STORM: A Standalone Romance (114 page)

“Your mother was very sick,” one of them said. It was a small town. Everyone professed to know everyone else’s business, but why had my own personal horrors escaped attention?

“She was sick, but she was murdered,” I told them. “My stepfather, Carl Prentice, did it.”

The room was too silent for as many people who were in it.

“She’s in shock,” someone muttered.

“Your stepfather called us,” the first one said. “He apologized for running out when he found your mother had died in her sleep. He just couldn’t stand the thought of you knowing she was dead, about how torn up about it you’d be. He didn’t want you to find out like this, to panic like this, and it was a moment of weakness. He’s grieving. Taking it pretty hard.”

“Why would he leave me this note?” I demanded, shoving the slip of paper at him, the only evidence I had of Carl’s sins.

The cop examined it briefly before handing it back. “Your stepfather said that he’d be back for you,” he said. “After the funeral. He wants to mourn in private. Says he can’t handle it. But he’ll be back for you because he doesn't want you to be alone. He said he’ll always be in your life, no matter what.”

He didn't understand how sinister those words were, coming from Carl. He couldn’t. But my despair was total. In spite of standing up to him and thinking I could save myself and my family from Carl, I destroyed everything.

Carl was a monster. There could be no question about that. But I was every bit as big as a monster as he was. And no one would ever believe me.

I took a deep breath, and looked Levi in the eyes for what seemed like the first time in hours. The passage of time felt abstract against the magnitude of what I’d just told him, what I’d just admitted. I don’t know what I thought would happen once I told this truth to someone, to Levi. I guess I expected my world to fall to pieces around me. For the ground to open up beneath my feet and swallow me whole.

For me to feel better about everything, magically, somehow.

But nothing happened. The clocks went on ticking, my heart kept on beating, and Levi sat in front of me, not moving from the spot he’d been in when I’d long ago gotten up to pace through the steps of my long and terrible history.

Everything was exactly the same, except now he knew everything. Every little ugliness inside of me. Every secret I’d tried so hard to hold inside of me, to keep away from prying eyes. Away from everything and everyone.

I felt naked — more than naked. My truth was exposed, and now it was in Levi’s court. He was the one who needed to react, now.

“Say something,” I whispered, unable to wait any longer.

He didn’t, and my heart sunk. But then, slowly, he spread his arms apart, opened them to me, and I practically fell into them, relieved he hadn’t pushed me away instead. Certain that if he could love me through this, we’d never stop loving each other.

“You are so brave,” he murmured against my hair. Just the smell of his cologne, the feel of his chest against my forehead was a comfort.

“I don’t think I’m brave.” That was the truth. I didn’t. If I’d been brave, I would’ve saved my mother. I would’ve saved myself from ever going through any of what had happened, if I had been brave.

Everything would’ve been different if I’d been brave.

“You are brave,” Levi corrected. “You’re a survivor, Meagan. You got through this. And you continue to move forward. If you weren’t brave, you wouldn’t be here.”

“The only reason I’m here is because of you,” I told him, my face still pressed against his torso. “I was stuck in that horrible house, where it happened. I couldn’t move forward. I was waiting on my brother to save me, and when he couldn’t, it was you.”

“You wanted to move forward,” he said. “I know that you did. If you hadn’t wanted it, you wouldn’t have come to New York City.”

“I wanted to leave everything behind, and I haven’t.”

“Why is he following you?”

I let out a long breath, sitting up straight, immediately bereft of Levi’s warmth. “He said he would come back for me. He left a note, in the house, and I found it right before I found her body. I don’t know. I thought he’d gotten everything that he could get from me. What else could he want?”

“You’re still alive.”

Levi’s words chilled me to the bone, but I shrugged all the same. “He’s already taken the most precious thing from me. My life isn’t the most important thing I could lose.”

“That’s not true. I don’t want to lose you,” he said. “Your life is very important. And he knows that.”

I was hearing Levi’s words, but it was still hard to believe him. I didn’t feel very important. I was damaged and broken, the target of twisted torture and abuse. To me, my life wasn’t that important anymore. My innocence had been taken from me. The parts that made me the person I was had been warped and wiped away. I had reached a point of compliance with Carl — compliance, that is, until the point I hadn’t been compliant. The point when I’d assured my mother’s death.

“I don’t understand one thing,” I said, then laughed weakly. “Well, I don’t understand a lot of things.”

“What don’t you understand?”

“You said that your police contacts think there’s a good chance that whoever’s behind the threat — my stepfather — likely is the person who killed my brother.”

“They have said that, yes.” Levi’s blue eyes were soulful, sorry.

“That’s what I don’t understand,”  I said. “Carl never had anything against Matt, to my knowledge. Why would he want to kill him? It doesn’t make sense.”

“I don’t think that anything Carl’s done has made sense,” Levi said. “He’s obviously unbalanced — criminally insane. Don’t think too hard about it.”

But that was impossible. Of course I wanted to think hard about it. It consumed my entire mind, the thought that Carl was out there, stalking, on the prowl. The realization that he knew just where I was, who I was with, and could come for me at any moment. It wasn’t something I could just shake off. Levi had to understand that.

“I wanted this to be over so badly,” I said. “I wanted to move on with my life instead of being stuck thinking about it over and over again. I wanted to be normal.”

“You will be,” he vowed. “We’ll make it through this, Meagan.”

I shook my head. “No. I can’t ask you to do this with me. I won’t.” I’d told him everything — every last, gory detail — to drive him away from me. To save him. I wouldn’t drag him along this journey with me. I didn’t even want to go on it, but it was looking like I wasn’t going to have any sort of choice in the matter.

