When We Collide (10 page)

Troy had pulled up alongside where I was walking
down the sidewalk, coaxed me into his truck with an understanding
smile on his face, and had just driven. He’d laughed and joked,
doing his best to make me feel better. He’d grinned and nudged me
with his elbow until he finally got me to return his smile.

In the couple of months I’d been seeing him since
then, he had become an easy escape, getting me away from my house
when it was the last place I wanted to be. I couldn’t say I liked
him, but he’d been nothing but nice. And nice was always better
than Hell.

Something had shifted in him, though, over the last
few weeks. A frustration simmered somewhere below his forced smile.
I’d felt it, but had done my best to ignore it.

Tonight, it’d finally broken through.

But he’d promised he was different, so I begged
again and tugged against his hold. “Troy...just...wait.”

“Get in the fucking truck.” Troy shoved me toward
the passenger door. My foot caught on a branch, and I lurched
forward. Shooting my hands out, I caught myself just before my face
slammed into the side window.

Holding myself up, I suppressed the terror building
in my gut—churning fear and anger—a feeling I was so familiar with,
but this was the first time I’d associated the feeling with
Troy.

From behind, he pressed my body flat into the metal
with his, breathing into my ear. “I’d better not catch you looking
at Marsch again.” He dug his fingers into my sides. The pain made
me gasp and then hold my breath. “Do you hear me?” he said as he
tugged me back against him.

I nodded as I squeezed my eyes closed. Another round
of tears raced down my face.

He jerked me back to open the door. It was
excruciating not to look in William’s direction as I climbed into
the cab and Troy forced me onto his lap, locking his arm around my
waist—impossible when Kurt gunned the accelerator and flipped a
U-turn and the headlights illuminated Blake’s truck. The driver’s
door was open and the cab was lit. William’s eyes were closed, and
his head was tilted up where it laid on the headrest, though I
could see the torment raging in his posture and the anger twisting
his face. Anger for me.

I was rocked by a torrent of intense longing. If
only once I could have that—someone who really cared about the way
I was treated.

I lowered my gaze, feeling sick as I listened to
Kurt and Troy mock the one person who’d ever been concerned enough
to defend me.

As we entered town and Kurt slowed, Troy loosened
his hold. He hugged me and nuzzled my neck with his nose and mouth.
He gathered my hair to the side and kissed me behind my ear. “Don’t
be mad, baby,” he whispered, “I just love you so much…I can’t stand
somebody else looking at you.”

I swallowed hard. It was the first time Troy said he
loved me. But it didn’t feel anything like love.

He walked me to the door. It had been a very a long
time since I could remember being thankful I was home.

Shaking, I slid my key into the lock and snuck
inside. The house was quiet, and I tiptoed upstairs to the room I
shared with my little sister, Amber. Changing into my pajamas, I
crawled under the covers of my twin bed. I prayed for silence, for
peace, and for the room to be defended from intrusion, because I
was sure there was no way I would survive my father sneaking into
my room tonight.

Tears filled my eyes, and I bit my lip to keep from
crying.

I was so stupid to think Troy was any different than
my dad. Men were all the same. Mom had taught me that from the time
I was a little girl.

Maggie ~ Present Day

I swatted at the tears running down my face.

My mom had been wrong.

William was different. His hands had been gentle and
his words had been kind. I’d taken what he’d given me, something
pure and good, and allowed my fear to destroy it.

Shifting my dozing child, I gathered him up and
carried him to his room where I pulled back his covers and laid him
in his bed. A burdened breath escaped his lungs, and he rolled to
his side.

So precious and already so damaged.

I sighed as I tucked him in and made sure he’d be
warm before I wandered back out into the living room, parted the
drapes, and stared out into the night.

It’d be hours before Troy would return. I’d be long
asleep, and he would slide into bed next to me and act as if the
night had never happened.

And I’d hate him a little bit more.

Before he came, though, while I lay there alone, I’d
dream of William. I’d pretend I was a different person from a
different place, pretend I’d been strong enough for him.

