Authors: Nicole Williams
“Let’s hope that’s the last mistake I make tonight,” Paul replied, his tone full of implications, but I was too consumed trying to pull William from his trance to decipher the meaning behind his words.
“I’m gonna hit the sack now to make sure it is.” He pushed off his thighs to rise, eyeing William. “Hasn’t anyone told you chivalry’s dead, man? Chics don’t dig that whole opening doors, getting down on one knee thing.”
“Good night, Paul.” I made the warning in my voice so obvious even a jock-rock (my term for jocks with rocks for brains) would hear it.
Without another word, he jogged up the stairs, hollering over his shoulder, “See ya, Bryn.”
I exhaled, two male problems attended to, one more to go.
I wasn’t sure how much, if any, of my past I was willing to divulge to William. I’d only told my account of that night once, to the police who were the first on the scene, and hadn’t whispered a word about it since. Not even when counselors, distant relatives from Texas I saw once every few years, or my professors back home, encouraged me to talk about it—let the pain ooze from the wound before sealing it up, not to let it fester. But I’d been a fester-er my whole life, how could everyone just expect me to change and bawl my eyes through a box of tissues every week at some support group?
William rose and I felt him studying me, trying to work out a problem in his head that was unsolvable, inconclusive . . . the null set.
“What happened?” he said finally, his voice so tight it seemed it might snap.
I sniffed, looking anywhere but in his eyes. “I was shot.”
He nodded twice before rolling his head into a shake. “With the location on your body, a centimeter to the right or left and it would have killed you instantly.”
I’d never looked at it that way—that I was lucky I’d made it. I chose to focus on the bad luck of being shot and having everything taken from me that night. “Lucky me, right?”
“That’s not what I mean,” he said. “It’s like something—some force—wanted you to survive. To make it to this moment.”
There was a serious lightness to his statement, so I replied in turn, “So I could be here with you, right now?”
A slow grin rose. “Something like that. At least that’s what I like to think.”
“Again,” I said, trying to look through him like he had so many times with me. “Lucky me.”
He held my stare like it was the most natural gesture between near strangers, with the practice of a staring contest champion. I felt my eyes puckering with dryness before I blinked, forfeiting the win to the master.
“I’ll take you to your room,” he said, resting his hand over the small of my back gently, as if I was too fragile to touch with any kind of urgency.
Up the staircase that seemed taller, down the hall that seemed longer, coming to a stop in front of the door that seemed more empty. Mine was easy to identify; it was the only door void of glittered construction paper cut-out names and corkboards splattered with photos.
I cupped my hand around the doorknob, stalling, still undecided. In the end, my soul made the decision for me.
“It was six months ago,” I said, sounding stronger than I thought I could breeching the topic.
He braced his hand against the wall, sucking in a long breath.
I twisted the door opened, the light of my room dosing us in 100 watt incandescent light. I always kept at least one light on now, the dark and I didn’t get along anymore. “I want to show you something.”
My legs fought the journey to my desk, my arms fighting even harder as I whooshed the bottom drawer open. I didn’t have to turn my head to know he’d followed me in, I could feel him—like the spring morning sun on my face. I dug under several pre-law course books when that dream had still been alive, finding what I was searching for at the very bottom. The metal of the drawer had cooled the thin paper. I fought back a choke, I wasn’t going to chicken out now.
Pulling out the cut-out newspaper article, I flung my arm behind me, not able to look at it. Once had been enough for one lifetime.
William took it, his contemplation saturating the air like a heavy night fog. I stayed crouched where I was, unable to look.
“
Three Shot, Two Die, One Still at Large in Dawson Family Tragedy
,” he whispered, reciting the title of the article that had turned into a highly publicized case. Despite the overabundance of violence out there, it still seems to turn a lot of heads when a respectable attorney and his wife are murdered in cold blood, while their Ivy-league daughter narrowly escaped her own death on her nineteenth birthday.
I closed my eyes, focusing on inhaling . . .
1,2,3,4,5 . . .
exhaling . . .
1,2,3,4,5.
He didn’t read anymore aloud thankfully, although I’d already teleported myself back in time to that night and was sprawled on the asphalt drenched in blood and rain, shivering and alone.
He glanced down at me, his eyes filled with the rawness of someone who had experienced the kind of loss I had, although how could he truly understand my sorrow? William couldn’t know what it felt like to lose his entire family and know he was the one responsible for it.
He couldn’t know what it felt like to have a man walk up to you and shoot the two people you loved most in the world, before he turned the gun on you; what it would feel like to wake up in the hospital two weeks later to be told you were the only one to survive and there were no leads as to who’d killed the only people you loved—no one to hold responsible for your pain other than yourself.
Months later and still not a single lead, no fingerprints, no motives, no eye-witnesses; my parent’s lives evaporated with no one to blame but me. After all, it was my selfishness that had begged them to come visit me on my birthday up at Stanford so I wouldn’t have to celebrate alone, me who’d chosen the ill-fated restaurant where we’d all been met with a 9 millimeter and destiny, and me who’d ordered dessert and wasted away another hour at the restaurant.
If I’d only resisted my sweet tooth we’d have been out of there earlier and still together today. Sure, the gunman had been the one to pull the trigger, but I’d loaded the gun. That day I awoke parentless, I made a sacred vow that I would never again let my selfishness compromise another person I cared about.
Never
again.
I heard the newspaper fold back into place before he kneeled beside me. He replaced the article at the bottom of my drawer, grabbing my hand in his. “You’re amazing, you know that?” he said, the last thing I imagined him saying given the information he’d just been privy to.
The surprise of it broke me out of the snare of remorse and guilt I got caught in every time I revisited that night. I looked at him and his eyes were victorious, not sad, or doling out pity like the multitudes had.
