A Twist of Hate (26 page)

              The spatula, just missing the edge of the stove as she set it down, clattered to the floor as she started for the solarium. “I need some air,” she mumbled. “Please, excuse me.”

              The cane tip-tapped on the narrow floorboards of the solarium, then the screened door leading to the garden slammed home.

              Camden approached Mr. Curran. “I’m sorry I let you down, sir. I told you I’d never hurt her and that’s exactly what I did.”

              “Never mind me, go to her,” Mr. Curran said. “She’s been waiting for you.”

***

              Siobhan sat on a stone bench, her shoulders sagging, her cane propped beside her. The pressure of tears behind her eyes annoyed her. The day was too pretty for tears. Birds in full chorus, mingling their varied songs in the clear sky, added a final joyful note to the sunny morning. A flutter of white butterflies took to wing as the wind disturbed a particularly thick patch of daffodils as pale as homemade lemonade.

              And Camden had finally come back to her.

             
Shouldn’t I be happy?
she asked herself.
Why do I want to cry?
She might have yet, if the heat of rising anger hadn’t dried her tears.

              Camden stood before her, but she kept her eyes averted. He dropped to one knee and turned her face to his. She refused to meet his gaze. He studied her face, reacquainting himself with it, sickened by the fact that he’d had a part in causing the hurt limning her features.

              This was the reception he deserved. He knew better that anyone the pain of abandonment. This was his one and only chance to beg her forgiveness, and he meant to take it.

              She shifted away from him. Humbly undaunted, he ran his hand along the length of her cast. She offered no resistance when he lifted her shirt to expose the bandage covering her wound. He peeled the surgical tape off and pulled it askew just enough to see the dark sutures within the line of scar tissue. Tears blurred his vision as he replaced the bandage and gently pressed the tape back in place.

              His arms around her hips, he laid his head in her lap. His shoulders shook from the force of tears that had come as fiercely and suddenly as a summer storm.

              His hot tears dropped onto the skin of her thigh. She touched his head, lightly at first, then more firmly to guide him into an upright position. She hoped with all her heart that she would never again see such utter despair and desolation etched across his wonderful, terrible, handsome face.

              As much as she wanted to comfort and console him, she couldn’t. Something akin to hopelessness chased that urge away. “It’s been thirty-four days since we met in Mr. Cleese’s office. I counted it off on my calendar this morning. How can so much have happened in such a short time?”

              He shrugged a shoulder. That was just another question to which he had no answer.

              “I can’t do this, Camden,” she said, a tremble in her voice. “Whatever it is you need from me, to make you feel better, I don’t have it to give.” She sighed, a quiet noise borne of complete exhaustion. “There’s always someone calling or visiting. I’ve fought with my dad. My grandmother probably isn’t speaking to me. She finally showed me her true colors and they’re the same as Michael Littlefield’s.

              “Brian’s imprinted on me, Courtney thinks I’m stealing her boyfriend. Mr. Edwards is pestering the hell out of us to make sure we aren’t going to sue the school, and Mr. Cleese is thinking of leaving teaching. They all want something from me—support, reassurance or comfort. But at least they came to me. You didn’t, Camden. I’m so sorry, but I don’t have anything left for you.”

              He raised his head and she had to turn away. The misery in his eyes threatened further injury to her already wounded heart.

              “What about forgiveness? Do you have any of that? If you have nothing else left for me, please let me have that.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and sat beside her. “I can’t remember the last time I cried. It’s a strange feeling.”

              “Crying is something I can’t afford.” She grabbed her cane and pulled herself to her feet, shrugging off the hand he offered to help her. “I didn’t cry when I had to tell Brian that I don’t have the same feelings for him that he has for me, even though he’s the one who stayed.” Her voice grew louder. “I didn’t cry when I told my grandmother that I wasn’t going to give up on you. I didn’t cry when my dad wanted to send me out of the country.

              “I didn’t cry when Michael Littlefield punched me and kicked me and tried to rape me,” she grimaced, “and I didn’t cry when he shot me!”

              Tears exploded from her. The cane clattered to the stone path as she raised her fists. “He shot me! And I can’t cry or be sad or whine or complain, or everyone around me will fall apart. I have so many people around me, depending on me, yet I’m still all alone.” She gave him a savage look. “I wish
my
mother could come back, so I could have somebody to turn to. I wish I could make you know how awful it feels to be left alone by someone you love!”

              He leaped to his feet. “I know exactly what it’s like and you know it! Maybe that’s why I stuck by Michael. I didn’t want anyone, not even him, to know what that’s like.”

              “Let me get this straight,” she said sardonically. “You stuck by a homicidal maniac, yet ran away from me. Am I understanding this?”

              “I hurt you. I’ll have to find a way to live with it, because as much as I’d like to, I can’t undo it. All I can ask of you is forgiveness. I never meant to hurt you. I was selfishly protecting myself by not giving
you
the chance to leave
me
.”

              “What have I ever done to make you think I’d leave you?”

