Forgiven (Ruined) (5 page)

             
"He doesn't mind you going out without him?"  She's glancing from me to Kellan in the rearview now, anywhere but at the road.

             
"He doesn't own me," I say and, trying to get her attention back on where we're going, and back on the road, "Tell me about this club!"

* * *

             
She didn't.  Having whetted my appetite, Emmy refused to tell me another thing about the club.  Instead she chattered about school and work or her inability to find any thereof.  If ever I wished Tabby were right and we could pay station personnel, it's now.  I'd hire Emmy in a heartbeat.  She was my camera operator for the first forgiveness specials and she's not only a natural, she's awesome.  Emmy just has a feel for the right angles, the right shots.  Hiring her would probably be some kind of nepotism, but I'd do it.

             
I know Bruce's office is looking for someone to do admin work, and work with the computers, which Emmy's also good at.  With her interest in business, a real estate office might be a really good opportunity, but I'm not sure I want to suggest she work for Bruce.

             
Ever since Kellan was released from prison, things have been tense at home.  Once I showed the entire family the video with David Reynolds saying he had forgiven Kellan for the accident, that he's remarried and moved on and he's happy. And Kellan's best friend Jake, Jake's father Bill and Jake's fiancé Bria talking about how happy Jake is, how he's become a paraplegic athlete, things started improving between Bruce and Kellan.  It's still strained.  There's no way that relationship could heal quickly.  Bruce virtually abandoned Kellan when he was in prison and Kellan hasn't forgiven that.

             
But the real strain right now is between my mother and Bruce.  Mom started pushing Bruce when they learned Kellan was getting out.  I know she did it because Bruce was so angry about Kellan killing that family in the accident.  She was even more afraid than she had been about how he'd react if he learned I killed my father.  Telling him, coming clean, interviewing my mother about her forgiving me, all of that helped get Bruce and I back on even footing and it's helped me start healing.

             
But it hasn't done a thing for Mom and Bruce.

             
"Earth to Willow!" 

             
I snap out of my daze, realizing we're here.  Emmy finds a place to park.  We pay our cover and go in.

             
She's right – the place is unique.  It's next to the water, for reasons that became obvious as soon as we go in and see the dance floor: Plexiglass over seawater, fish swimming here and there, seaweed drifting.

             
"This is amazing!" I shout over the music.

             
Emmy grins, nods, grabs my hand and drags me after her.

             
The dance floor is packed in no time.  Soon as the evening comes on, there's barely any room to stand. 

             
It doesn't take long for the guys to find us.  Two unattached ladies will always attract the guys.  For someone who spent the last four years hiding out from almost all social situations, I'm finding dance clubs are a great way to reacquaint myself with life.  There's no way to have a conversation in these places, short of shouting, and nothing much worth shouting about.  So it's all – well, exactly what I have here.  First guy is a shaved head, cocoa skin, big dark eyes, pecs and traps and shoulders that won't quit.  He's way tall, beautiful in a way that would be almost feminine if not for those muscles.  Wearing a long sleeved light blue Henley, black trousers, and he can move.  From where I'm dancing I can see Emmy, moving with a guy I can't quite make out, taller than her, but everyone is, dark haired, nice body, white shirt and there's not much more I can see.

             
The water moving under the floor is distracting, nearly hypnotic.  The beat of the music is hard and fast, the song something I don't recognize.  The guy sticks around for two dances before he goes his way and I go mine. 

             
Over to the bar for a soda, watching the crowd for a couple minutes, catching my breath.  Emmy's right, this place is fantastic and I'm able to forget just about everything, DCTV, the homework I've put off for my required math class, the one that, without Reed to help me get through it is probably going to kill me.  Hello required subjects, I loathe math.  I can forget about Bruce and my mother and the fact that they keep fighting even though, theoretically, things are better now between Bruce and Kellan.

             
I can even, if I grit my teeth and try, forget how weird Kellan's acting.  Or even that I don't really know him well enough to say if this is weird, or if the way he was when we first got together – all of a couple weeks ago – was the unusual Kellan behavior.  Maybe moody, distant, snarling, uncommunicative, not there and only half sexually interested is normal.

             
In which case, what do I do now? 

             
Yeah, this is how I planned my first year in college to go.

             
And even as I'm thinking that, I'm watching the dance floor, keeping an eye on Emmy, because that's what we said we'd do for each other, check in, make sure nothing untoward happens, because we've both had more than enough of that.  I find her fairly quickly in the crowd.  Wearing that red and gold thread top she stands out like a dragonfly, all sparkly and gorgeous.  She's dancing with a blond this time.  No worries, no one's monopolizing her time or trying to drag her out of the club, and she's still grinning.

             
So I go back to watching the crowd.  Thinking about heading out there again.  By myself if no one asks.  I take another sip of my soda and lean just a little, checking out a tall dark haired guy dancing with a lithe beautiful blond, her hands on his hips possessively as they sway together, looking like they're inches away from making out right there on the dance floor.

             
Freeze.  And stare.  Because if I'm not mistaken – and I'm not –

             
That's Reed.

* * *

             
My first, and utterly absurd thought, is to avoid being seen by him.  Which is totally crazy.  Why shouldn't Reed be here with some other girl?  I've made it totally clear to him that we can't be anything other than friends.  Even before I was with Kellan, every time he got close I ran away.  Then once his father started blackmailing me, I got close again, and even though I wanted to be with him, even though we were sharing that hotel room while out of town at a broadcasting conference, I still ran away.  It wasn't like I'd ever explained any of that. 

