He taught me how to hunt with my hands in Echo River style from a young age but when my mom died, he made it a weekly trip to the mountains. We would spend entire weekends up there up until I turned nineteen and Cricket got really sick.
I looked back at Cricket. She brought her hand up to Spencer’s back. He followed suit and tucked his hand into her back pocket, incensing me. Immediately, I walked to my truck and opened the passenger side door. The knives sat in their sheaths in the glove box. I hadn’t touched them in months, and my hands itched to hold them again.
I reached for them but paused a few inches from the handles. My hands shook and my heart pounded.
“What are you doing?” I asked myself.
I shut the glove box and sat on the bench of my truck, my booted foot resting on the concrete below. I ran my hands through my hair and rested against the back of the seat, shocked I’d been even contemplating what I’d been pondering.
“What were you going to do?” I asked myself. “Murder him?”
I felt sick to my stomach I had indeed thought about just that.
“Mom, help me?” I asked the ceiling. “I’m suffering for her and it’s literally driving me insane. Please help me figure out how to get over her.”
Just then, Ceres’ bell above the door rang out and I shoved my foot inside and shut the door. I didn’t have time to start the truck, so I laid flat against the seat, hoping they wouldn’t be able to see me. I sat up a bit and looked through the side mirrors, my chest pumping oxygen in and out at a furious pace.
They started walking the opposite direction toward the music store. I wasn’t going to sit around and wait for them to stumble upon me, so I slid over to the driver’s side and started the truck in one turn. I sped out of there, watching them all the time through my rearview.
I needed to sort myself out before I did something stupid, before my hate took over and stupidity started to sound even better to me than it did at that moment. Finley, of course, was right.
CHAPTER SIX
I decided that night I no longer cared to get myself under control. I decided I wanted a drink instead.
“Vi, one more?”
“Sure, darlin’.”
I nodded when she set down the glass and walked toward another customer.
“I’m surprised you’re in here again,” I heard over my shoulder, and I tensed.
“What are you doing here?” I asked Finley.
“Lookin’ for your dumb ass.”
“Why?” I asked as she sat down beside me.
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because I’m an idiot? Maybe because I’m bored?” She sighed. “I don’t know.”
The bell above the door rang out and we both turned to see Spencer Blackwell and Cricket Hunt walk in holding hands as if they didn’t have a care in the world.
I narrowed my eyes and tried to steady my breathing. “What the fuck are they doing here?” I asked no one.
My eyes locked in on them as they moved to the opposite side of the large room. They had no idea I was there. They sat together, totally unaware that their mere existence in that moment bruised me more brutally than I’d felt in a long time. I studied Caroline, the palm of my hand absently rubbing at the knot in the center of my chest. My Caroline. She had no idea just how much she’d worn me out since we’d broken up, worn my body and my soul. I felt too heavy to carry around since she’d gone from me. Far too heavy. She’d been unintentionally cruel, but cruel nonetheless. So I swallowed back the lump in my throat, a lump she’d put there with our childhood memories, our laughs, our love. The ache. The awful ache she caused me.
I continued to watch her. She was laughing, so happy, and very much in the moment with him. And that’s when I saw it. Saw what Finley and everyone else saw. She had never looked at me the way she was looking at him, and I was suddenly sick with jealousy and a terrible, terrible hatred. His hand wrapped around the back of her neck and I snapped. My hands trembled on the surface of my glass and I breathed from my nose in seething anger.
Finley whipped her head my direction, her eyes wide. “Let’s go,” she pleaded.
“Get out of here,” I ordered her.
“No,” she whispered, placing her hand on my own.
I peered into her eyes. “Just. Go.”
I stood up and threaded my way through the bodies. There was nothing planned, no finite idea, but I knew I wanted to get to my truck, the passenger side, the glove box. I shoved through the bar door and into the summer night, my blood pumping through my veins. My truck was parked in the space closest to the street, and each footstep it took to get me there felt like an eternity. I clomped through the gravel lot and threw open the passenger door. I’d forgotten that the glove box had been locked. My hand found my pocket to dig out my keys but they were stuck at odd angles, making it difficult or maybe it was that I was too drunk to remove them with any kind of finesse. This made me pause, but my body couldn’t catch up with the thought and I pitched forward, my hand clumsily finding the edge of the roof of the cab. I swayed and the memory of his hand on her neck renewed my fury.
“I told you you’d feel my wrath, Spencer Blackwell,” I spoke to no one. “And I never break a promise.”
I took a deep breath as my fingers found their purchase and pulled out my keys. The key I needed somehow hit home and the lid sprang open, the knives staring at me, daring me. I watched them, waited for them to tell me what to do, but nothing came. They laid still, gleaming in the moonlight waiting for me too, it seemed. I sat in the passenger side seat, one boot still on the gravel, and made the first move. Raising a trembling hand toward the temptation, my fingers felt the cool length of each blade.
The rage still burned in my veins and I felt myself sobering, hesitating. No, I kept hearing. Pick them up, a voice said, so I did. Their weight felt good in my hands, comfortable. I breathed three breaths before gripping their handles and twirling them quickly in my palms. Even drunk, I could slaughter anything that moved. I was made to hunt. And hunt you shall, the voice urged.
