What Lies in the Woods(107)

Eighteen, I thought. Nineteen.

But the numbers were a lie, like everything else. The cracks on my skin were too many to count.



* * *



Ten months after the second time I almost died, we were cleaning the house again. It was a lurching process, steps forward followed by frantic backsliding, but Dad was still trying.

The sun beat down, a rare day without a cloud in the sky. I tossed the trash bag I was carrying onto the pile by the front steps and peeled off my gloves. Dad was already outside, hands on hips, squinting at the old Chevy.

“I think I could get this running again,” he said as I made my way over.

“But you won’t,” I told him.

“But I won’t,” he agreed. He sighed and scrubbed at his patchy scalp. “You think we could burn it all down and start over?”

“We could do that,” I replied amiably. It was only about the thirtieth time we’d had this conversation and that he’d suggested that particular remedy. “But then you’d always wonder what you’d left buried.”

“You really think there’s anything worth saving?”

“You asking about the house, or about you?” I asked.

He snorted. “I get enough of that crap from my shrink, I don’t need it from you, too.”

Wheels crunched on gravel. I shaded my eyes with my hand. We didn’t have much in the way of visitors these days, and I didn’t recognize the car. “Expecting someone?” I asked.

“Hell, no,” Dad said.

The car parked. The door opened, and Ethan stepped out, wearing a black T-shirt and jeans.

“Should I get the shotgun?” Dad asked.

“Dad.” I gave him a look. “Maybe the baseball bat. Just in case.”

He chuckled. Ethan hadn’t moved, standing by the car with one hand on the door. I approached slowly, arms crossed.

“Hey,” he said. He’d lost weight since I last saw him, the hollows of his cheeks deeper. He was holding a little stuffed hedgehog, which he held out to me. “I got you this,” he said, not meeting my eyes. “When you were in the hospital, at the gift shop, but then I never … Anyway, it made me think of you.”

I stepped forward, just close enough to snag it with the tips of my fingers. The hedgehog was clutching a heart between its paws that said “Get Well Soon.” “It made you think of me,” I said. “Because I’m prickly?”

“No, see, I have a subtle and insightful metaphor that proves I know you deeply,” he said, rubbing the back of his head.

I raised an eyebrow. “It’s because I’m prickly.”

“It’s because you’re prickly,” he confirmed, wincing.

“You didn’t come. At the hospital. Or after,” I said. “You didn’t call. I never heard from you at all.”

“I wasn’t sure you wanted to,” he said. “The way we left things…”

“I don’t know if I would have wanted to see you, either,” I said. The question hung in the air between us—was it different now?

I didn’t know the answer to that, either. When I’d thought I was dying, I’d wanted to forgive him. Now I wasn’t sure. Anger and relief and affection and betrayal fought tooth and claw for dominance.

I shook my head. “I want it to be easy to forgive you. But it isn’t.”

“It shouldn’t be,” he said. “Things like this should never be easy. That’s how you know it’s real, if you manage it.”

I held the hedgehog in both hands, wiggling its paws idly. “Cody was my hero,” I said. “He saved me. And he turned on me. How am I supposed to trust anyone ever again?”

“That’s the thing about trust, isn’t it?” Ethan said. “You gather all the evidence you can, use your brain, weigh character and past actions. But the final inch of it—that’s faith. Trust means believing in someone. It’s not just a conclusion. It’s a choice.”

“That’s a pretty way of putting it. You know, you should be a writer or something,” I said. “Maybe start a podcast.”

He gave a dry chuckle, though it hadn’t been particularly funny. “I’m working on one, actually,” he said.

“Serial killers of the Pacific Northwest?”

He shook his head. “This one’s more personal. It’s about my father, but it’s more about me. It’s about the crimes my father committed, and the ones he didn’t, and what it means to me. I have most of it written already. There’s a big piece of it missing, though.”

“What piece is that?”

“Yours. That day changed our lives. My father might not have attacked you, but from that point on we were connected, you and I. I can’t tell the story of what didn’t happen without the story of what did. And that belongs to you. I need your help if I’m going to do this right.”

“Ethan…” I folded my arms over the hedgehog. The sun hit my eyes, giving me an excuse to look at the ground. “We only knew each other for a few days. And that whole time you were lying about who you were.”

“You’re right. You don’t actually know me, and I don’t know you. I’m not asking to be your boyfriend, Naomi. I’m not even asking to be your friend.”