Authors: Ever McCormick
I put my arms around him and said, "I'm still here, Adam. I'm here. I did it."
Without hesitation, he threw his arms around me and hugged me, lifting me off the ground and then placing me back down. He put the palms of his hands on my cheeks and used his thumbs to brush away the tears that had fallen, that were still falling.
"Did he?"
"No," I shook my head vigorously, knowing somehow what he would ask. "I fought him off," I said.
He pulled me into another hug and we said more to each other, but I don't know if it made any sense. I don't know what we said. I just remember the sound of his voice soothing me into solace and constantly reminding me that I was okay now. I was alive. I was free.
*
The police were full of questions. Hadn't we seen him on the mountain all this time? Hadn't he l
eft any hints that he was there? Adam told him about the items missing from the shed. He said things go missing all the time. He hadn't thought much of it.
It was weird seeing the police cruisers traipsing through the roads while they tried to piece together how Roadsie had lived for the past weeks. We had to stay off the road and confine ourselves to the main trails because the police didn't seem to care about pedestrians or Adam's wishes for his property as they continued to come and go as they wanted.
I’d heard them slam the gas and rev the engines, and I observed how Adam flinched and suffered. Eventually, I hated car sounds too because of how they hurt him.
The morning after the shooting, we were walking back to my cabin and we came across a flattened body of a bunny. The tire that had crushed it left a black diamond pattern across its back. Adam crouched over it and I did on the other side.
"They'll be gone soon," I whispered. "This nightmare is almost over."
His eyes lifted from the road
kill and focused on me.
"I know," he said. "It's sad how you can't even have a tiny section of the world to yourself anymore. No matter where you run, the real world finds you."
Adam moved the dead rabbit to a shallow grave. After that, he seemed to feel a little better about it, but I saw in his eyes that it hurt him to see anything die on his roads. I think that's when I really started to understand his living out here. He couldn't control what happened out there, so he bought his own world on the mountain. He tried to keep a few roads where life was still safe, but you couldn't be 100% safe ever.
I had come to his secret city, and I had brought danger with me. Still, I knew he didn't blame me, even if I blamed myself.
After the cops asked me questions, Adam told them he was taking me to his cabin to relax. Happy to know where I would be if they had more questions, they said okay. I felt them watching me as Adam led me to the trail that was the shortest route to his cabin. He didn't seem to notice their eyes on me. In the silence, I started to review the situation in my head and I let out an involuntary whimper.
"Ina?" he asked with concern.
"Thank god you showed up," I whispered.
He grabbed my fa
ce. "I am so grateful I got there when I did. I wish I got there sooner." He struggled to catch his breath. "But you survived without me," he assured me. "You saved yourself. Stop thanking everyone else. Everything you needed to survive was right here." He laid his open palm on my heart.
I looked down at it and swallo
wed my fear. I had tried. I had fought. Even if my life had ended last night, I would have died with the knowledge that I hadn't just laid down without a fight.
Adam bent down and scooped me up in his arms. His eyes flicked down to my chest and I
saw that my shirt drooped where Roadsie had pulled it down. My cleavage still showed where he had stretched out the neckline.
"I di
dn't let him touch me," I said. It was so important to me that he know that.
Adam nodded and carried me the rest of the way to his cabin. Inside, he drew me a bath and I soaked for at least an hour. He filled up my wine glass twice in that time.
When I said I wanted to get out, he brought me a thick towel and handed it to me almost reverently. I stood up and wrapped it around myself and he led me to his bed, where I curled into his arms. We lay there for hours before falling asleep. I told him every detail as each returned to my memory. He asked me questions and hugged me when I tensed. We laid there with the windows and door wide open. I wasn’t afraid anymore.
After we had pie
ced together the way things happened, he told me that he didn't know what to do when I confessed my love to him. He loved me too, but it was too hard to say it out loud. The pain he'd been avoiding—the pain of being vulnerable, letting his feelings out of his heart and having them trampled—was suddenly threatening to seize him again and he was scared to death.
"But I don't want to hurt you, Adam," I tried to convince him.
"I feel vulnerable in your arms too. I think it's because I love you. And I've decided that I want you, more than I am afraid of losing you."
He brought his lips to mine. I reveled in the sweet clean taste of him. I didn't think I'd ever get tired of the way he kissed. I thought of the
day and night we'd made love and blushed. I was surprised at the sudden desire that flooded through me. I wasn't used to the overwhelming response, but I recognized it from the stories of my dormmates. I suddenly understood why they sometimes found themselves unable to study because their minds kept wandering to their boyfriends' bodies.
"You're going to want to go, and I'm not sure I can leave here," Adam explained, shaking me out of my thoughts.
I pushed the hair that had fallen in front of his eyes away from his face. I didn't know what to say, so I just let him speak.
"I love you, and that scares the hell out of me," he admitted. "I want to keep you safe." He shook his head. "Almost losing you today brought back a lot of feelings. I can't lose someone again."
He cried on my chest at times. I cried into his neck as I told him what had gone through my mind when I was most afraid. "I thought that it was such a waste," I told him. "I felt that my whole life—if I died in that moment—had been preparation. College had been preparation for a job that never came. My relationship had been preparation for a dream life that never came. And all of this indecision was all I could see—all of this hesitation. I don't want to hesitate anymore. I want to start my real life."
"You don't have to be afraid while I'm here," he swore to me.
"I know," I said.
