Last Girl Ghosted(77)

She disappeared into him. He was her first everything—her first love, her first real mature kiss, her first nongroping, nonawkward, and vaguely unpleasant sexual encounter.

Her parents had worried before that she was too lonely. But they didn’t like Shawn.

“He seems controlling, Bonnie, brooding,” said her mother gently. “Are you sure he’s for you? You’ve always been such a bright spirit.”

She loved her parents. But they smothered. She needed a break.

Now, she drove, hypnotized by the night and the winding of the road. It wasn’t much farther now, she didn’t think. She’d left her phone, cleared out her accounts, followed the map he’d left for her. She hadn’t told anyone where she was going. It was like an adventure.

“There’s a place where we can go,” he told her. “Not forever. But for a time, where we can disconnect from the madness of the modern world. You can write. I can do my work from anywhere. Think of it as a retreat. When you return to the world, you’ll be stronger, more able to face the madness and not be swallowed by it.”

It made sense. The world had gone mad—social media had turned people into narcissists, there were more school shootings than ever, the planet, long abused by corporate greed, was angrily unleashing fires and horrific storms. Maybe it was time to retreat for a while. Once upon a time she’d dreamed of writing—poetry, maybe a novel.

She felt bad about her parents. But Shawn was right. “You’re an adult,” he said. “You own yourself. You’re not their child anymore.”

When she felt stronger, she’d write to them. They’d be angry, hurt, but maybe they’d understand that this was what she needed to finally heal.

Bonnie came to the final turn. A tilting mailbox with three red reflectors on a twisting rural road. He would be waiting here for her, he said. He went early because he wanted the house to be perfect when she arrived.

She hesitated.

Her life, her parents, her job, her friends. Why did she feel like if she made that turn, she might never be able to go back to any of it, not really?

She felt the beating of her own heart in her chest. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe she should at least go back to that last gas station and call her mom.

But then she thought of him—his warmth, his gentleness, the way he knew her heart and her body. She put on her blinker though there was no one there to see her make the turn, and drove toward her new life.



thirty-seven


Then


We kept the crossbow in the barn near the house. The night had grown quieter, but I heard the crackle of gunfire off in the distance, the sound of shouting through the trees.

I took my crossbow down from its place, loaded it, and made my way toward the sound of my father’s voice.

I was just a kid that night, but I was older than my years in many ways, stronger than I would have been had we stayed in the life we had before my father returned. I was scared, but I was used to fear, knew how to push it deep, to focus on my breath and force away the chaos of my mind. He had taught me how to do that, when he taught me how to kill.

“Which one of you called them?” I heard my father roar as I climbed the porch steps. “After everything, after everything.”

His voice was a wild pitch of rage and sadness; my nerve endings sizzled as I made my way down the long hall to the kitchen. My feet were bare, the wood hard and cold beneath my soles. I was careful to keep my step light, not to make a sound.

“Get away from her.” Jay’s voice was a wail. “Get away from us.”

The scene revealed itself in pieces as I came to the door.

I know Jay saw me, but he didn’t move his gaze in my direction. My father’s broad back was to me, heaving with his rage. My mother was motionless on the floor, a pool of blood beneath her. Her head was at an unnatural angle against the hearth.

My mind distanced. It didn’t seem real. Her stillness was impossible; I knew that sight too well. Jay’s face was red and streaked with tears.

“Which one of you?” my father roared.

I lifted the crossbow, its butt against my shoulder, the red of my father’s shirt filling the sight.

“It was me,” I said. “I called the police.”

He spun at the sound of my voice, turning to face me. There was a gun in his hand, that flat black semiautomatic he favored for target practice. He, like Jay, rarely missed his mark. I felt the heat of his aim in the center of my chest.

“You?” he breathed. In the single syllable I heard amazement, anger, sadness. “Why?”

“Put down your gun, Dad,” I said. I had my stance, my aim. But did I have the will to shoot my father? I wasn’t sure; the crossbow quaked in my grip.

“Don’t you know what will happen to you now?” he said. “They’ll take you from this place and you’ll belong to them, to their government, to this sick world they’ve made.”

“Put the gun down.”

He started to cry, then, and my heart broke into a thousand little pieces in my chest.

He moved toward me. “What have you done, little bird?”

The room spun, my brain grappling with a moment that was too awful, too ugly.

“Dad. Put down your gun.” My voice didn’t even sound like mine. It was the voice of a young woman, someone powerful, someone who knew she could kill if she had to. “I don’t want to do this. Please.”