Seven Days (23 page)

“If I’d known, I just would’ve sent her back to find you,” the night hostess frowned.

“Who?” I asked, puzzled.

“Your sister just dropped these off for you,” she explained, holding up my car keys. “She was going to wait for Tildy to get here to take her back to your house, but Ben was here and offered her a ride.”

“
Ben?
” I repeated, feeling all of the blood drain from my face. “Why was Ben here?” I probed, feeling sweat form on my brow as my heart started pounding in my ears. Something about all of this felt very, very wrong and I hoped that I was mistaken in my jump to fear.

“That’s the weird thing,” Allie said, shifting her weight from one leg to the other. “He was looking for you. I guess he was under the impression that you’ve been out of town doing some leadership training?” she bit her lip like she was trying hard to remember what Ben had told her. “But everyone knows you’ve been out on vacation, that you’ve been travelling with this guy,” she nodded toward Ryan. “Tildy’s been keeping us updated on where you’ve been all week. You should’ve heard her,” Allie smiled like she was excited to hear all about my adventures with Ryan. “She was bragging about how she set you two up and everything.”

“Please, Allie,” I started, trying to control the quiver in my voice. “Please, tell me that you didn’t say anything to Ben about where I’ve really been?” I closed my eyes, bracing myself for her next words, because somehow, I knew I wasn’t going to like them. I knew they would shatter the small amount of hold I still had on my future. I knew they would take Ryan away from me, one way or another.

“I didn’t realize it was a secret,” she said, her voice like a verbal shrug. “He took it in stride, said that he’d forgotten that’s where you were, that he must’ve gotten mixed up. He was getting ready to leave when Britton came in with your keys.”

“Fuck,” I breathed, stars visible behind my eyes as I processed everything she’d just divulged. This was not good. This was the worst thing that could’ve happened. All of the ways Ben could make me pay for my lies flitted through my head, nearly paralyzing me.

“What’s going on?” Allie asked, looking from my stricken face to Ryan’s bewildered one.

“Are you okay?” Ryan asked, putting a hand on my shoulder and pulling me from my thoughts.

“I’ve gotta go,” I said, grabbing the keys from Allie’s hands and starting for the door to the diner. Pulling air into my lungs in frantic breaths, I tried to spot my car. Spots formed in my vision and I forced myself to breathe deeper to clear them. Passing out would do me no good. I had to get to my sister.

“Carrie, wait!” Ryan called after me, following me outside. “Let me go with you!”

“No,” I waved him off, turning back to face him fully. “This is why I have to leave. I can’t— I can’t talk to Britton, Ryan. I hope you can understand one day. I’m so fucking sorry that I let you think that we might have a chance. But this, that is why I can’t be with you after tonight. If something happens, fuck, I don’t think I could ever forgive myself for being so fucking selfish,” I spat out and turned from him before breaking into a sprint. I saw my car sitting in a spot in the shadow behind the building. “What the fuck was I thinking?” I asked myself, even though I knew, immediately that I’d made a mistake in pushing Ryan away.

Walking away from him would be the hardest thing I would ever do, and the emotion of the moment started to catch up with me without any warning and my knees buckled underneath me. Slumping against the unforgiving gray brick wall when I was sure he wasn’t going to follow me, I let the tears I’d been holding back cascade down my face.

After allowing myself a few moments to wallow in my misery, I pushed off the wall and started walking again on shaky legs. I knew I had to make it back home before they found out I was leaving. It was bad enough
he
knew where I’d been last week. I couldn’t leave my sister in that kind of danger, but I needed to get my emotions under control before I got behind the wheel of my car.

“Carrie,” I heard from the side of the building. His voice just on the edge of desperation, tinged with receding tears and emotion. “Look at you,” he sighed, as he reached my side and lifted a hesitant hand to my cheek. “You don’t want to do this. Don’t do this,” he pleaded, coaxing my eyes to his. “Don’t do this. Let me help you. I promise I can help you,” he repeated, moving his hand to stroke my loose auburn locks. I wanted to melt into him, let him fix everything, but I knew that was impossible.

