Authors: Stina Lindenblatt
Chapter Forty-Four
Marcus
Chase and I are sitting in the Marketplace when my phone rings. I don’t recognize the number, but I’m expecting an important call. I lift my finger to let Chase know I have to answer this.
“I need to talk to Marcus Reid, please,” a man says on the other end of the line.
“Speaking.”
“This is Detective Goodwin. I have some information concerning Paul Carson. Is this a good time?”
“Did you find out who his partner is?”
“I contacted the facility where he’s staying. Mr. Carson is under a high-security watch based on the nature of his alleged crimes. It’d be impossible for him to contact Miss Scott or anyone else on the outside via mail or email. According to his records, only his lawyer has visited him.”
“Could the lawyer have sent the messages on the creep’s behalf?”
“We’re investigating him, but I checked the videos of their interactions, and there was no exchange of materials between the two individuals. In all honesty, I don’t believe the person who is sending the messages to Miss Scott has anything to do directly with Mr. Carson.”
“Could it be a copycat?” I ask. “Someone who read about her case in the newspaper?”
“It’s possible, but during an investigation certain details are kept from the media, to help us make a case against the suspect later on. In the case of Miss Scott’s stalking, none of the details about the messages were ever released. The only way anyone would know about the contents of the original messages would be to have heard about them from another source, or they’ve seen them. Sorry I can’t be much help beyond that.”
“Have you told Amber yet?”
“Yes.” We talk for a minute or two longer before hanging up.
“Good or bad news?” Chase asks. I haven’t told him about the messages. The only person I told was the detective, whom I contacted after I screwed up with Amber. I wanted to learn if they had made any progress in the case. Since it was believed I might somehow be involved, the detective was more than happy to talk to me.
“I’m not sure.” I spot Jordan on the far side of the food court. Amber isn’t with her. “Give me a second.”
I dodge around people as I make my way toward her. She turns from the Mexican food counter and walks in the opposite direction to me. I pick up my pace and bump shoulders with someone.
“Hey, watch it,” the guy yells. I’m too focused on Jordan to respond.
If it were anytime but lunch, the place wouldn’t be so packed, and I’d catch her in no time. But as it is, it takes me several minutes before I’m close enough so she can hear me call her name.
She pivots and the smile on her face vanishes the second she realizes I was the one who called her. Her eyes narrow. Clearly Amber told her everything.
“How’s she doing?” I ask.
Jordan crosses her arms over her chest. “What’s it to you?”
I’ve always liked Jordan, but right now she’s pissing me off. “Because I care about her.” Because she means the world to me.
“From where I am, it doesn’t sound like it.” Jordan makes a move to leave.
I step in front of her. “I made a mistake, but I don’t want to discuss that with you. What I want to know is if she’s still receiving any letters that are upsetting her.” I don’t know how much Amber has told her, but I take a gamble that Jordan might know something. But I leave things vague enough so that I don’t betray Amber’s secret.
Jordan releases a long slow breath that I sense has nothing to do with me, and drops her arms to her side, revealing the rainbow design on her T-shirt. “They’re coming almost daily. She barely sleeps at night because of the nightmares. She failed two tests last week. I don’t think she’s gonna last much longer before she has a breakdown.”
“Have you read the letters?”
She nods. “It’s pretty much the same as before, but now some are quotes from classics. Whoever’s sending them thinks you two are still together. But they’re no longer threatening your life. They’re threatening Amber’s.”
Fuck. No wonder she’s having so many nightmares. Things aren’t going to get better as long as the cops have no idea who’s sending them.
“Look, I have to go,” Jordan says. I don’t stop her this time. Detective Goodwin’s words are on repeat mode in my head.
The only way anyone would know about the contents of the original messages would be to have heard about them from another source
,
or they’ve seen them.
I know one person on campus who fits the description, and I scan the food court in case she’s here. When I don’t see her, I tell Chase I’ll see him later and head to Emma’s dorm.
Fortunately I don’t have to figure out how the hell to get inside this time. Emma is talking by the steps to a guy who could be on the men’s basketball team. He’s at least my height.
I march up to her. “We need to talk.”
Without so much as a glance at me, she says coolly, “No, we don’t.”
“This is important.”
“Doubt it,” she fires back.
“Look, man,” the guy says, “she’s not interested. Get the hint.”
I level him a dark look. “I’m not interested in her either. But unless she wants to be dragged to the police station, she’s gonna find time in her busy schedule to talk to me.” I turn back to her. “So what’s it going to be?”
Her eyes widen. “Police station? I haven’t done anything wrong.” She briefly looks at the guy, who’s staring at me, unsure what to make of any of this. “Okay. But is this going to take long?”
“Depends on how much you have to tell me.” I tell the guy she’ll call him later, and wave her forward, toward the engineering building.
