The Bird Eater (15 page)

Terrifying.

Unnerving.

He waited for Cheri to get up, to turn away and climb up the embankment behind them and yell back at him to take her back into town. But rather than running away, she dipped her head to look up into Aaron’s downturned face, a hand sliding onto his knee.

“What happened?” she whispered.

A sob welled up in his chest, pressing heavy against his heart and ribs, Ryder’s laughter echoing in his ears.

Ryder running in the park, kicking a soccer ball ahead of him.

Ryder jumping from couch to couch, pretending the rug was lava.

Aaron holding him in the hospital for the first time, having carefully printed the name
RYDER ISAAC HOLBROOK
onto paperwork, somehow having convinced Evangeline to agree to a name Aaron hadn’t been able to shake, drawn to it by some inexplicable force.

Aaron tried to regain his composure, but the more he fought against the sadness the more he wanted to scream, tear his hair out, run into the lake ahead of them, and breathe water until he drowned.

What had he done that had been so terrible?

What crime had he committed that had deemed him worthy of this pain?

What made him so wicked, so fucking evil, to deserve this life of misery?

“Stop,” Cheri told him, as if somehow able to hear his self-deprecating thoughts. She pulled his palms away from his face, his hands trapped in hers. “You haven’t talked to anybody about this, have you?”

Aaron weakly shook his head. The people who mattered already knew: Cooper and the guys at work, Evangeline and her family—a family he had thought was his, too, until they no longer were.

“Was there an accident?”

The impact.

Screeching metal against asphalt.

Another jolt when the car hit a streetlight.

Cooper murmuring beneath his breath that the car had to be pried away from the pole because it had literally wrapped itself around it.

Let’s not talk about it,
Cooper often said.
Let’s just forget it. At least you’re okay.

“Yes.” The single syllable croaked out of Aaron’s throat, parched, forlorn.

Cheri looked down, her hands squeezing his in reassurance.

He held his breath, hoping to God she wouldn’t say what she was thinking.

But
you’re
still alive. It could have been worse.

Not sure whether he could handle another at-least-you-made-it speech.

He knew it was coming—the way she pulled in a breath—but she exhaled it rather than saying a word, and Aaron was caught off guard by the emotion that gouged his chest. He had expected to feel relief, but all that came was an inexorable wave of grief, a heavy loneliness that made him feel emptier than it ever had. He had survived the accident, but he’d allowed the tragedy to erase him anyway.

“And your wife?” she asked, her words hushed in the surrounding quiet.

“I can’t cope, and she can’t watch me fall.”

Cheri’s face twisted with sadness. She reached out, dared to press her palm against his cheek.

“I don’t want to be this way,” he said. “I don’t know if I even care whether or not she takes me back anymore, I just…I can’t be like this. I can’t
stay
like this. I feel like I’m dying all over again. I just want things to be okay again. I want to be able to sleep.”

She breathed out a sigh, stared down at the sand between them, fell into an elongated silence as she processed his confession. They sat that way for what felt like hours, when, without the least bit of warning, she stood, abandoning her shoes and her ICEE cup on the bank. For a moment he was sure she was making her retreat, but rather than walking back in the direction of the car, she moved toward the water instead.

“Come on,” she said, catching her shirt by its hem and tugging it over her head.

Aaron watched her strip, and despite his heartache, the thud of his pulse shifted from his chest to the space between his legs. The sun caught the honey glow of her shoulders as she wiggled out of her jeans. Her underwear was pale pink and lace trimmed, tiny cherries printed on creamy cotton fabric. Those cherries palpitated his heart, a pang of homesickness shooting him straight through the center of the chest. Cherries had been Evangeline’s thing, something he’d discovered long after Boone County was nothing but a bad memory. He’d forgotten that Cheri Miller was the original cherry girl until right then—Cheri with her lip gloss, with her favorite candy flavor, with the color of her hair.

He stared at the curve of Cheri’s back, and despite the throbbing in his groin, he felt on the verge of panic because this wasn’t supposed to happen, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Miles. Evangeline. Ironwood and playing house. Buying ice cream with pocket change. Kissing among the trees.

