These Starcrossed Lives of Ours (5 page)

My aimless wandering led me down to the UAW hall, near a bridge that slowly crumbled over the River Raisin. By this river was a tank, a WWII machine that was meant to kill and destroy. I gaped at the tank, transfixed, unable to tear my eyes away. Why was mankind bent on ending one another, ending itself? This giant tank was nothing more than an elaborate suicide machine, a weapon meant to murder others before turning on itself...

As I was backing away from the tank I didn’t pay attention to where I was going. My foot caught on a broken slab of concrete and I tumbled backwards head over heels, skidding down the side of a sharp slope that led to a hill under the bridge. When I finally stopped tumbling my feet were in the water and my head was pounding. The bridge was above me, shielding me from view, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the long extended pipe of the tank.

The temperature was falling fast. I closed my eyes and curled up in a ball, wanting the world above me to stop spinning. In my dreams, the nose of the tank turned to point at me.

Ian

Christie had been gone for too long. It was midnight and I hadn’t seen any sign of her since we’d separated in town. All the festivities in town were done, and I definitely knew that there was nothing worth seeing in Manchester this time of night.
Did her attacker find her?
I thought before banishing the thought from my head. Manchester was safe. It was virtually invisible to everyone who didn’t live here. The chances of her being found here were slim to none. When it was 3 AM and she still hadn’t shown up I went to bed, hoping she’d be back in the morning.

The living room was empty when I woke up. I went to work, thinking that maybe she’d just met some friends and decided to hang out with them, but when I came back she was still gone.
Maybe she left for good,
I thought, my stomach falling to my feet.

I shook myself out of it. No. For some stupid reason, I didn’t think she would leave. Not without saying goodbye. I called in sick for the next day and hopped in my truck, driving all around town to try and find her. When I didn’t see her I circled the surrounding area, Chelsea, Saline, Tecumseh, Ann Arbor, hoping I caught a glimpse of her. I never did.

Now I was starting to panic. I searched all through the night and into the afternoon of the next day, checking in the exact same places I already had. I drifted along at a slow pace while scanning the road, pissing off everyone behind me. Right now I couldn’t really care less.

Dammit Christie,
I thought.
Where are you?

Chapter Four

Christine

I had been lying underneath the bridge for three days. I hadn’t eaten, and I had barely slept. I was waiting to die, waiting for my body to slowly waste away or freeze to death. It was almost cold enough, but not quite. In a few more days, it would be.

“Christie!” Ian’s panicked voice called above me at the edge of the bridge and I winced at the sound. “Christie!”

I knew he spotted me. I heard the sound of his frantic footsteps as he slipped down the side of the embankment towards me.

“Christie,” he said for a third time. He slid the coat off of him and wound it around me, gathering me into his arms. “What happened? Did someone hurt you?” he questioned, his face close to mine.

I looked blankly ahead. “No. I tripped and fell on Halloween, and I’ve been here ever since.”

“Didn’t you try to walk back up?” he asked.

“No,” I said in a dull tone. “I wanted to be here.”

Now he really looked worried. “Come on. We’re getting you home.”

Ian cradled me as he made his way up the side of the bridge and onto the sidewalk. His truck was idling on the bridge. Why he had taken a car when his apartment was a short walk away, I didn’t know. Maybe he had driven all over looking for me?

He put me in the passenger’s seat and snapped me in, rushing over to the driver’s side and firing up the heater as high as it would go. He then took my hands in his and began rubbing them frantically to try and warm them up. “Your hands are freezing. Do you feel ill?”

“No.” I let Ian take my hands in his without protest. For some strange reason, I felt nothing but famished. “Can I get something to eat?” I asked him, my stomach rumbling.

Ian looked at me, surprised. “Well of course you can. I’ll buy you lunch. But first I want you to warm up, make sure you’re okay. The hospital...”

“No,” I said sharply, turning my icy eyes on him.

He made an angry noise, the first since I had met him. “You’re so stubborn. We’re going whether you like it or not.”

“You don’t own me. They can’t help me if I refuse treatment,” I said back.

He rolled his eyes. “You really like going at concrete walls with battering rams, don’t you?”

“What?”

“It’s a saying. Sometimes I think you don’t want to go to the doctor’s because you like me taking care of you.”

I blushed, but Ian mistook it for warmth blossoming in my cheeks. I started shrugging the coat off my shoulders and said, “Okay, I’m really hot now.”

“Keep that coat on,” Ian said. He fired up the truck and blazed up the road to Main Street. When Ian pulled into the Coffee Mill I realized that since he had shown up Annabelle had not crossed my mind once.