“There’s nothing you could do or say to convince me not to see this thing through to the end with you,” Levi said. “I’m sorry. But I refuse to let you do this alone. You did it alone for so long. There’s no reason for you to be alone, now.”

“Levi, you’ve already done so much for me … too much.”

“Stop.” His voice was gentle, but irresistible. I lapsed into silence, part of me shamefully eager to allow Levi to take the wheel on this one. I had been alone for a very long time. Part of me — the portion of my soul that was so damaged that it assumed I needed to be ashamed of the torture I endured — squirmed away from this attention, telling me that this was my experience that I had to deal with. But the rest of me knew that I needed this. I needed this support, and if Levi was offering it, then there wasn’t a single reason why I should deny myself.

“I don’t know what to do anymore,” I whispered, and he put his arm around me and pulled me against him again.

“Then let me help.”

Why was it so hard to let go and let Levi in? He knew everything, and he was doing the very opposite of pushing me away, which is what I’d wanted him to do. He stroked my hair back from my temple and kissed me softly there, his lips lingering. I closed my eyes and leaned up into it, still so certain that it was only pity that motivated him. That was fine. I supposed I preferred pity over disgust.

Levi took my by the chin and tilted my face upward.

“You don’t have to let this ruin you,” he said. “What happens now is up to you.”

I shook my head. It was never up to me. It was all Carl, all the time. I never had control of my life, not even after he’d left. I was plunged into despair, into self-harm, into one wretched tryst after another, trying to find something to plug the ugly maw Carl had left inside of me.

The worst part was the realization that Carl was the only thing that filled that hole. His departure was the reason it yawned open. Did I want to see him again? No. Did I want him back in my life? Absolutely not. But I knew I’d be whole again if he were back. It was a disgusting truth.

“What I’m saying, Meagan, is that now you have the resources to do whatever you need.” Levi took my hand, turning my palm upward and kissing it. “Whatever you need. Whatever you want.”

“What if all I want is to disappear?” I whispered.

He smiled at me. “All you’d have to do is point at a map and I’d take you there. I know plenty of places to disappear to.”

But something held me in place to New York City. Most of it was the blind belief that things would be better here, that my problems would be solved. It was the myth I’d told myself to keep going, that as long as I made it to the big city, I’d be able to be okay. To slip into the multitudes of people with no one the wiser to my tragedies.

That I’d be so normal I’d disappear.

“I want to stay in New York,” I said. “I don’t want to be afraid anymore. I don’t want to hide. I want to face this. I … I don’t think I’ll be able to be normal until I do.”

“I’m right here with you,” Levi said. “But you’re going to have to do some things you’re not comfortable with.”

“What can be more uncomfortable than me telling you what happened?” I muttered.

“Telling other people.”

“Like who?”

“The police.” Levi had been holding my hand the entire time. “You know more about Carl than anyone. That information might be useful in finding him before anything else can happen.”

I knew that the “anything else” Levi was thinking about was Carl getting his hands on me again, and I shuddered. Even in my wreckage of a reality, I knew things would only be worse if that happened.

“I can talk to the police,” I said weakly, the thought sickening me. How many people would have to know how weak I was before I could be strong again?

“I think you should also talk to a licensed professional.”

I frowned at Levi. “What, like that group I tried to go to?” Attending the sex addiction group meeting had been a disaster of near-epic proportions. I’d been propositioned after leaving, and had very nearly taken the guy up on his offer if only to drown my own despair. It would’ve been a terrible betrayal of Levi, of everything he’d done for me — and was still doing.

“No,” he said. “One-on-one conversations with someone. Someone you trust.”

“I only trust you.”

He smiled at me. “I’m glad to hear that you trust me, but you’re going to have to let other people in, too. Other people can help you. We’ll shop around until you find someone you think you can open up to.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s going to be possible.”

“You know that I’m always going to be here for you, right?” Levi looked at me until I gave a short nod of understanding. “I will always be here for you — for whatever you need. If you need to talk. But you need professional help to continue to move forward with this, professional advice, and I don’t want to tell you the wrong thing.”

I laughed at him, short, brittle. “Continuing to move forward? That’s kind of a stretch, don’t you think?”

“You’re already moving forward, Meagan,” he said. “Just think about it. You left your home for New York City. You explained to me what’s going on, what happened. And you don’t want to run away, to ignore this new threat. You want to improve. Moving forward? I’d say it’s closer to hurtling forward.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but closed it again. When he put it like that, it did make sense. I was leaps and bounds ahead of where I was around this time last year, when I did everything I could to distract myself from my torment, avoiding the house where the abuse had happened, sleeping with men I didn’t even know.

If I wanted to survive this, if I wanted things to get better, I’d have to keep on taking steps forward — even if they were tiny, even if they were simply agreeing to a plan of action, sticking to it, getting up in the morning to go somewhere, opening my mouth, speaking.

The first stop was the office of one of Levi’s contacts in the police force, a detective he’d known since before my brother’s killing. I told him what I knew about Carl, recounted the loathsome details of his physical appearance in the presence of a sketch artist, shuddering when she got it right enough to make my stomach clench. The name Carl Prentice didn’t ring any bells for them.

“It could be an alias,” the detective suggested. “A name only you and your family knew him by. He could be known as many other names across the country. We’d have no real way of knowing unless we catch a lucky break.”

I hoped he didn’t hold his breath. Nothing about my family’s relationship with Carl had ever been lucky.

The next stop was to a therapist, and then another, and then another until I found a place where I felt safe.

We set up meetings three times a week — “for now,” the man told me, smiling encouragingly.

I left feeling strangely lighter, practically floating along beside Levi, looking forward to that normal I’d always craved.