Love Me Not (30 page)

A pause. I didn’t look at her.

“It was never a business,” she said. “I promise I was just trying to protect you.”

She slid a little closer and leaned to catch my eye. I focused on the locked cabinet.

“Do you believe me?” she said.

I had to rearrange those seven years in my head. It was like…getting my sister back. It made sense. She’d always been protective. I realized someplace deep in my head I’d been disappointed in her. I should’ve understood.

“Yes,” I finally said.

Peripherally, I saw her smile.

I looked over as Molly came into the room holding a tray. “I hope you’re hungry.”

“Hi, Molly.” My voice was subdued, as if I’d just woken.

She set the tray on the table at the end of the bed. “You haven’t eaten since you’ve been here, so I got you extra.” She lifted the lid off the tray, and scents of eggs and pancakes wafted out.

I wasn’t hungry.

“Molly,” I said, “this is my sister, Penny.” I still had to play my part—normal and sane.

They shook hands, and Molly smiled. “Nice to meet you.” She looked at me. “Let us know if you need anything.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m glad you’re feeling better.” Still smiling, she turned to walk out.

“Making friends already,” Penny said.

“She didn’t treat me like I was a nutcase.”

“’Cause you’re not.” She stood and shifted the table closer. “You should eat.”

“How long have I been here?” Then I realized I’d already asked Molly that. Hopefully, they wouldn’t compare notes.

“A couple days.” She took the plastic fork out of its package and set it neatly on the napkin.

I’d likely missed it then—Elizabeth’s funeral. I don’t think I could have handled going anyway. It was for the best that I not face Rachel. She had no one now—because of me.

“Are you…not hungry?” Penny said.

“No.”

She pushed the table away and resumed her seat on the bed. We were quiet. I wondered if she’d leave soon. I didn’t want her to go, but I figured it was wiser if I could persuade her to.

“Were you, um, together?” Penny finally said.

I looked at her.

“You and Elizabeth.”

I turned away. A minute or two passed.

“No,” I said. “We didn’t sleep together after I left.”

“But you were friends.”

My jaw all the way down to my neck tightened. I nodded once.

“I, um…I went to the funeral. I met Rachel.”

Quiet.

“I figured she had to be important,” she said, “for you to leave her so much.” Then she added, “She’s really pretty.”

I turned back to her. “I never slept with Rachel. I wouldn’t do that to Elizabeth.” My gaze drifted away. “Rachel was like…a little sister.”

“That’s why you left her so much?”

My expression strained. I hadn’t cried in years, not since I was a child—not even after Cassie. I just kind of died inside after that. That feeling had changed, and I knew why, who’d made it happen. I’d been fighting her for over a year—and I wasn’t about to give in now.

I stared at the locked cabinet. “Elizabeth asked me to take care of her.”

Penny rested her hand on my arm. “That was the last thing she said, wasn’t it?”

I nodded once minutely.

I realized how they had connected me to Penny so quickly, how Penny knew about all this. The police officer had recognized me.
Son of a bitch.
I couldn’t relive this. It was like remembering how I found Cassie on the bathroom floor, blood puddled around her, her skin cold and no longer golden and vibrant. The blood had started drying, like a scab, clumping her hair in long stringy wads. She’d likely slipped to the floor after losing consciousness, and she lay awkwardly on her side, half on her face. Her one visible eye was partially open, as if to watch me when I came to find her.

“She wanted you to take care of her,” Penny said, “not give her money.”

My voice barely made sound, like a razor blade scraping a smooth surface. “That’s all I can do.”

“You said she was like a little sister.”

“That was before I…” I took a shaking breath. “Before I took her mother away from her.”

“It was an accident.”

I leaned forward and pulled my hands through my hair. “I was trying to get away from her. I thought I was doing the right thing. She followed me across the street and…” I closed my eyes to stop the moisture. “It was my fault. I killed her.”

I could barely breathe. My throat tightened.

Penny pulled me to her. She wrapped her arms around me and leaned over me, cheek rested against my hair. She said nothing. She only held me, just like when I was little—as if she knew there was nothing she could say that would make it better.