It was a cute little coffee shop, a charming, warm atmosphere that was stocked with wooden furniture packed closely together and knick knacks all along the walls. It was an awkward time of day, late afternoon, so nobody else was in there. “Order something big,” Ian said as we sat down. “And don’t make it cheap.”

A waitress came up to our table almost immediately. We sat waiting for the food in silence, him fuming and me waiting for the explosion. Even though I acted like I didn’t care, my insides wiggled. I had never seen Ian angry, so I didn’t know what to expect.

When our food arrived the quiet almost ate me up. Ian picked at his food, barely putting anything in his mouth. He looked so irritated. I finished off everything on my plate, thinking it would cure his bad mood, but it did nothing. Taking another gulp of my drink, I said, “I’m sorry that you went looking for me. I didn’t want to waste your time.”

“That’s not the point!” he said, and he banged his hand on the table. I jumped, and the waitress glanced our way. “You don’t get it! I was really worried about you. I had no idea what to think when I couldn’t find you. Why’d you go wandering off?”

“Something happened, okay?” I said. “I bumped into an old friend and he and I got into a fight. I lost it for a minute, alright?”

This old friend sounds like a great guy already,” Ian mumbled. “And three days is a lot more than a minute.”

“I’m fine now. I don’t even see why you care,” I said, crossing my arms.

“Because you’re my friend, I’ve told you,” Ian said through his teeth, picking up his iced tea.

“We’re not...”

“I don’t care if you don’t think I’m your friend. I consider you my friend and you can’t change that.” Ian put his drink down with a clank.

I sighed in defeat. “Okay,” I moaned. “You’ve saved my life twice now, so I guess you’re my friend. But I can’t keep mooching off you like this. I’ve got to move out and get a job and...”

“
No Christine.
You’ve got to stay at my apartment and get better.”

“Are you telling me what to do?” I said, my voice rising.

“No, but...” He put his head in his hand and rubbed his eyes. “Christie, I just don’t want to have to carry you back to my apartment
again.
You scared the crap out of me when you disappeared. I’m just scared to let you out of my sight now.”

“You aren’t my keeper,” I said. “I can do whatever I want, when I want.”

“I know you can,” he said. “But I don’t think you’re ready to be on your own yet. If you don’t want to live with me you should move back in with a friend or something.”

“I don’t have many friends.”

“Well then that leaves me,” Ian said. “I can’t stop you from leaving, but I can ask you not to.”

He sighed. “I’m saving you from living on the streets. Christie, just think about it, okay?”

I pushed around a piece of parsley on my plate. I couldn’t stay if Annabelle was moving in. But would she really pick here, this tiny town with little prospects?  Probably not. There was no one to recruit here, little to steal and few to manipulate. If I knew Annabelle, she’d pick somewhere that would be easy to hide. My three days spent under the bridge had been an overreaction. “I guess you’re right. I don’t really have anywhere to go right now. I should stay with you. But you have to compromise. I want a job. I don’t want you to be paying for all my expenses...I can be your roommate, instead of your charity case.”

“You’re hardly a charity case, after fixing up my entire house,” he chuckled, and his anger dissolved. “Okay, I’m with you. There’s an opening for a lunch lady position up at the school. This town is all about connections, and because I know you you’re pretty much a shoe-in for the job. That is, as long as you don’t mind doing a little bit of hard work.”

Being a lunch lady was cake compared to being a murderer for Annabelle. “No, I don’t mind. Do you want me to get that job because you can keep an eye on me?” I asked.

“That, and it’s the only one available. This is Manchester. The only other opening anywhere else is...well, nowhere. Unless you’d like to work in Ann Arbor or something.”

“No thank you,” I said quickly. I didn’t like this little town, but it was better than exposing myself to the surrounding area. I hesitated before asking the next question. “Since we’re going to be living together for a bit longer than I intended, I’d like to know something.”

“What is it?” he smiled, leaning forward.

“How did you even find me that night in Ann Arbor?” I asked. “That part of town was deserted, and it was dark. The chances of you stumbling into me were near to none.”

“You’re actually talking. Funny, I couldn’t get a word out of you before,” he said.

“That was different. I was going to leave as soon as I could. Now I’m stuck with you.”

“You were going to leave? So quickly?” his face fell.

“It was just business. Don’t take it personally.”

He still looked hurt. I coughed and said, “You still haven’t answered my question. What were you doing out so late at night?”

Ian scratched his head. “A couple of my friends had dragged me along to some crazy nightclub. It wasn’t even midnight and all of them were stone drunk. They ditched me and I couldn’t find them, so I was walking back to my truck to go home. I found you on the sidewalk, and noticed that you were moving. I was going to call 911, but you were mumbling something and I bent down to listen. And then came the famous no hospital line.” He frowned.