Those dreams were usually an escape, but tonight I
knew they were going to hurt. He was so near. I felt as if I could
reach out and touch him.

I imagined him waiting for me at our spot, tucked
behind the trunk of the fallen oak at the back of the playground
where we’d always met, although I no longer saw the William I had
pictured for the last six years. Instead he stood with his hands
deep in the pockets of a dark suit, his face haunted by the choices
I’d made. That face was striking, matured and strong, his brown
eyes a raging storm.

A beautiful man I no longer knew.

William ~ Present Day

I followed Blake out the back door and into the
frigid air. A cold front had blown in overnight, chasing out the
normally mild Mississippi February and freezing everything in its
path. I ducked my head to shield myself from the cold lash of wind
that whipped at my face. Perfect weather for the sour mood I was
in.

The cardboard box I carried felt as if it weighed
fifty pounds rather than ten, and I shifted it to my side and took
the back porch steps to the driveway.

Grim lines formed on Blake’s face when he took the
box from me. He placed it in the bed of his truck and slammed the
tailgate shut. “Guess that’s all,” he said as he exhaled heavily
and stared at the things piled in the bed of his truck.

Glancing back, I caught our mother watching us from
the kitchen window, her hands overlapped and pressed against her
chest as if she were trying to hold her heart in. Our eyes met, and
my mouth formed into a thin, sympathetic smile. Everything was so
hard on her, but this had been the worst. Packing up Lara’s things,
sifting through the memories, keeping the few things she couldn’t
bear to part with, and setting the rest aside.

A few moments later, the back screen door slammed
shut behind her. The heavy winter coat she wore appeared as if it
would swallow her whole.

“I’ll ride with you.” Mom lifted her face to me,
mustering half a smile as she descended the stairs. She brushed an
appreciative hand across Blake’s arm as she passed before she went
to stand at the passenger side door of my SUV.

Blake didn’t question it. He just agreed with a bob
of his head and climbed into his truck.

I drew a lump of cold air in through my nose, felt
it burn down my throat and expand in my lungs. She’d heard me last
night, I was sure. I’d seen it in the way she had regarded me all
morning and into the afternoon. Worry had been held in the
appraisal of her eyes as she’d steal surreptitious glances from
wherever she sat and packed a box, worry in the way she watched me
going in and out of her house to load Blake’s truck.

Sliding into my seat, I started the car and fiddled
with the thermostat to turn the heat to high. I shifted the car
into reverse and looked over my shoulder to back out of the
driveway. This time she didn’t try to hide the intent gaze. She was
studying.

My stomach twisted, tied up all the way to the top
of my throat.

It’d been six days since I’d seen Maggie. Six days
since I’d seen the child. Each one had been excruciating. A war had
ravaged inside of me, a battle between heart and mind. My heart
claimed the child, claimed the girl, while my head screamed at me
to run, screamed neither of them were my concern.

Forcing myself into believing Maggie wasn’t my
concern had been the only way I’d survived in California. I
couldn’t allow myself to believe there was anything else I could
do.

But seeing her had shattered that belief.

I’d spent the week holed up in the confines of my
room, unable to eat, unable to sleep.

Last night I had reached the boiling point.

I’d fought with Kristina. I’d been so tired, verging
on deranged from the days spent in my room
pacing—contemplating—that I should have known better than to have
accepted her call. I should have waited until I’d cleared my mind
and decided what I was going to do. But I’d grown so frustrated
with the demanding messages and the snide little remarks she used
to try to control me, and I’d snapped when my phone lit up with her
name again. She’d demanded I be back in California in two days,
threatening to fire me if I wasn’t. Anger had burned, spewed as
hatred from my mouth. Six years of pent up discontent and
resentment were unleashed into the phone. I told her even if I went
back to California, it wouldn’t be to her. I was done.

Hours later, cut free from the life I’d bound myself
to for the last six years and drained from the days I’d spent in
dread, I finally succumbed to the exhaustion of my body.