She unclasped her bra and let it fall to the shore.

Aaron struggled for breath, somehow already in that lake, gulping water, twisting, drowning, grasping for the surface he’d never reach.

Hooking her thumbs under the band of her underwear, Cheri paused, as if considering one final time, and then pushed them below the curve of her backside. Naked, she stepped into Bull Shoals, ripples radiating out across the lake’s mirrored surface, her skin glinting in the afternoon light. She waded in until nothing but her head was left, the past twenty-one years unraveling before him into little more than a boyish yearning mingled with fear.

She watched him from a distance, waiting for him to follow.

Stifling his anxiety, he did. He had to.

Baptism
, he thought.
The atonement of my sins.

He peeled off his clothing and swam out to her.

Their limbs tangled together, hands dragging across bare skin. Legs around his waist. Their mouths centimeters apart.

And then she whispered against his ear—“I’ve always loved you, Aaron. My heart has always been yours.”

His heart swelled, threatening to crack open his chest, to tear him from rib to rib. Hearing those words was as overwhelming as it was serene—the idea that someone could love him, could accept him even after what he’d done. And yet he caught himself wishing that those words had come from someone else, someone who he missed despite all the hurt she’d caused, despite all the rage that had collected on his insides, petrifying his heart.

Cheri melted against him as they moved beneath the water, her fingernails biting into his back, her head tilted toward the sky as if searching for God. But there was no God. There was no faith. No mercy, forgiveness, or love. There was only all-consuming anger that burned so hot it left nothing but grief-stricken devastation in its wake. So hot that it left Aaron a hollow shell of the man he had once been. Empty like a forgotten house. Terminal like a dead-end street.

Afterward, she kissed him on the mouth, the shoulder, the neck, then drifted away from him and toward the shore. He remained in the water while she lay out on the sand, the sun burning water from her skin.

When he finally surfaced from the lake, he avoided looking at her—diverting his gaze to the trees, to the shore, to the splendor of nature or whatever that forced-calm expression would lead her to believe. She sat up, and he nearly jumped when her finger drifted down the scar along his left arm, looking up at him—Venus without her shell. She looked expectant, waiting for him to say something akin to how, now that he knew she loved him, he could forget Evangeline, forget his old life, replace it with something fresh and move on, be happy, be whole again.

“We should probably go,” he said.

Cheri’s expression wavered—bated breath shifting to apprehension shifting to disappointment. She tried to force a smile, but her disenchantment was impossible to miss. Aaron had said the wrong thing because he couldn’t tell her what she wanted to hear. She turned away from him as she dressed, tugged on her underwear, and brushed sand from the backs of her thighs.

Tossing her hair forward, she exposed her back to him, her elbows jutting out in sharp angles as she worked on the clasp of her bra. Aaron narrowed his eyes when he spotted the patch of jet-black hair at the nape of her neck, so black against bright red it looked oily, iridescent as it shifted from sable to emerald to blue in the light.

Aaron’s heart tripped over its own beat. Shoving sandy feet into his sneakers, he gave himself a little more distance—just enough to get a better look. Cheri tossed her hair back, her hair unfurling like inky black scarves out of a magician’s sleeve, hard quills jutting out of her arms, pinfeathers already sprouting greasy black feathers from their cuticle casings.

Aaron stumbled backward, nearly tripping over his own feet.

“Ryder?” She looked over her shoulder at him, confused.

Aaron’s heart stopped.

Cheri’s hair was the color of cranberries, just as it had always been, her arms milk-white and smooth.

“What did you say?” he asked, nearly squeaking out the words.

“I just…” She shook her head, looking unsure. “Your name. What’s wrong?”

“You said Ryder,” he whispered.

He had heard her.

He had
heard
her.

Cheri stared at him, bewildered, disturbed.

“Was that his name?” she asked. “Ryder?”

He turned away from her, a hand pressed over his face, his teeth clenched.

“Aaron, I swear I didn’t…” She hesitated. “Maybe we’re taking this all too fast. I just want to make it okay.”