As expected, the building isn’t busy. I indicate for her to take a seat at a table away from everyone else.
She does; her eyes scan the area as if searching for the nearest exits. “So what do you want?”
“Some information.”
She taps her foot against the floor. The sound of it reminds me of a basketball bouncing against the hardwood of a basketball court. And that makes me think of Amber.
“Could you be maybe a little more specific?” she huffs.
“It’s about the messages the psychopath used to send Amber.”
“Why are you asking me about them? Ask her.”
“I’m asking
you
. You two were best friends. I’m betting you saw them, didn’t you?”
“What’s it to you?” she grumbles.
I fist my hands, fighting the urge to shake the answers out of her. “Like I said, you have a choice. Talk to me or I’ll call the cops.”
“Yes, I saw them. I saw every one of them. Including the ones we later realized were his twisted way of saying he was going to kill my brother.” Her voice splinters, and the pain I know she’s been struggling with flickers on her face before she looks down at the table.
My tone softens. “Have you told anyone else about them? Someone on campus, maybe?”
“My brother was killed. I lost two of the most important people in my life because of what that murderer did.” She looks at me. “Do you know what that feels like?”
“I do. My brother was killed too.”
And it’s my fault he’s dead.
Emma’s eyes tear up. “But your best friend didn’t turn his back on you because of it, did he? Mine pushed me away when I needed her the most.”
“Amber’s not trying to hurt you. She’s punishing herself because she blames herself for what Paul did. And she’s punishing herself for hurting you because of what happened to Trent. You need to talk to her. But first you need to tell me if you told anyone about the letters.”
She nods, clearly confused at what that has to do with anything. “I told your girlfriend.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Amber
Some people say friends and family give us the inner strength we need to deal with our demons, and help us find the will to keep going no matter what challenges face us. But as I check the bulletin board in the Student Services Building, I realize the right poster can have the same effect.
I remove the brochure from the display below.
Self-Defense Class for Beginners
. Perfect. I slip it into my backpack and enter the Counseling Center.
A few students are waiting in the plastic seats along the wall. Some spare me a glance when I enter. I gasp at the sight of one girl. She’s tall and athletic and has familiar long blond hair curtaining her face.
I don’t know if she heard me or felt me watching her, but her head turns in my direction. It’s not Emma. The heaviness residing in my chest since last spring stirs. I push it aside and walk to the front desk.
A female with purple chunks in her short dark hair looks up from her computer. “Do you have an appointment?”
“No, but I’d like to book one. To see a counselor.”
She taps at her keyboard. “We had a cancelation for this afternoon at two. Can you make that?”
Accepting help is a sign of weakness
, Mom’s voice says in my head.
Is it? Until I reached out and helped Brittany, she was scared and uncertain. A week later, she’s strong and determined never to give another guy power over her.
Mom was wrong. Accepting help isn’t a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of strength.
I’ve already failed two of my exams in the past two weeks because of the nightmares, insomnia and flashbacks. I can’t keep living like this.
“That will be great. Thanks.”
I leave the center a tiny bit lighter than when I went in, and return to my dorm room as Jordan is leaving hers, wearing her favorite T-shirt to study in. It’s black with the word HOPE in rainbow colors on the chest.
“Are you and Brittany studying now?” she asks.
When Brittany discovered I was struggling with math, she offered to help me study for the final. Although she’s not Marcus, she’s not a bad tutor after all.
I nod. “But I want to show you and Brittany something first.”
We enter my room. Brittany’s at her desk, working at a math equation. I remove the brochure from my backpack and place it on her textbook.
“We’re signing up for this,” I tell them.
With Jordan looking over her shoulder, Brittany picks up the brochure and reads it. “You want us to learn to kick some major ass?” She nods. “Yep, I can live with that.”
“I don’t know,” Jordan says slowly. “We could get hurt.”
Both Brittany and I look at her, eyebrows raised.
She removes the brochure from Brittany’s hands. “Do you really think knowing this stuff would have helped you two?”
“You’re right,” I say. “It wouldn’t have helped me. When Paul kidnapped me, he had a gun. There’s probably nothing I could have done. But not every situation is gonna be like that.”
“Amber’s right,” Brittany chimes in. “If I had known how to defend myself, I could have escaped.”
“It’ll be fun,” I promise. “Don’t you have ass-kicking somewhere on your bucket list?” I wrap my arm around Jordan’s shoulders. “I promise you won’t regret it.”
“Okay,” she sighs. “But only if you promise you’ll talk to Marcus.”
I drop my arm from her shoulders and step away. “Why would I do that? I told you it’s over between us.”
