What Lies in the Woods(3)

“Olivia Barnes and Cassidy Green have been notified as well. We had a little more trouble getting hold of you. You changed your name.” He said it like it was just a reason, not a judgment, but I stammered.

“You can still figure out who I am, it’s not like I hide it, but it cuts down on the random calls and stuff,” I said. I’d had strangers sending things to my house for years. Or just showing up themselves, ringing the doorbell, asking to meet the miracle girl and gape at my face.

“I don’t blame you,” he said. “Him dying, it’ll get reported here and there. You might want to take some time off, if you can. Go someplace you won’t get hassled. Shouldn’t take long for the interest to die down.”

“I’ll be fine. It never takes long for some new tragedy to come along and distract everyone,” I said.

He grunted in acknowledgment. “Ms. Cunningham, if you need to speak to a counselor, we have resources available to you.”

“Why would I need to talk to a counselor?” I asked with a high, tortured laugh. “I should be happy, right?” The man who’d attacked me was dead. A little less evil in the world.

“This kind of thing can bring up a lot of complicated feelings and difficult memories,” Gerald Watts said gently. He had a grandfatherly voice, I thought.

“I’ll be fine,” I told him, though I sounded faint, almost robotic. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Take care of yourself,” he said, a firm instruction, and we said our goodbyes.

I stood at the curb, my toes hanging over the edge, my weight rocking forward. There was something about that feeling. After the attack, I’d had damage to the membranous labyrinth in my left ear. I’d had fits of vertigo. Years later, after it faded, I would stand like this, almost falling, and that rushing feeling would return. But I was in control. I was the one who decided if I would fall.

I closed my eyes and stepped off the curb.



* * *



I was on my second glass of wine by the time Mitch came home. He dropped his messenger bag with the kind of dramatic sigh that always preceded a long rant about the soul-stifling horror of working in an office.

“You wouldn’t believe what a shit day I’ve had,” he declared, kicking off his shoes as he headed for the fridge. “Bridget is on my ass about every little thing, and Darrel is out sick again, which means that I have to pick up the slack. Fuck, all that’s in here is IPAs. I might as well drink grass clippings.”

“There’s a porter in the back,” I said, sipping my wine and staring at the wall.

“Thank God.”

I picked out patterns in the wall texture as Mitch cracked open the beer and dropped onto the couch next to me. I liked Mitch. There was a reason I liked Mitch. In a moment I would remember what it was.

I ran a finger along the rim of my glass, examining him. His hair flopped over his eye, too long to be respectable by exactly a centimeter, and he maintained a precise amount of stubble. We’d met at the gallery opening of my ex-girlfriend, forty-eight hours after she dumped me for being “an emotional black hole” and then demanded I still attend to support her. Mitch had stolen a whole tray of fancy cheeses and we hid in the corner drinking champagne and waxing faux-eloquent about tables and light fixtures as if they were the exhibit. It had been a bit cruel and definitely stupid, but it had been fun. This man, I’d thought, is an asshole.

So of course I’d gone home with him.

“And how goes the wedding-industrial complex?” he asked.

“Fine,” I said. I paused. “No, it wasn’t. The bride didn’t want a photographer with a mangled face.”

“Bitch,” he said matter-of-factly. “You’re wasting your time with those people.”

It was, more or less, what I’d said to her. But it meant something else, coming from him. “Today was a waste of time,” I agreed. The whole thing felt so far away.

“You’re better than this,” Mitch said. His hand dropped to my knee, his head lolling on the back of the couch. “I mean, Jesus. You have actual talent. And you’re spending your time on Extruded Wedding Product #47.”

“I like what I do,” I said evenly.

“It’s beneath you.”

“Okay.” I wasn’t interested in this argument, not again.

“All those women are so desperate to have their perfect day. I can’t even imagine getting married. I just try to picture it, you and me at the altar and the tux and the floofy white gown, and it’s like a complete parody. I don’t see the point. Do you?”

“I don’t see the point of marrying you, no,” I replied, but he was already moving on. We were back to complaining about work—something about a jammed copier.

“I mean, Jesus, this job is going to kill me,” he groaned when he’d finally wound down.

My glass was empty. I reached for the bottle on the coffee table and discovered that was empty as well.

“You polished that off by yourself?” Mitch asked, amusement with a rotten underside of judgment.

“An old friend of mine called today,” I said.

“Bad news?” he asked. His posture shifted, canting toward me. Two parts comfort, one part hunger. That was the problem with writers. They couldn’t help digging the edge of a fingernail under your scabs so they could feel the shape of your wounds.