A spark of resentment flared inside him. The moment her hand slid onto his shoulder, his anger erupted into full-on hostility. He veered around, misguided rage bubbling up to the surface. Cheri took a backward step, startled by his mask of indignation.

“You can’t make it
okay
,” he snapped, immediately regretting it. He squeezed his eyes shut and looked away, shook his head, muttered, “I’m sorry.”

There was a long, drawn-out silence. A flock of starlings ebbed and flowed in the distance, the murmuration a fluid shadow that twisted like ribbon against a pale blue sky.

Aaron wanted to scream at those birds, to beat his fists against his arms and legs and pummel out the rage. He was a time bomb—waiting to go off on anyone who dared get too close, who had the audacity to tell him things would ever be right again, to suggest that they could help him find that peace of mind.

“Is that why you’re here?” she asked after a moment, her mouth drawn down in distress. “You want to drown in your sorrows out here, all by yourself?”

When he didn’t answer, she turned away, silently sweeping the rest of her clothes off the sand. She was right—he’d die alone. He’d push away everyone who could make it better. He’d fold beneath the weight of his own misery, the barrel of a gun cold and acrid against his tongue.

He’d made a mistake, but he could still make it right.

“Wait,” he said, but nearly fell backward when Cheri turned to look at him, her mouth twisted in a ghastly leer, her eyes veiled by a scrim of milky sclera and her teeth full of blood.

Aaron yelled, his eyes wide, disbelieving. He turned away, rushing up the embankment like a lunatic; that flock of starlings coming in close, sweeping in as though ready to dive-bomb them both before turning mid-flight and veering back up into the sky.

She yelled after him. “Aaron, wait!” but he was already up the hill. When he dared look over his shoulder, he saw her wobbling up the first few feet of the grade, stumbling as she helped herself along with her hands. She looked helpless, probably afraid to be left behind, her hair flying around her face in damp strands, her expression a mask of wounded confusion. Finally catching up to him at the car, she stared at him for what felt like an eon, and when he didn’t say anything, she silently slid into the car and gently closed the door.

Fourteen

Cheri stared out the window as she and Aaron drove back into town. Watching the mile markers fly by outside her window, she bit back her tears. She didn’t want this to feel like a mistake, but there was something genuinely broken inside the man sitting next to her. He needed help, and she thought about reaching out to him, touching his hand to let him know that she wasn’t angry, just confused, but she couldn’t gather up the courage.

Pulling into the gas station, she saw her Thunderbird parked along the side of the convenience store where she had left it, waiting to take her back to a life she never truly felt was hers. Aaron pulled the e-brake and stared down at his hands. They both sat silently in their seats, Cheri waiting for him to say something, to explain what had happened back at the lake. She had seen it in his eyes—dread, as though somewhere inside his mind the sun had been blotted out by darkness. She watched him wring his hands in his lap, never once turning to face her. He may as well have been wringing her heart, twisting it like wet cloth, wrenching girlish hopes from their long-lived home.

“Aaron.” She winced at the sound of her own voice. She had spoken softly, but anything above a whisper was too loud. “I’m worried about you.” She looked down to her hands, her wedding band still circling her left-hand ring finger. Pulling in a steadying breath, she exhaled her next few words.

“I’m not angry,” she said, though she wondered if she should have been. The way he had jumped back from her, the way he had run from the shore; she’d been terrified that he’d leave her out in the middle of nowhere—it had been a bit much. She swallowed against a lump of emotion.

“Do you regret it?” she asked. “Today, what we did?” It was the only question she needed answered. If it was a yes, she would step aside; let him hope and wait and dream about his wife finding the strength to forgive him for…what? An accident he couldn’t have prevented? A death he couldn’t have stopped?

“No,” he said. That single syllable was hoarse, dry, rimmed with its own brand of masculine determination.

Aaron’s reply gave her a little more strength. She squared her shoulders, caught both of his hands in hers, and gave them a squeeze. “I refuse to lose you again, do you understand?”

He nodded faintly, a defeated acceptance.

“I’m just tired,” he whispered.