“Here you are,” he said, gesturing at me. “Fighting like there’s no tomorrow. Fighting to make them proud, even in death.” He smiled, it was all teeth and fondness.
“Come again?” I asked. He had to be joking. Me, a fighter? Yeah, and elephants fly.
“You can act as humble as you like,” he said, pulling me up. “But anyone else would have given up on their dreams and let fear and sadness cripple them.”
Did he realize that was me? Fear, sadness, guilt, remorse, self-loathing . . . take your pick.
“Your parents must have been incredible people,” he said, drawing his fingers over my cheek.
“They were the best,” I said, and instead of trying not to think about them, I let my memory bank fill with them. Summers on the Oregon Coast, strawberry crepes Saturday mornings, my mother’s perfume that was like walking through a lavender field, the way Dad’s favorite polo shirt would smell after mowing the lawn. I let the memories overtake me, and unlike what I’d thought, they gave me strength instead of flat-ironing me to the ground.
“I’ve upset you,” he said, watching a tear skid down my face. “I didn’t mean to.”
I nodded. “No. You’ve made me happy,” I said, sniffing through a laugh. “Strangely happy.”
“Are you alright?”
I eyed him.
“Given the circumstances?” he edited.
Attacked by a couple men that were as mysterious as they were terrifying, letting the skeletons topple out of my closet onto a man that was so near perfect he should have taken off in the opposite direction from me, but here he stood, firmly rooted to the shoddy carpet in my dorm room. I should be anything but alright, but I felt nothing but. “I’m the most alright I’ve been in awhile,” I said, knowing he was the reason for this.
“The article said you went to Stanford,” he said, looking strangely amused. “Why did you transfer?”
I waved my hand in the air. “I needed a change, and had heard such wonderful things about rural Oregon, and there was this little thing”—I pinched my thumb and index fingers together—“called academic probation I was put on.” After my parent’s had been murdered and a bullet had run through me, my mind was on everything but study sessions and declaring majors.
“A change,” he repeated, the only thing he’d pulled from my explanation. “I wonder what it would take for you to make another change.”
I looked back at him, and I already had my answer, but it shouldn’t have come so quickly or without doubt. It defied everything I knew of this world, this couldn’t exist . . . but at the same time, I couldn’t deny what was taking place within me. Thankfully, I didn’t spurt out what the very core of me knew. “Something pretty big, I guess.”
“Pretty
big
like what?” he pressed.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, stepping back and removing my hoodie, glad I had on a tee-shirt that was clean, fitted, and didn’t have some fill-in-the-blank fun-run sprawled across it. “But I’ll let you know when I find it.” I smiled and tossed the hoodie in the garbage; there was no amount of stain remover that could ever wash tonight off it.
“Okay, so something pretty big then,” he quoted me as if committing it to memory. His eyes outlined my figure, although I could tell he was trying not to let them.
Feeling self-conscious, I fidgeted with my shirt, pulling, twisting and smoothing, not able to meet his gaze.
“What are you doing Sunday?” he asked suddenly.
I took a step back and gripped the footboard of my bed. “Not much. Homework, laundry, chess club”—I said in a joking voice (sadly, I
actually
did have chess club on Sunday afternoons)—“exciting stuff like that.”
He swallowed, looking like he was working up some courage. “Would you like to spend part of it with me?”
I hoped my face didn’t scream,
duh
, too loudly.
A rapping on the door jolted both of us. I glanced at the alarm clock on my nightstand; it was way past courteous visiting hours. It had been a good month since I’d had a knock on my door, and had no reason to be expecting one now—especially given the hour. I started towards the door.
“Don’t.” He grabbed hold of my wrist. “Just pretend you’re not here.” There was something urgent in his voice, which only further piqued my interest to discover who was standing on the other side of that door.
Another knock. This one longer and more impatient sounding than the first. I pulled free from his handcuff-like hold and pulled the door open, peeking out, praying I wouldn’t find a duo of men sporting suits and malicious smiles.
A painted-on sweaterdress had replaced the orange and black pleated skirt, and the ribbon had been pulled from her hair, showcasing shampoo-commercial shiny hair shimmering over her shoulders.
“Sorry to wake you”—she eyed my outfit and make-up free face—“but is Will here? Paul said he might be,” she asked eagerly, like a golden retriever anticipating the toss of a tennis ball.
I felt my mouth twisting. “I don’t know about a Will,”—I turned the word out like biting into a tart apple—“but I’ve got a William I’ll give you.” I shoved the door open so hard it banged against the closet, revealing him.
Her brown eyes went all starry. “Here you are. How long were you planning on keeping me waiting?” She tapped her wrist where a watch could have been.
“He was caught up with me,” I said, crossing my arms. “I had to go and bust my head open, bear my soul to a misogynist . . . you know, that kind of thing.” I said, starting to bite my lip, although I couldn’t tell if I was trying to hold back tears or a tirade.
Her eyes turned to me for a second, her expression saying
TMI,
before looking back at William. Before she could say anything else, I backed away from the door, careful not to look at him.
“Have a fun night.” It was pathetic how weak my voice sounded.
“Thanks,” she said. “You have fun sleeping too,” she said generously, now she was sure I wasn’t any threat. “You look like you need it.”
I wanted to stick my tongue out her, but chose to act my age.
William didn’t budge, in fact, he hadn’t said a thing. I guess he didn’t have a carefully rehearsed speech prepared for when two of his love interests found out about each other. Seemed cavalier given his obvious reputation.
“You can go now,” I said, turning towards him, focusing on the rainbow of blues in the industrial-type carpet.
I noticed his head finally turn to the auburn-haired vixen in the doorway, what had taken so long? “I don’t want to leave her”—he nodded his head towards me—“with the head injury she’s sustained.”