“Is it? You’re miserable and from what Chase told me, so is Marcus. Marcus won’t tell him what’s going on and you haven’t told me anything, either. But I saw him yesterday and he told me he made a mistake. I swear, Amber, he still cares about you.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Just talk to him. I get the feeling you two have unfinished business, and you won’t get closure until you talk things through.”
“You have a psychology final tomorrow, don’t you?” Brittany says with a smirk.
“How did you know?”
Brittany and I can only laugh, even though Jordan has a point. But whatever I decide to do will have to wait for a few more hours. I have a math final tomorrow that I have to study for before my counseling appointment this afternoon.
Chapter Forty-Six
Amber
I sink farther into the black leather couch, the weight of my phone with Marcus’s messages heavy in my hoodie pocket. I haven’t listened to them yet. First, I was too afraid to. Too afraid to hear the disgust in his voice. But after Jordan told me what Chase said, I decided to listen to them before coming here. Except I was too busy studying and lost track of time. As it is, I barely made it here in time for my appointment.
“What is it that you want, Amber?” the therapist asks from the matching couch. Behind her is a large painting of a young girl reading under a tree filled with cherry blossoms. A golden retriever puppy sits next to her, listening intently to the story.
“I want to feel normal again.” Like that girl.
“What does normal mean to you?”
I have to think on that one. It’s been so long since I’ve felt normal, I don’t know what it means anymore. “I guess it’s no longer having nightmares and flashbacks. To not feel scared all the time. To feel whole.”
“Why do you want the nightmares and flashbacks to stop?”
“Because I want to forget what happened. Because they’re affecting my classes. I can’t sleep. I can’t do anything.”
She smiles, the sight of it reassuring. “It’s your desire to forget, Amber, that’s causing the nightmares and flashbacks. I want you to try the opposite. I want you to accept what happened. You can’t go back and change it. You need to accept that it happened and move on. While you’ve been blocking out the painful memories, you’ve also been blocking the good ones that happened during the same period. Those are the memories that are important to help you heal and be emotionally healthy again.”
She warns me it won’t happen overnight, but I will start to feel better over time, and eventually the nightmares and flashbacks will no longer be an issue. I might still have them, but I’ll be able to cope with them better.
It’s like a hundred-pound weight has been shoved off my shoulder. Unfortunately, the other one is still pinned down with the weight of knowing the cops have no idea who’s been sending me the quotes. It’s not Paul. That’s all they know.
I leave the therapist’s office and find a quiet spot on campus, where no one is hanging out. I claim an empty bench overlooking one of the snow-covered sport fields. Before I listen to Marcus’s messages, there’s one thing I have to do. The one thing I’ve put off too long.
I need to apologize to Mom.
Usually she’d be at the office, but when I call her, her assistant tells me that Mom phoned in sick. I know why she’s sick, and it has nothing to do with a cold or flu.
I dial my home number. Mom doesn’t answer. I get her voicemail instead. It’s not what I want, but it’ll have to do—for now.
“Mom, it’s Amber.” My pulse pounds loud and fast in my ears at what I’m about to tell her. I shouldn’t be this nervous. But I am. “I just want to tell you that I love you and that I’m sorry for what I said. I love you very much and I miss you. I miss the mom who doesn’t drink. The one who once told me she loved me more than anything.” A small sob escapes, but I don’t let that get in my way of telling her how I feel. “I wish you would come back to me, Mom. I want you back, but I want the mom who doesn’t drink. And the mom who would have never looked at me and blamed me for Michael’s death.” I hang up and take a deep breath, knowing it’s too late to grab the words back. Not that I want to.
I’d have preferred to tell her everything to her face, but with the way my grades are dropping, I don’t have time to go home, especially since finals start tomorrow. I didn’t want to wait another week to talk to her. Now I just have to hope she listens to the message—the entire message—and that it will make some sort of difference, no matter how small.
With my head down, I walk back to my dorm. And accidentally bump into someone.
“Sorry,” I say as I look up, only to discover I ran into Emma. Before she can say anything, I fling my arms around her shoulders and hug her. She stiffens at first, but then returns my hug, holding me tight. The heaviness in my chest that has been there since spring fades.
“I’m so sorry, Em. For everything.” I pull away, even though I never want to let go of her again. “Can we go somewhere to talk?”
She nods, a soft smile on her face. That alone is enough to ease some of tension that’s been building in me with everything that’s going on.
We walk to The Coffee Shack where we order drinks, then find a quiet corner by a large window overlooking the campus.
Loud laughter breaks out from a large group of students several tables away, but they’re far enough from us to prevent them from overhearing our conversation.
My heart pounds against my ribs as I sip my coffee. I wouldn’t be surprised if the force of my heart fractures one of my ribs. “I’m sorry about what Paul did to Trent. And I don’t blame you if you hate me. I deserve it.”