She supposed it could have been at least halfway true. He’d been slaving away on that house without proper food or a decent night’s rest, but it still didn’t explain the terror that had flashed across his face or the way he had stumbled backward and abandoned her on the sand, but she told herself that understanding everything all at once was impossible. Aaron Holbrook had over two decades of secrets; it would take time to excavate them all.

“I know,” she said, deciding to let the strangeness of the past hour go—at least for now. Her fingers drifted in reverse, settling at the back of his neck. Pulling him toward her until they sat forehead to forehead, she closed her eyes as she listened to him breathe. And then she kissed the corner of his mouth and spoke against his skin.

“We’ll make it okay. Just don’t push me away.”

She had no idea what she was up against—depression, no doubt, but there was more. As soon as they leaned away from each other she wanted to touch him again, to keep touching him until he smiled and told her

I’m okay now, Cheri, you fixed me, you did

but she resisted the temptation.

She wanted to tell him she loved him for a second time, but she kept that to herself too.

Gathering herself up, she pulled her purse to her knees and rifled through her bag for her keys. She’d pay a visit to the house later to make sure he was okay, but she had to deal with Miles first. Despite the fact that it made her feel dirty and resentful, she still had to cover her tracks.

“Call me if you need me,” she said softly. “I don’t turn off my phone.”

She waited a beat, hoped for at least a good-bye, but she didn’t get one.

As she walked across the parking lot to her awaiting T-bird, she found herself grateful that he hadn’t replied. A good-bye from Aaron was something she had never gotten, and it was something she never wanted to receive.

Miles had watched Cheri leave. On the phone at the front counter, he had caught her sitting at her desk through the crack in her office door. Her phone had blipped—the familiar sound of a text message, probably from her mother; but rather than rolling her eyes at her phone like she usually did, she smiled instead, swiveled in her seat, and glanced out the window. A moment later he heard the soft
tick-tick-tick
of her typing on her touch screen. There was a jingle of car keys, the sound of the filing cabinet beside her desk opening and closing as she fished out her purse. Miles purposely turned his back to her as she stepped out of her office and across the lobby, pretending to be consumed by his phone call. A second later she was through the front door. Miles watched her climb into her car.

“Can you hold on a minute?” he asked the guy on the other end of the line. He put the receiver down before he heard the customer’s reply.

Cutting across the lobby, he stepped into Cheri’s office. It smelled of her perfume, light and airy like citrus fruit. But there was an overlay of something sweet and red—lip gloss. Miles paused at the window, squinted past the blinds, and watched a Toyota Tercel with Oregon plates pull out of Mr. Ice Cream’s parking lot and tail his wife. Miles calmly walked into the garage and shoved a toolbox full of wrenches off a worktable onto the floor. The guys in the garage stopped what they were doing, looked up at their boss, and ducked beneath car hoods and undercarriages a moment later. Miles’s temper was par for the course, and Miles didn’t give a shit if they saw him upset or not.

It was a slow workday—nobody waiting in the lobby for immediate fixes—so he sent the guys home early and took up residence behind Cheri’s desk.

He texted her just to see if she’d reply:
Where RU?

She didn’t.

It took her over four hours to return. When she pushed open the office door, she gave a little yelp, startled to see him sitting there. Her hand flew out against her chest and she breathed a little laugh, then gave him a comical scowl.

“You scared me,” she complained. “What are you doing, looking for something?”

It was the only reason Miles went into her office, to look for things: invoices and receipts and lunch and an occasional cigarette. She dropped her purse onto an old office chair beside the door and raised an eyebrow, waiting for a reply.

“Yeah,” he said. “You.”

It was a cinematic thing to say, and it gave him a little thrill to see Cheri’s expression waver. She was trying to keep her expression Zen calm, but he could see the alarm register in her eyes. He had mastered reading the tiny shifts in her face; the way her eyes crinkled at the corners ever so slightly, the way her mouth twitched before blooming into a fake, easy smile.

Cheri smiled and shrugged her shoulders and walked around the desk to the filing cabinet in the corner as though she’d been gone four minutes instead of half a day, and then she glanced over her shoulder, almost sultry, and said, “Well, I’m here now.”

He suddenly wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shove her face-first into that painted cinder block wall.