I nodded and stood, shutting the passenger side door, tucking the blades into the back of my jeans, and camouflaging them with my shirt. My boots echoed with each step back toward the bar, heavy and dark like the night that surrounded me, like the thoughts in my head.
The adrenaline seared through my body, heightening every nerve, intensifying every sense. My heart pounded like a bass drum in my chest, pressing painfully against my ribs. My skin burned with anticipation.
I reached for the door handle.
“Where do you think you’re going?” a voice whispered, startling me.
I stopped, one hand on the handle. “Finley, go home,” I ordered her.
She stood from her leaning position against the outside wall of the bar, out of the shadows, and walked toward me. Her eyes seared through me. She came to me, stood closely, the heat from her body enveloping me.
“No, I don’t think I will,” she told me, looking up into my eyes. “At least not alone.”
She stood tenaciously, fearlessly. I noted how much taller she was than Cricket and it was a little bit intimidating to me, like what she said was going to happen whether or not I liked it. I respected her and I didn’t know why. I stared at her hard, but she didn’t budge. No, instead, she strengthened her own resolve, her jaw tightening with the decision and glared back even harder. She said and did things with such righteous authority, I felt powerless to her. I’d never felt that way before about a woman. It wasn’t pushy or irrational, it was simply as it was going to be.
My eyes and face relaxed the moment I acquiesced. “Fine.”
Her body followed suit and she nodded once, grabbing my arm and leading me toward my truck. Her hand reached into my jeans pocket, sending an inexplicable electrical charge through me, which I promptly chose to ignore, and yanked out my keys.
“Get in,” she ordered and I obeyed.
She threw herself into the driver’s side and slammed the door shut, sticking the
keys in the ignition and turning only once. The engine started, daring not to further goad her. The stereo kicked on, belting something indicative of the moment we were leaving behind us, full of bass and a sharpness so edgy it echoed through my chest and head.
She shoved the truck in reverse, throwing her arm over the back of the bench, and her stare found mine. It was a solid look, packed full with a storm of unspoken words. Without breaking her gaze, she shifted into drive. She held there for a moment, driving her disappointment in me deep down into my soul before finally looking ahead to the end of the parking lot. I know I’m toxic, Finley, I thought, but that didn’t stop my mouth from retching awful thoughts.
“You have no reason to be pissed at me,” I told her, practically begging her to speak.
She didn’t say a word as she pulled out onto the road with more punch than the Finley I knew normally would have, turning toward the interstate. I had no clue where she was taking us, but I wasn’t about to ask.
Just make her turn around, I thought. Tell her you won’t do anything.
I opened my mouth to speak but caught a glimpse of her hair whipping about her determined face from the open windows and forgot what I was going to say. I turned my gaze toward the windshield. The light from the headlights exposing just enough of the road to make me nervous at the speed we were traveling. One hand found the dash to steady myself.
“What’s wrong, Ethan?” she asked.
“Huh?” I asked, whipping my head her direction.
“Too fast for you?”
“No.”
“Liar,” she said, calling me out.
I wiped my palms down the thighs of my jeans. “Slow down,” I said, swallowing.
“Oh, now you want to play it safe?” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re so selfish, you know that?” she asked. I was taken aback. She’d never talked to me like that.
She leisurely drove across lanes as if traveling more than a hundred miles per hour was completely normal.
“What?” I demanded, feeling alert. The adrenaline had sobered me quickly.
“You’re selfish. And stupid. Let’s not forget stupid.”
My blood boiled. “Whatever, Finley.”
“Whatever, Finley,” she mocked. “Don’t you know I’m suffering? That I’m the only person in the world who suffers? Can’t you see that I’m determined to be foolish, Finley?”
“What do you know of suffering?” I asked, incensed.
Wide eyes met mine and her jaw clenched as she pulled over, slamming us to a stop. Her hair flew forward from the force before settling onto her chest and shoulders.
“I know more about suffering than you could ever possibly imagine. You don’t know shit! So you got your heart broken. So what! There are worse things, you know. There are things out there that would curl your toes to know about, Ethan.”
She stopped, breathed deeply. Her hands white-knuckled the steering wheel as she watched me.
“What- what things?” I asked sincerely.
“I can’t say. I won’t say.”
I swallowed.
A few moments passed in silence and her eyes softened. “A broken heart is terrible, Ethan. I know it’s terrible, but it’s also a part of being human. You’re allowed to be tossed about in love sometimes. It sucks but it’s not the end of the freaking world. It’s not worth a homicide conviction.”
My jaw clenched at her presumption. “What do you know of a broken heart? Who has ever loved you?” Her hands fell to her lap in a dull thud at my words. Her mouth gaped open in a painful expression, and I immediately felt like such an awful douchebag. I reached for her. “I’m sorry, Finley. I just meant that…”
“I know what you meant,” she said quietly, raising her hand to fend me off.
She brought her hands up to the wheel once more and turned on the blinker before heading back out onto the highway.