I wasn’t sure how much time passed. I didn’t want her to let go. I hadn’t felt this close to her in forever, as if I’d forgotten who she was. It was a relief to remember.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured.

“Me too,” she whispered. “I never meant to hurt you.”

I wrapped an arm around her waist, and she held me tighter.

Her voice shook. “Please don’t do anything like that again. I can’t lose you.”

A pause. I considered the options, the answers I could give her.

“I won’t,” I finally said.

With shaking breath, she pressed her face against the back of my neck.

I wasn’t sure if lying to her was the right thing to do, but at least this way she could feel she’d done everything she could to stop me. And she wouldn’t ask the doctor to keep me here.

Chapter 57

Discharged

Penny made me eat.

My mind kept jumping around. It was like trying to control an unleashed Rottweiler. It snapped at me, and I hit it with a stick.

I’d get confused for a few seconds about where I was or why. I hated feeling confused, and my anger just seemed to make it worse. I managed to hide it from the doctor and even from Penny—somehow.

Penny stayed with me all day. I was glad she did. She helped me keep control of my thoughts, which helped me appear more normal to the doctor, who came to see me several times. She made me talk about why I’d wanted to kill myself. Penny held my hand while I talked about Elizabeth. I also fed her some shit about being sorry—that I didn’t want to leave my sister and wanted to be there for Elizabeth’s daughter, like she asked. It was only partially true. I was sorry—for not succeeding.

By the next morning, it became apparent how good an actor I was. With directions that I was to take some medication and see a psychiatrist, she decided to release me.

The doctor told me to finish the paperwork at the nurses’ station once I was dressed and ready. Then she left the room.

Penny grinned at me from the chair she’d slept in. “That famous charm works miracles.”

I stood from my seat on the edge of the bed and picked up my clothes that the nurse had gotten for me from the cabinet. I wondered if perhaps Molly wasn’t working today.

Penny stood and moved closer. “Are you sure you’re ready?”

“I’d like to be home, and you need to sleep someplace more comfortable.”

She smiled a little and let me go to the bathroom to change. Apparently, Penny had brought clothes from my apartment—a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt. I pulled off the hospital gown and left it in a wad on the tank of the toilet.

I rinsed my face and looked at myself in the mirror. “Keep your shit together for just a little while longer.” As I stared at my reflection, I realized how shitty I looked. I pulled wet fingers through my hair. It didn’t help. Whatever. I had to pretend sane for just a little while longer.

When I came back out, Penny had her jacket on and her bag over her shoulder. “I’ll pull the car up while you finish with the release papers.”

“Sure.”

She reached in her bag. “Here. I, um, brought you your wallet just in case you need your ID or something.”

I tucked it in my back pocket, and she picked up the black notebook and held it out to me.

I paused as I looked at it. Then I took it and tossed it toward the trashcan. It was too big and landed on the floor next to the trash. “I’ll see you outside,” I said and walked out, down the hall toward the nurses’ station.

“I’ll be right outside,” she said and then walked the other way to the elevators.

Unfortunately, Molly wasn’t at the nurses’ station. Or maybe that was for the best. I didn’t need to confuse her with Kimber again, not when I was so close to getting out, so close to leaving everything behind.

“Sign here,” the nurse said. “And here’s your prescriptions.”

I stuffed the slips of paper into my pocket. “Thanks.” Antidepressants—as if I was going to take those.

She took the clipboard, and I turned to walk away. I continued to focus on my expression—and straight lines of thought. I blocked out as much as I could, concentrating only on walking at a steady pace, on ignoring my fellow patients.

An old man sat in a wheelchair outside a room. “Are you my son?” he said as I passed. “He tried to kill me.”

Son. I wondered if the man Penny and I guessed to be my father was still around. Penny said he was older than my mother. He’d likely retired by now.

Focus, Heath.

The walls were white with ugly fuzzy prints framed in cheap gold. My shoes, my new tennis shoes, made a very slight rubber sound on the hard gray floors.