“Where were you?”

“Get your feet off my desk.”

She slapped his dirty boots with the corner of a manila folder.

“Where
were
you?” he asked again, affirming that he wasn’t going to let it drop, not the way he let most everything else go—like the way she peered at him when she thought he wasn’t looking, her mouth screwing up as though she’d just eaten something sour; the way she walked out of rooms when he entered them, as though they couldn’t possibly occupy the same space; the way she bitched about his endless hours at the shop, but when he took the time to be at home she simply ignored him, aggravated by everything he said or did.

“I went to Banner’s,” she said. “For cigarettes.”

“I texted you,” he told her.

She blinked at him as if mystified, and he could tell that she was genuinely surprised. What her reaction also meant was that she had been too preoccupied to glance at her phone—Cheri, the woman whose mother teased that she should have her phone surgically attached to the side of her face, hadn’t even noticed she had missed a text.

“That’s weird,” she said. “Nothing came through.”

Except he knew if he checked her phone his text would be there, waiting to be read.

“You know how long you were gone?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes up to the ceiling, checking for moths in the light fixtures.

“Four hours,” he told her.

“What’s the big deal?” She frowned at him. “I ran into a friend.”

A friend.

Miles gritted his teeth. Was that what Aaron was, a friend? Because it sure as hell didn’t look like Cheri had been standing around in the produce department for hours on end. Her hair was different, matted and stringy, like she’d been caught in the rain. There was a swatch of dirt on her pants, right below her ass cheek where she couldn’t see it, and Miles knew better than anyone that Cheri Miller Vaughn did not sit in the dirt.

“Who?” His voice cracked, dry with tension.

That momentary flash of anxiety returned to her face, just for a heartbeat, just long enough to defy her play at innocence.

He pushed away from her desk, bolted up from the swivel chair, and before she could take more than two steps he had her against the wall, her hands pawing at his wrists as he held her by the shoulders. It took every ounce of willpower to not shift them to her neck.

“I want to hear you say it,” he told her, mere inches from her face. “Say his name, Cher.”

“You’re hurting me,” she whispered, her words strained beneath the quick onset of tears.

“But you aren’t hurting
me
?” He gave her a shove before letting her go. “Say his fucking name!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she screamed back, crying now.

“Really?” He expelled a humorless laugh. “Jesus,
really
? I
saw
you.”

Cheri shook her head, still denying the whole thing.

“How many people in Ironwood have Oregon plates, Cher?”

She blanched.

He turned away from her and shoved the corner of the desk with his hip. Lingering in the doorway, he considered walking away.

“I work sixty-five hours a week,” he said, surprised by the subtle tremble that accompanied his words. “
Sixty-five hours a week
so you can fuck another guy behind my back.”

Cheri opened her mouth to protest, but she snapped it shut when he shot her a glare.

Don’t you dare deny it. Don’t you dare tell me I’m dreaming, you stupid cheating bitch.

He stared out the window, feeling like she’d doused him in gasoline and set him ablaze. The momentary silence gave him an iota of pacification, calm slowly creeping into his veins, quelling the indignation that was poisoning him, that had been poisoning him for months.

But then she spoke: “You’re wrong.”

She couldn’t confess.

“And if you think you can tell me who I can and can’t be friends with…”

Cheri cried out when he grabbed her.

She screamed when the back of her head thudded against the wall; screamed again when he reeled back with his fist and punched the bricks just shy of her face, the bones in his hands folding in on themselves before snapping back into place.

“You’re fucking crazy!” she howled, ducking beneath his arm, clamoring for her purse. “Don’t ever touch me again!”

He could have reached out and grabbed her by the hair, could have pulled her back and slammed her on the ground before pounding her face in, screaming

How could you betray me, how could you defy my fucking love?!

But he let her go.

Sucking in a wheezing breath through his snarl, he let her go.

Because he did love her.

He loved her and she knew it, and maybe this was what they needed—to come back together, this rift needed to tear them apart.

He’d give her a chance to fix it. But if he caught her with Aaron again, the break would never heal.

And to make it even, he’d break Aaron’s fucking neck.