And I’d dreamed. Saw the boy for the first time
through new eyes. When I’d awoken, I wept for a child I didn’t
know.

I trained my attention out the windshield, felt my
mother’s probing stare.

“What happened to you, Will?” It spilled as fear
from her mouth, abject intuition.

I found myself wanting to confide in her. Tell her I
thought I might be losing my mind. Tell her I was terrified I
wasn’t and have to admit the dreams were real. I just didn’t know
how.

So much time had been spent deceiving myself,
believing my own lies, it was easy for me to shrug and play it off
the way I always had. Locking my face in the same, persuasive
expression I used whenever I wanted to get my way, I glanced across
at her. “Nothing’s wrong, Mom…I just…had a weird dream. It was
nothing.”

Hurt knit up her brow. “Don’t lie to me.” She turned
away and faced forward. “Do you really think I can’t tell that
there’s something going on with my
own
son? That I ever
believed you all of a sudden just
didn’t
care about us
anymore?” I felt her gaze fall on me again. “What are you hiding
from?”

I braked for one of the few lights in town, hands
gripping the wheel. My mother had always known me so well. Our
separation hadn’t changed that. I doubted any amount of time would.
On a heavy sigh, I sank back in my seat and rolled my head to look
over at her, hoping she’d find in my expression she was right—I’d
never stopped caring about them. At the same time, I prayed she
could see it on my face that I wasn’t yet ready to tell her
why.

Her face softened and sympathy filled her eyes as
she slowly nodded, the silence a declaration as understanding
passed between us.

She fidgeted and looked down, adjusting her purse on
her lap into almost the same position it had been. She seemed to
struggle to find the right words. “Last night…earlier,” she
clarified as if to give me reassurance that she wasn’t pressuring
me for answers, but was at least asking for
something
, “I
overhead you on the phone…with…Kristina.”

I rubbed my forehead, turned away for a beat before
I accelerated through the light when it turned green.

As if the entire neighborhood hadn’t heard our
screaming match.

Sighing, I turned left into the parking lot of the
donation center. I eased my car into an open space, put it in park,
and turned to face my mother.

“It’s over with Kristina. I told her last night I
wasn’t going back.” I paused before I gathered enough courage to
continue. “I’m staying here…in Mississippi.” I swallowed over the
fear my decision elicited. It was a decision that had been cemented
in those bleak hours I’d spent being tormented last night. In them,
I’d accepted leaving was no longer an option, but I had no clue
what staying would mean.

“Is that what you really want?” she asked, her eyes
wide, as if she were more concerned with the answer on my face than
with my actual words.

Biting at the inside of my lower lip, I nodded.

“It is.” Confirming it was easier than I’d
expected.

“Good,” she said. The sudden disdain in her voice
caught me by surprise. “I hated her, you know, keeping you from
where you belonged…hated that you chose it.” She opened the door,
ranting mostly to herself as she stepped out, “I
never
taught my boys to run from their troubles.”

~

That night, we all filed into the pizza parlor,
thankful to get out of the cold. Mom grinned at me as she pulled
out a chair and sat down, patting my leg. I shifted further down
the table to make room for her and my dad.

“Who else is as hungry as I am?” she asked as she
unfolded her reading glasses and situated them low on her nose.

Donating Lara’s things had proven therapeutic for
her, as if a small burden had been lifted because she’d
accomplished something that had been so important to her sister.
Ever since I could remember, Aunt Lara had volunteered at the
center. The temporary shelter and second-hand store had been
something she’d forever held close to her heart. She’d dragged me
along on more than one occasion, even though as a child I’d
protested, thinking she was wasting my time when I could have been
riding my bike and hanging out with my friends. She’d said she
wanted me to learn to be compassionate and one day I’d
understand.

Maybe it had been a waste of my time. Any compassion
that had been instilled in me over those long summer days had only
made me bitter, because still, I didn’t understand why some people
made the choices they did.