“Heath,” a voice said from down the hall behind me.

Keep going. It’s all in your head. Don’t screw up now.
I just had to get to my apartment and figure a way to get Penny to leave me alone. My car had plenty of gas in the tank. I wouldn’t have to stop once I started driving. And no one would guess where I’d gone.

The voice was louder. “Heath.”

I looked over my shoulder.

My feet stopped, and I stared.
No, it’s not her. She had no idea how to find me—nor would she want to find me.
I was just confused again.

Kimber was walking toward me.

Goddamn it, Heath, it’s not Kimber. She hates you. She’d never come here.
She was Molly. That had to be it.

I forced a smile. “Thanks for everything.”

Then I kept walking.

Chapter 58

Nice Guy

“Not there,” I said. “That’s my neighbor’s space.”

Penny backed up and parked in the next spot. “Sorry. Didn’t know they were assigned spaces.”

“They aren’t. He just likes to park there.” Chad had gotten a new car recently. I figured he liked to be able to see it from his window.

Penny followed me into the apartment building, just like I figured she would. I was still working on the best way to get her to leave.

Pretending I gave a shit, I stopped at my mailbox. It was all junk, not even bills—I paid my electric and phone online.

“You’re back.”

I looked over to see Chad coming up the stairs from outside.

I closed my mailbox and continued upstairs to my apartment.

“Is he the one who, um…” Penny said as I unlocked my door.

“Yeah.” I walked in to my apartment and dumped my keys on the table. The note that served as my will was gone, and the kitchen had been cleaned. Good. All of that would just upset Penny and make it harder to get her to leave me alone.

“Are you sure you don’t want any pain pills?” Penny said. “They said the cuts were pretty bad.”

Which would make it easier to open them up again and cut deeper. “Whatever she put on when she changed the bandages works well.”

“Good.” She wandered over to the couch and sat down. Then she picked up my iPad. “Is this what you use to write your articles?” She looked up. “I have all of them, I think. They made me feel better.”

“I’m sorry I made you worry for so long.”

She smiled a little. “I’m a tough bitch.”

I laughed. “Yeah.”

She smiled brighter. Then she turned at the sound of footsteps in the hall and keys rattling. She looked back at me. “Your neighbor seems nice.”

I shrugged.

“Why don’t you let people see how nice you are?”

I walked into the kitchen and took a glass from the cabinet. I was filling it with water when Penny appeared in the doorway.

“You make sure he gets the parking spot he likes,” she said, “and then you won’t even talk to him?”

I took a drink of water and then set the glass in the sink. “I’m not really in the mood to talk, especially to him.” I looked over at her. “Too many questions.”

She nodded.

“I figure I might move again. Avoid the gossip.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“So,” I said as I leaned against the counter, “I’d offer you something to eat, but I don’t have any groceries.” I figured she hadn’t looked in the cabinets when she was here, for the same reason she wouldn’t cross the threshold now. Having almost died here didn’t bother me.

“We could go out if you want.”

“I don’t want to go out anywhere.” I held up my bandaged wrists. “People are bound to stare.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I could go pick something up if you want.”

“Maybe Arby’s?”

“Sure. I’ll be back in a bit.” She grabbed her bag and was out the door.

I locked it behind her and then went back to the kitchen to get a knife. One of the small ones had come with a leather pouch. I stuffed it in my back pocket and grabbed my keys.

One floor down in the laundry room, I watched out the window as Penny pulled out of the development. Then I continued down the stairs, out the door, and to my car. The engine roared as I drove away.

Chapter 59

The Journal

Kimber watched Heath walk down the hall, away from her. She didn’t understand. Penny said he cared for her, and all he’d said was, “Thanks for everything”?

Then she thought about where she was, where he’d been staying. The thought seemed impossible to her—Heath was strong, confident. Seeing him here made the world feel like it was tilting funny.

Did he walk away because he was confused? But then why would they release him?

If there was one thing he was good at, it was fooling people.

She sighed. Maybe he’d fooled Penny about how he felt. Maybe he didn’t give a crap about her—just like she’d thought.