             
I'm with Kellan, I remind myself. 

             
It's just the weirdness of the situation.  I didn't expect to run into Reed at all, especially here.  If I'd thought about it, I'd have expected him to go back to Boston.  He has a job there.

             
He has a
life
there.

             
But it is the weekend.  He can have weekends off, right?  Just like I do?  I could be at the station tonight but it's been left in the hopefully capable hands of whatever rotating-in engineer is babysitting the reruns of
Friends
or whatever's playing right now.

             
Do I really need to remind myself that I'm with Kellan?  No.  So if I
am
seeing Reed with another girl, good for him. I've let him know I'm not available.  Even if my family now knows my story, all of the community doesn't.  Because believe it or not, not everyone watches the college TV station.  I'm sure my mother would prefer to keep the greater Charleston community in the dark about our past.  Not secret, but not shouted from the rooftops, or in the society pages.

             
If I cross Henry Tate Miller by showing up on the arm of his son, that won't be an option; he'll expose my history to all of Charleston. 

             
And, hello?  I'm with Kellan now.

             
It's just a surprise.  That's all.  I thought Reed had come up just to see me and to facilitate the meeting at the station.  Maybe in my urge to push myself back into life, I took too big a step.  Maybe I'm not that special after all, I think snidely to myself, and start looking for Emmy again.

             
She's vanished.

#
             

             
For a minute my heart nearly stops beating.  There's no reason for it.  There's nothing that's happened in this place where it's so crowded it would be impossible for somebody to drag another person away without getting noticed.  Hell, without the person being dragged being able to get help.  There's no reason for me to panic.

             
Except my past, which leads me to expect the worst any time anything I'm not expecting happens.  I hate surprises.  I hate suspense.  Reed was right – now I've had one meeting with the station team, I know what to expect.  He probably didn't know the reasoning behind it, but he's not wrong that now I know what to expect, I can do it on my own.

             
If I were going through therapy the therapist would call this PTSD or some other official name like that.  All it means, basically, is that my own father tried to kill me.  All those nights I spent back in Seattle, sitting at home, 14, 15 years old, waiting for him to come home and never knowing exactly which father would come home.  At the time the investigation happened following his death, the police assumed that every single night my mother worked, my father went out and got drunk and furthermore, that he came home combative and abusive and hit me.

             
Not true.  Sometimes he came home morose and weepy and cried at the kitchen table for hours about letting down the family, letting me down, how much I deserved, how wonderful I was, how much he loved my mother and me.  Small wonder that people telling me I deserve something makes me edgy and anxious.

             
Other nights he'd come home so drunk I was afraid he'd asphyxiate on his own vomit before morning.  I'd help him in the bathroom, help him clean up, leave him to shower as soon as black coffee and cold water on his face got him conscious enough to do so without my help, a step farther than I was willing to go. 

             
Then some nights he came home bellowing, slamming doors, stomping around, hitting me, and those at least the suspense was over the instant he got home.  Unlike the nights he came home so quiet I'd hope he was sober.  Only to turn on me the instant he found something to turn on me
about
.  Because he'd be looking.  Shoes left on the foyer floor rather than the shoe rack my mother had beside the front door?  Instant outrage.  A coffee cup in the sink, never mind if it was his from that morning?  Cardinal sin.  There was no way to win, no way to be perfect enough he couldn't find something to lose his temper about because he was looking for something to lose his temper about, and eventually he'd find it and then he'd explode.

             
That's why suspense and I don't get along well.  Want me to enjoy a birthday?  Do
not
throw me a surprise party.  My fight or flight will probably mean flight, but there's no guarantee.

             
Like so many abusers, my father had an instinctive ability to keep just enough sanity in his rage to hit where it couldn't be seen. It wasn't like he was slapping me across the face, leaving bruised lips, broken noses, black eyes.  I had bruises on my upper arms, my wrists, yes, but those were easy to hide, like a cutter friend I had in high school, I became the master (or maybe the mistress) of the floating diaphanous long-sleeved garment in summer; in winter long sleeved t-shirts were my best friends. 

             
That's why as I watch the dance floor, every second I don't see Emmy compounds the terror.  Because I know what people can hide in plain sight.  She could be shoved into a corner, the hot but inoffensive looking guy I'd seen her dancing with just instants ago traded in for some enormous hulking guy or one of those lean wiry dudes whose strength is deceptive, more than it looks like and when they grab your wrist, it's like hundreds of pounds of pressure brought to bear. 

             
Scanning the crowd, panicking over Emmy, I've lost track of my own surroundings.  That almost never happens.  Vigilance, that's my watchword.  I've just gone up on tiptoes, her name on the tip of my tongue, as if anyone in here is going to hear me however loud I shout, when someone touches my arm at the same time a voice says directly in my ear, "Willow!"

             
Hands turn to fists at the same time they tuck around my ribs, hands fisted but buried in my armpits.  Protection position.  Doesn't help.  It's just nature. 

             
Instants later it's not necessary.  I'm face to face with Reed Miller.

             
"Hi!" I blurt out.  Ever the original, Willow.

             
"Great to see you here," he says, as if we didn't just see each other a few hours ago.  "Who are you looking for?  Kellan?"