Emma’s lip trembles and she chews it for a second. “How could I hate you, Amber? You were my best friend. And you had nothing to do with what happened to Trent. You were as much a victim as he was. I just don’t get why you didn’t want to talk to me anymore. I thought we were best friends. I needed you, but you wanted nothing to do with me, or any of our other friends.”
She sniffs. “When you were found, I tried to visit you so many times, at the hospital and then at your house. But your mom kept telling me you needed time, that you weren’t ready to talk to me. Then you came back to school and avoided me. You avoided everyone. Why?”
I close my eyes briefly. When I reopen them, the world is a blur of colors. “I was so messed up when the firefighters found me. I was barely holding on. Paul hurt me in ways you could never imagine, but knowing how much he hurt you when Trent died—” my voice shakes “—was worse than anything Paul ever did to me. I knew seeing me would only cause you more pain. I couldn’t do that to you, Em. You had lots of friends who would help you. I thought you were better off without me.”
She just stares at me, barely breathing. “What about you? You had no one.” She wipes away a tear. “I saw you at school looking half-dead. I wanted to help you but when I tried, you’d disappear. I even talked to your grandmother. She was worried about you, but she was afraid if she pushed you, you would pull away further. Neither of us knew what to do.”
I turn my gaze to the window and sigh. “I know. She tried to get me to go back to therapy, but I couldn’t.” I look back at her and smile. “Until today. I realized I couldn’t deal with everything on my own anymore.” Not that I was dealing with it. “I’ve started to see a therapist.”
Emma’s face lights up. “Does that mean we can be friends again?”
I nod. “I would love that.” We talk about what we’ve been up to for the past few months. I avoid the topic of Marcus.
“I talked to your boyfriend today,” she says at one point. “He really cares about you. You’re so lucky.”
I almost choke on my coffee at her words, but smile as if I already knew this. “I miss Trent and I’ll always love him.” I remove my hoodie and place my bare arm on the table, tattoo side up. Scars and all.
She gasps then her eyes widen and she grins. Though there’s no missing the moisture in her eyes due to the scars on my wrist and the meaning behind the tattoo.
“I’m betting your mom doesn’t know about this?” She runs a finger over her brother’s name. “Where did you get it done?”
I tell her.
“And here I thought you weren’t the tattooing type.” She laughs, and I realize how much I’ve missed the sound of it.
“Grandma loves it,” I say, grinning.
“I bet she does. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has several tattoos you don’t know about.” Her smile vanishes and her expression grows sober. “I’m sorry about what I told Tammara. I had no idea she was going to use that information to hurt you.”
I frown. “Tammara? What are you talking about?”
Emma’s face pales. “I thought you knew. That’s why I was talking to Marcus. He didn’t tell you?”
“I haven’t talked to him”—
for over a week
—“today.”
“I was upset and Tammara pretended to be my friend, and I kinda told her about the sick notes the murderer used to send you. I never realized she’d use that to hurt you.”
I stop breathing and gape at Emma. It’s all I’m capable of after hearing that Marcus’s ex-girlfriend is the cause of my recent downward spiral.
“You okay?”
I nod. More than okay. Everything now makes sense. Tammara’s been trying to drive me away from Marcus and drag him back into her life. And she almost won. But it also means Marcus and I are no longer in danger. No one’s going to hurt us.
More than ever, I want to listen to Marcus’s messages, but this isn’t the right time. Not with Emma and I finally talking again.
I get the chance a few minutes later when a very tall, very cute guy walks over to our table. He flops on the seat next to Emma and smiles at her before asking if it’s okay if he sits with us. It doesn’t take long to clue in that not only do they know each other, something’s going on between them. I’ve never seen her smile like that at a guy. He means more to her than the short-term flings she had in high school.
“Go ahead,” I say. “I need to check my messages.”
The only messages I’ve received are from Marcus. “Kitten, I’m sorry about...what happened. It’s not what you think. I need you. Please call me.” There’s a similar message after that.
God, how could I have been so stupid? He’s done nothing but try to help me, and I turned my back on him without giving him a chance to explain his reaction that night.
Deep down I know why I ran and why I’ve avoided listening to his messages. And why I’ve come up with every reason why I needed to push him away. I’ve been afraid. Afraid of my growing feelings for him. I loved Trent and he was stolen from me. I was afraid to love again and have that person taken away as well. I was afraid that by loving Marcus, I would be betraying Trent’s memory. But I’ve already been betraying his memory by trying to forget. The therapist was right. I have been trying to block out everything to help me move on, except I haven’t moved on at all.
I call Marcus’s number but end up with his voicemail. Emma and the guy are laughing, their attention focused on each other.
I grab my jacket and backpack off the seat next to me, and after a quick goodbye, I run out of the building.
There’s somewhere else I need to be.