“What was I saying?” I asked, confused.

“Annabelle,” he said. “I don’t know what that means.”

My throat constricted. “It was somebody I knew as a kid,” I lied. “I don’t know why I was saying her name.”

“You were out of it. You could have been yapping about flying monkeys and it would’ve made just as much sense,” he said.

I pushed my plate away. “Ready to go?” I asked, standing up.

“Yeah.” Ian paid the bill and then held the door open for me both when we went outside and when I got in the car. “Chivalry does live,” I said, shaking my head.

“I’m old-fashioned, so sue me,” he said. “My dad beat it into me. Not literally,” he said as he saw the look on my face.

He backed up, went a couple yards down the street, and parked in back of the apartment. As we got out I stretched and said, “Wow. What a long car ride.”

“Oh I know,” he said. “I need some mental stimulation. What do you say we go upstairs and play some checkers?”

I snorted. “Yeah, sure, why not. Gives me a chance to kick your butt again.”

“Uh, I don’t think so,” Ian said skeptically. “I’m beating you this time.”

“Sure you are.” Ian held open the door for me once again. But before I could go inside, something black flashed out of the corner of my eye. I whipped around to scan the area, but saw nothing.

I tried to tell myself that I was being paranoid. There was nowhere to hide here. She was fast but surely not that fast...

“Something wrong?” Ian said.

I scanned the perimeter once more before stepping inside. “Just my mind playing tricks on me, it’s nothing. Come on. I think a game of checkers is just what I need.”

Sure enough I got the job. It wasn’t easy, but I was usually so busy that I didn’t have time to think of Annabelle. Between making lunch, serving all the kids and cleaning up afterwards, I was dead on my feet by 3. Ian noticed how tired I was when he came down from his office to pick me up and immediately was concerned.

“Maybe you shouldn’t take on so many hours,” he said. “Full time with your health isn’t good.”

“My health is fine,” I snapped back. “And I need the money.” More than that, I needed something to do. I had nothing left to patch up in the apartment, and if I stayed inside constantly I would lose my mind.

“You know, there’s a woman who sews who needs someone to make a backing for her quilt, since she only wants to do the top,” Ian said offhandedly. “I know you sew, so I told her about your skills.”

“You like bragging about me, huh?” I smiled.

“Actually, I talk about you all the time,” he said. “The staff is starting to think I’ve got a little crush on you.”

“Yeah right, like that’s ever going to happen,” I said laughing. “We’re just roommates.”

“Friends,” Ian demanded, looking at me. “But anyway, she asked if you would do that for her. She’d pay you a hundred bucks.”

So I made a little bit of extra income that way, taking small sewing jobs for people Ian knew. The first few weeks of November passed by in a whirlwind, and by the time I had finally begun to settle into the sway of things Manchester had come up with yet another celebration.

“What is that?” I asked as we passed a Christmas tree shaped sign on the way home, the leaves not even off the trees yet.

“Christmas in the Village,” Ian said offhandedly. “It’s this weekend.”

“Who holds...what is it...
Christmas in the Village
in November?” I asked, confused.

“The same people who hold Oktoberfest in September,” Ian informed me. “I don’t ask questions anymore, I just go with it.”

“You don’t sound thrilled,” I noted.

“It’s alright. But it’s sort of the same thing every year. I almost get tired of it. Do you want to go?”

I didn’t really, but by the hopeful gleam in Ian’s eye I could tell he wanted me to say yes. One thing was for sure, I had to try and fit into this town more. I was quiet while working at the school, and had already been deemed as a bit of an outcast. I really needed to immerse myself in the...
Manchester culture
, as I called it.

“I’ll go,” I said. “It’s right in town, so I might as well.”

“You’ll be disappointed,” Ian said, but he couldn’t hide the light coming from his face. Without warning, he made an unexpected turn and began driving in the opposite direction.

“Uh, where are you going?” I asked, looking around.

“I feel like going to see a movie,” he said.

“Spontaneous,” I said, amused. Was seeing a movie safe? Annabelle and the gang rarely visited the theaters. Too costly for all of us, and we couldn’t all fit in one vehicle, not to mention the fact that Annabelle thought movies were a waste of time. You couldn’t talk anyone into joining the group with the lights down and with silence a rule. I decided that since the cult thought I was dead and that I knew Landon wouldn’t give me away, it was worth taking a chance to enjoy myself for once in my life. I hadn’t seen a film in years. “What movie do you want to see?” I asked, turning to Ian.