              “My mother left me and I didn’t do a thing to her. I got you shot! I got Brian shot. David was hurt because of—”

              “You?” she suggested scornfully.

              His head dropped between his shoulders. He voiced the thought that had haunted his days and nights. “I don’t deserve you. I’ve known it all along. The shooting only proved it.”

              Siobhan became livid. “Doesn’t anyone care what I want? I’m sick to death of being told who and what I deserve! Don’t I deserve to be happy?”

              “Of course.”

              “And you thought leaving me would accomplish that? Do I look happy!?”

              She looked as happy as he felt.

              “How could you think I’d blame you for what Michael did? How could you underestimate me like that?”

              “I’m so sorry, Siobhan.”

              “Why did you come back?” She asked, then answered herself. “Oh, I get it. Your mom comes back to you, so you come back to me. It must be Prodigal Day. I wonder if Hallmark has a card for this.”

              “My mom gave me some things to think about. I really did think you’d be better off without me. That’s one of the excuses she gave me, so I know how lame it is.”

              “You still haven’t told me why you came back.”

              “For the same reason I wanted to kiss you.”

              She rolled her reddened eyes heavenward.

              “That Saturday morning, after I spent the night in your window, you were in the solarium. You were wearing boxers, a T-shirt, and that Navajo blanket. The sunrise was shining in your hair and in your eyes. I’d had such a great time with you the night before that I wanted Saturday to begin as well as Friday had ended. I told you that I wanted to kiss you.”

              “And I asked you why,” she recalled, the memory drawn from another lifetime.

              “When I knew why, you wouldn’t let me tell you. It’s the same thing I wanted to tell you in the hospital, but you were still unconscious when I saw you. I wasn’t all there myself.”

              She turned him around and tugged his shirt from his waistband. She raised it and saw the fresh scar striping the taut muscle girding his lower back. He wasn’t wearing a bandage. He was healing quickly. New skin had begun to grow over the sutures that had closed him. Lowering his shirt, she pressed her forehead to his back.

              His pulse quickened. “I love you, Siobhan. That’s why I wanted to kiss you. That’s what I wanted to tell you at the hospital.”

              Her eyes slowly closed as her arms slipped around him.

              “That’s the reason I came back to you.” He turned around and took her by her upper arms. He held her gaze, determined to make her believe him, to make her believe
in
him again. “I’m here because I love you.” He half expected her to laugh in his face, or to pop him in the head and leave him floundering in a sea of daffodils.

              “I know. I love you too. I thought you knew that.”

              “I guess I needed to hear it.”

              “I love you, Camden,” she said. “Michael Littlefield couldn’t change that. Even you couldn’t change that.”

              He folded her into his arms. She relaxed into his embrace, her head resting heavily upon his shoulder. “I’m glad you have something left for me after all,” he said softly into the top of her head. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not enough. You needed me and I wasn’t there.”

              She raised her head, then pulled the rest of her body from him. “I don’t need you, Camden. Don’t take this the wrong way, but that’s the one thing I got out of this. I need air. I need water. I needed your blood, but I don’t need you.”

              “Do you want me to leave?”

              She placed her left hand at his nape and her right arm around his waist and held him close. “I still want you. I want your friendship. I want everything we had before those bullets came between us.” 

              He gave her a kiss as delicate and whispery as the touch of the breeze. “I want that, too. I’m sorry I hurt you.”

              “I know.”

              “I love you.”

              “I know.”

              He kissed her again, this time leaving her breathless and quivery.

              She leaned on him. “I’ve never been so tired, Camden.”

              He scooped her up.

              “I’m afraid to go to sleep,” she whispered.

              “I won’t leave.” He took her to the wide hammock swinging lazily between two sturdy oaks. The garden had been designed around the twin oaks that provided an oasis of shade in the middle of the sun-drenched garden. He set her in the hammock and carefully eased into it beside her, throwing his leg over hers.

              “I missed you.” She rested her head on his shoulder.

              “I won’t leave.”

              She yawned and relaxed against him, tightening her grip on him.

              “Are you cold?” He held her closer.

              “I’m fine.” His body provided all the warmth she needed. His return was the medicine to heal the more painful hurts deep inside. She could finally sleep without dreading what she would face when she woke up. Things weren’t perfect, but nothing was as bad as it had seemed before.

              He worked his fingers through her hair, loosening it to spread over her shoulder.

              “I’m glad your mom came back,” she yawned.

              “I think I am, too.”

              “I could sleep for a week.”

              “Me, too.”

              “I don’t want to fall asleep, though.”

              “You’re afraid I’ll leave,” he said.

              She nestled closer.

              “I won’t leave you.” He knew she’d heard those words from him before and had no reason to trust them now. “I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

              She said nothing.

              “Siobhan?”

He curled his forefinger beneath her chin and gently lifted  her face.

She was sound asleep.

Racism is a refuge for the ignorant. It seeks to divide and destroy. It is the enemy of freedom, and deserves to be met head-on and stamped out.

—Pierre Berton