I knew Finley had been abandoned by her parents. I knew this but I was so absorbed in myself I’d forgotten to think about that before I spoke. Now that I was feeling much more aware of myself, I wanted, no, needed to thank her for saving me from doing something unforgivable. I didn’t know where this awful side of me was coming from. The fact that I was no longer living in the fantasy of revenge was more than a little horrifying.
“Finley, I—”
“No more, Ethan. Just, just no more.”
I nodded, feeling horrible for what I’d said to her.
We continued on in silence for close to an hour and I figured out where she was headed. Doris Lake. It was her favorite place. Everyone knew if you couldn’t find Finley Dyer, it was probably because she was at Doris Lake. It was a sort of haven to her for some reason none of us could figure out.
She took a right on Doris Creek Road and within a few minutes, we were near the trails. She parked and removed the keys from the ignition.
The quiet was deafening but I dared not open my mouth. We both needed that silence, that was obvious.
I was the first to open my door so I slowly walked to hers and opened it for her, reaching out my hand to help her. Her eyes met mine. The few seconds it took her to decide whether she wanted my hand was excruciating.
We were at an impasse.
This is where she decided whether we were to continue this odd friendship of ours.
When she took my hand, I released the breath I’d been holding and simultaneously discovered that I was relying on her more than I dared admit to myself.
I helped her from the truck and closed her door for her, and my heart beat a little bit faster in relief of her choice. I followed her quietly in the moonlight through the trail to Doris Lake, a trail she so obviously knew like the back of her hand. About a mile in, we passed Blow Lake, the little stone bridge amongst the trail as well and in another mile and a half, we’d arrived at Doris.
We’d walked briskly and in silence, so I was surprised when she turned toward me at the water’s edge. A single tear fell down her face that reflected in the moonlight. It surprised me how tender Finley could be yet how strong she was as well. She was a dichotomy of marvelous.
“I’m sorry, truly sorry,” I told her in earnest.
She sucked in a ragged breath and nodded, then turned her head toward the stock-still surface of the water. The moon mirrored in its round face.
The lake was stunning. Surrounded by staggered mountain peaks, the back of the water was enveloped by a sharp ridge of rock that cascaded down the sides of the lake and peppered with fresh, emerald forest that rounded to the beaches and met us where we stood. The water was so clear even in the moonlight, we could not only see through to bottom of the shallows but also at its deepest in the center of the lake.
“I can see why you would come here as often as you do,” I told her.
She turned her face toward mine once more. “Let me have them,” she said.
“What?” I asked, confused.
“The knives.” She swallowed. “Let me have them.”
I closed my eyes briefly in shame and guilt before lifting the back of my shirt and sliding my blades out, then handing them over to her. She took them in her hands and examined them, running her fingers over the blades.
“They’re warm,” she told no one.
“They were laid against my skin.”
She looked up at me sadly. “I know, Ethan.”
She laid one blade over the other and set them together on the bit of rocky beach we stood upon.
Finley wrapped her arms around herself and slowly began to rock from side to side. I’d seen her do this so many, many times for years but it wasn’t until that moment did I realize it was a coping mechanism for her. She swayed slowly as her eyes glazed over, seemingly staring at nothing.
I looked on her, really studied this young girl willing to help me, willing to risk my unpredictable behavior and discovered something. Finley was a victim. It practically smacked me in the face now that I’d been willing to pay attention to her. She emanated something. Something terrible. Ye
ah, she may have been strong as hell but even the strong fall. They’re human, after all.
“What happened to you, Finley Dyer?”
She stopped swaying. “Nothing at all,” she answered, looking at me with a secret smile, implying that those words meant something else.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “What is ‘nothing at all’? Why is that significant?”
She faced the wilderness. “It means I have nothing to say.”
I drew closer to her, stood beside her and stared into the same dark abyss. “Your words, they meant something to you. Explain them to me?”
She sighed and faced the beach below our feet. “I was told that phrase very often as a kid.”
“Why?” I prodded, interested to know what it all meant.
I surprised myself then because I suddenly realized I hadn’t cared about anyone else but myself for a very, very long time. I wondered in that moment whether it was because she took the time to care for me. I wondered if she’d impressed upon me a sense of empathy, despite my attempt at fighting any such human emotion other than the hate I wanted to hold so closely. I could tell she’d influenced me, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
“The first time I heard it or rather, the first time I remember it,” she began in an almost whisper, “was the day I turned five years old. The school keeps records of the student’s birth dates and all that, right? Well, my teacher marked on a big calendar at the front of the classroom each kid’s birthday. If it hadn’t been for that calendar, I believe I wouldn’t have ever known my birthday.
“I can still remember every detail of that thing like it was yesterday. A big green apple with the months all staggered in rows of three. Mine was right at the end. December third. I remember quietly counting the days until I got to the little worm marker that read Finley.
“That day, my teacher placed the big button she put on everyone on their birthday on the front of my yellow gingham dress. It was my best outfit. The girl in the trailer next to mine grew out of it and her mother asked mine if she wanted it. My mom said she didn’t care, so the woman placed it in my hands.