“I wish it were my choice, Ryan,” I told him, letting him see just how much this decision was affecting me. “I’d do anything to fix it, but I have to get her out of here- get us out of here before something terrible happens,” I choked out before I broke his embrace and ran to my car. Fumbling with the keys, I threw my bag inside before sitting behind the steering wheel, trying to convince myself to not look back. Then I started the car that would take me away from him.

I never believed in soul mates, or in one person for the rest of your life, but Ryan is someone I could see waking up to every morning. Forever and beyond. I couldn’t stay here anymore though. I had made a promise to myself and my little sister, Britton, and I planned to keep it, even if it meant leaving behind the only man I’d ever love.

As I drove, I tried to convince myself that everything would be okay, that I could handle anything Ben threw at me. I would tell him I’d made a mistake and accept whatever punishment he saw fit to deliver. I would beg him to spare my sister. She wasn’t a part of our arrangement and didn’t deserve to be substituted for me. She was still a child, even though she was older than I’d been when I was indoctrinated into this lifestyle.

Because I didn’t know what was going on at my own house, I parked the car down the street. I hoped that I would be able to hear if anything was wrong and find a way to get help before Ben even realized I was there.

I could tell things weren’t going to be right the second I saw the trailer door standing wide open. It was dark inside, so if no one was home, the door should’ve been closed. Walking up the steps, slowly, I looked for any sign of what I might find inside, but was only greeted with a strangely quiet Sunday night in the trailer park.

As soon as I crossed the threshold, the smell of vomit and death invaded my nostrils. I fumbled with the light switch, and found the reason for the darkened house. I’d forgotten to put money on our pre-paid electricity plan before I left on my trip and now we were without power. Shit, this was going to make everything that much harder.

Even in the dark, my eyes zeroed in on the prostrate form on the couch. A scream caught in my throat as I took in the empty-eyed stare of my father, needle hanging from his forearm. The moment of his death suspended in time until the police could come and retrieve his body. I should’ve been freaking out; perhaps I was in shock because I only had one thought running through my head. When had he moved on to heroin?

The reality that I’d have to go somewhere else to borrow a phone hit me as a noise sounded from the front of the house and my father’s bedroom. I’d forgotten all about my reason for urgency when I walked into the house and saw my father. Ben. He brought Britton home. Where was she?

“Fucking cunt thinks she can— Carrie,” growled the voice of the man stomping through my kitchen, my dad’s single action revolver clutched in his right hand. It took less than a second to realize it wasn’t Ben.

“What’s going on?” I asked, cautiously, mindful of the firearm he was carrying.

“When were you going to tell me?” he asked, walking toward me with a look conveying the betrayal he more than likely felt.

“What do you mean?” I decided to play dumb.

“I know you were with another guy all fucking week, Carrie,” he laid out. “I know you’re leaving.”

“I was in training,” I denied, backing away from him, trying to get back to the front door. “The diner wants to promote me to shift manager, but I needed to take some extra classes, get managers’ certification,” I lied. “Allie told me what she said to Ben, but she didn’t know what was going on,” I finished, trying to take another step backward.

“Don’t move again,” he threatened, pointing the gun at me with a shaky hand.

“You don’t want to do that, Dallas,” I said, holding my palms out in a defensive gesture, my heart racing in my chest.

“You’re right, baby, I— I just don’t want to lose you,” he dropped his hand and head in defeat. “I fucking love you,” he closed the distance between us, desperately pulling me into his embrace. The smell of unwashed man, combined with pot, burnt plastic and beer overwhelmed the stench already permeating the air as he engulfed me in his arms. The steel of the gun resting against my back reminded me that I needed to play his game to get out of this with my life. “I’ve tried to tell you, to show you, but you keep pushing me away.”

“I’m sorry, baby,” I consoled him as he turned our embrace so that he and the gun were standing between me and my freedom. “I made a mistake,” I soothed, stroking my hands through his greasy hair and holding him closer. “I love you, too, Dallas,” I forced myself to say, even though I was stunned to learn that he’d been harboring feelings for me after all this time. He’d been taking advantage of me for years, and he never thought to stop and approach his affections from a different way?