"Stay with me, please."
I didn't know if he meant tonight, for a week, or forever. I didn't know if we were too broken for forever—or at least too broken to promise forever—but he didn't push for a real answer. I think he saw the real answer in my face anyway.
He let me cry. He let me sleep in his arms. And when I woke up in the night screaming, he reminded me I was safe and he helped me back to slumber with comforting words and tiny kisses soft as air.
24
For the first time, when I woke up, Adam was next to me and asleep. He hadn't snuck off in the wee hours of the morning to shower or hunt for escape convicts in the woods. I studied his face and body in sleep.
His chest rose steadily and then contracte
d. I could fall back asleep listening to the steady rhythm of his breath. He occasionally flinched, his muscles tightening, and I had to remind myself he was asleep. This was no time to be fantasizing about his ripped body taking hold of mine again. Although I couldn't stop staring at it and noticing the ensuing tingly response in my body. Nothing wrong with staring.
I turned away from his sleeping form and took one of the books from the pile on his bedside table. I read half-heartedly, skipping whole chapters and
skimming random scenes. Eventually, Adam stirred. His eyes opened and he turned sideways on his pillow to face me. I put down the book and turned to face him too.
We lay
like that until a smile came over his face.
"What's funny?" I asked with a smile of my own.
He shook his head. "The logic center of my brain keeps wondering why I'm doing this. I'm on high alert. But then I look at you, and it's like all the employees at the logic center go on break at once, and my feelings are left to make the decisions."
He took my hands into his between us on the bed. He rubbed the bone of my wrist where a
n angry purple bruise was forming. His brows pulled together as he moved his thumb over the ultra-sensitive skin. Even that turned me on.
I moved my legs across his sheets and he met my eye and grinned at me as if he could sense what his lightest touch did to my body.
We made love twice before we decided to officially get up for the day. It was late morning by then, practically noon, and I luxuriated further with a long hot shower.
Under the hot spray of water
, I examined all of the sore spots in my body. While adrenaline had surged through me last night, making me feel strong and unstoppable as I fought, today I felt as if I were recuperating from a 10K.
Brushing my hair in the bathroom after my shower, I smelled bacon and eggs and heard them sizzle. I opened the bathroom door to see a bowl of fresh fruit at the center of the table. Ad
am was setting my breakfast on the table. A mimosa also sat in front of my usual seat.
"You don't need to cook every meal for me," I said.
He turned and watched me put a slice of fresh mango in my mouth. "You want to cook?" he asked.
"No." I laughed. "You don't want that either, believe me."
"One thing I've remembered about myself is that I love cooking more when there is someone else to enjoy it." He walked over to me and gave me a sweet kiss. Then he licked his lips and took a piece of mango from the bowl.
I squeezed the fluffy robe tighter around me. "You better watch it," I warned. "A girl could get used to this."
"I'm counting on it." He walked back to the stove.
We talked and talked in the following days, the final days of my rental, although I rarely went back to my cabin and never alone
, not because I was afraid, but because we couldn’t stand to be apart. We enjoyed each other. We had comfortable silences where I'd think I’d told him everything and then something else would bubble up in my mind.
He wasn't sharing as much as I was, but he did talk about his own life sometimes, and I listened attentively. I could sense how hard it was for him to speak about it and I sympathized. I kept picturing him out here all alone, dealing with all of this pain by himself
for so long. That led to me touching him, trying to take some of his pain. That led to him touching me back, and that inevitably led to lovemaking. Yet another perk of the mountain, and perhaps my favorite, was the collection of hideaways and wide open beautiful places we found to make love.
When I told him about how Michael had talked his bosses into sending me a job offer, Adam's perma-smile wavered.
"Will you take it?" he asked.
"No," I answered. He looked to the ground guiltily. "I'm not saying this only for your benefit. It's the truth. I don't think I could ever work w
ith Michael without going nuts. His stealing my ideas, cheating on me. I'm sure I can never trust him again. I won’t let myself."
He nodded and
kissed my forehead.
"W
hat have you decided to do?" he asked.
I shrugged. I'd moved on past Michael, and I was proud of that accomplishment. I'd come to terms with my thesis debacle. I didn't see it as the career-ending fiasco that I'd thought it was when I'd come here. I'd made some self-improvements since I'd come to the mountain,
gained some confidence, but I still hadn't figured out my next career move.
I hadn't thought past spending the nights and days with Adam, but now in the morning light
of my last paid-for day, I did begin to worry. My mother would be start harassing me soon to come home. What would I tell her?
I wondered if this relationship was sustainable. I wanted to work, and furthermore, I hadn't been born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I
needed
to work. I was pretty sure there wasn't a lot of job opportunity on the mountain or even in the surrounding areas.
"I have an idea," Adam said in a hesitant voice.
"Okay. Let's hear it."
"My job offer from the truck still stands. I'd like you to take over the advertising and marketing of my properties."
I looked at him in disbelief. "First of all, thank you, Adam, but, I'd feel like you'd be giving me a handout."
"This is not a handout!" he argued. "I am fascinated by your philosophy on advertising. You've single-handedly brought this anti-establishment
—and let's face it, anti-human being—man back from the seedy underbelly of society. Don't underestimate yourself. You are more qualified than you think."
I beamed in his praise. A couple of weeks ago, I would've said that his was the opinion of one single man who didn't know a thing about advertising. Why should I listen to him?