’m not lying,” I shot back, and then I realized how ridiculous this was. Rodney was on his way. All I had to do was hope he got here before Mom did.
I’ll just text Mom and ask her if she’s going to be long.
I did so. While I did, I lost focus on Luke. I ducked round and looked out of the window. He was still there. He’d moved and was heading down to the garden fence. Maybe he would leave now. I hoped so.
I saw him at the gate. That was when Kyle arrived.
“Oh no. No, no, no.”
I ran out of the door. Luke was still in the garden. Kyle came up to the gate and opened it, walking in round the hedge.
“No!” I screamed. “Kyle! No!”
“This is Kyle?” Luke said.
“Luke! Please!”
I saw Kyle look at Luke and then at me, pain in his eyes.
“Bethany?” he yelled. “Who is this?”
“Kyle! Don’t…”
“What the heck is going on here?” he said.