I don’t know what drew my eyes toward the door again. Maybe it was the gravity like pull he had on me, but standing in the small sliver of light on my patio, I could see Ryan. His face pale as he took in the scene before him.
GET HELP—
I mouthed to him over Dallas’ shoulder. With a jerky nod, he backed away, hopefully to do what I asked. I didn’t have time to wonder how he’d found me or how much he’d witnessed before I felt the barrel of the gun pressed into my spine.

“Tell me why,” Dallas demanded.

“I—”

“It’s bad enough I’ve had to share you with Ben all this time. I took care of all that though. You’re free now. So if you tell me it was for money, baby, I’ll understand,” he beseeched, showing me a way out of his wrath.

“You’re right, Dallas. It was the money. That’s what it was, baby,” I confirmed, choking back the bile in my throat at cheapening the best week of my life by calling myself a whore.

“You know, I would’ve taken care of you,” he crooned against my neck, relaxing his grip on the gun again.

“I was saving up,” I tried to break our embrace, but he wasn’t going to let me go.

“You were leaving,” he concluded.

“I was going to tell you,” I said, frantically.

“You’re saying Britton was lying?” he asked, finally pulling away from me and looking beyond my shoulder toward my sister’s bedroom. Fuck. Where was she? Why hadn’t she come out? Had she escaped through my window? Was that why Ryan had known how to get here?

“No,” I disputed. “No, baby, she didn’t know I was going to ask you to come with us,” I blurted, hoping he wouldn’t see through my story. “I couldn’t stay here with dad and Ben. I couldn’t let him humiliate me like that anymore,” I spilled, keeping the fact that I was running from him, too, out of my confession. I needed to get to my sister. I needed to know if she was okay.

“She didn’t know?” he asked, his red streaked blue eyes shot to mine. “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry,” he declared, trying to pull me to him again. “Fuck, please forgive me,” he begged, the remorse ringing through. What had he done? Was she dead, too? Was everything I loved gone? Had I fought for nothing?

“Forgive you for what?” I asked, my voice flat because I had a feeling I already knew.

“She told me that you were leaving me and I just got so mad. I— all I could see was red and I needed to stop it,” he explained, as I tried to break the hold he had on my wrist so that I could find my sister.

“Let me see her, Dallas. Baby, you have to let me find her,” I pleaded hysterically, pulling away from him as much as he’d allow. “She’s my sister, baby. I’ll be more forgiving if you let me get to her. She’s all I have,” I sobbed, my heart cracking in my chest over the possibility of seeing Britton the same way I’d seen my mother and father. I didn’t want to see her lifeless stare. I didn’t want to see the light dim in those emerald eyes. She didn’t deserve this.

“You have me, baby,” he tried to comfort me as I took small weighted steps toward the back of the house. “I’m all you need,” he proclaimed. “You’re my world, baby, and now I’m yours, too.”

While I was unsuccessful in freeing my arm, he let me drag him down the hall toward Britton’s room. The door was open, and she was lying in a broken heap on the dingy brown carpet, blood oozing from a cut in her head. Bruises were just starting to bloom on her exposed arms and her right eye looked like it would be swollen shut, even if she were conscious.

“Dallas, I have to call for help,” I screeched, trying to find the cell phone I knew Britton had in her pockets or somewhere in this bedroom. Tears clouded my vision as I dropped to the floor beside my hurt sister, digging around the mess of destroyed clothes and furniture littering the floor around her.

“No,” he whispered, reaching for me and I was able to dodge his first attempt. “No!” he denied again, pulling me off the floor by my waist and dragging me back toward the door to the trailer. I tried to kick away from him. I knew I shouldn’t agitate him further, I knew I had to play along, but I couldn’t just leave her there like that. “We can call from the road,” he told me. “She’ll be okay, but we’ve gotta get out of here before they find your dad.”