I pound my knuckles into his and wipe away the tears that have fallen down my face. “I love all of you guys.”
I sniff and try to regain my composure as I turn in Frannie’s direction and place my hand on her knee. “I especially love this lady right here. I’ll never be able to thank her enough for showing me how to open up, and letting me see that sharing my feelings is okay.”
She places her small, warm hand on mine, and she smiles. “I love you, too.”
Finally, after struggling for the last few years, I feel at peace, and the nagging thoughts of doom are the furthest thing from my mind because, surely, nothing this good is bound to fall through. Everything in my life seems to be falling into place.
“Creep” – Radiohead
Tomorrow is the day the blackmailer will be expecting their two-million-dollar payment. Tyke and I have both come to the conclusion that we aren’t paying the money, so it’s inevitable that we will be outed.
Deciding to go on the road with Tyke is a huge deal. I’ll essentially be leaving everything I’ve worked so hard for behind, but I’ve decided I would like to try my hand at helping the less fortunate with their addictions. I think helping people who have absolutely nothing will be a better way of dedicating my time. I’d even love to find a place where I could simply volunteer my time.
I’m focusing on the letter of resignation I’ve been working on for the past twenty minutes on my laptop when a knock on my office door startles me. “Come in.”
Wayne strolls in, looking impeccable as ever in his pressed suit and matching graying hair. “I don’t mean to disturb you, but Timothy is about to start doing random room inspections while Randall is leading a group activity outside, and I would like you to assist him so it can go faster.”
I close the lid of my laptop and smile. “Sure. I’d be happy to help.”
“Great, thank you. Timothy is already on the second level,” Wayne informs me and exits the office just as quickly as he came in.
When I find Timothy upstairs, he has a clipboard in hand, making notes. His towering frame was intimidating when I first arrived here, but I’ve come to know him as a big teddy bear, one who’s strictly by the book. I don’t know him personally; I just know that he takes his job very seriously.
“Hi,” I greet him as I step next to him. “Wayne asked me to help you toss the rooms. Are we looking for contraband? I’ve never searched someone’s things before.”
Timothy nods and pulls his gaze away from the paperwork in front of him. “We sweep everything. Addicts, especially ones who have been here before, are very good at hiding anything they don’t want to be caught with. The ones sent here through court orders are the ones who are the most likely to hide things. The ones who elect to seek treatment themselves tend to be the clients who really do try to abstain from whatever they’re addicted to. Don’t take those assumptions as gospel, though—go through every nook and cranny. Here,” he hands me a pair of rubber gloves, “You’ll want to wear these.”
“Got it,” I say, understanding exactly what I’m to do. “What room would you like me to do first?”
He checks his clipboard again. “I just came from Tyke’s room—he’s clean. Arnold is next on my list, so you can take him, and I’ll take the next one on the list. If you find anything, come get me and we’ll inventory it together.”
“Will do.” I step over to the room next to Tyke’s and point at the door. “This one is Arnold’s?”
After I get confirmation that it is the right room, I twist the knob and head in. My hands grow clammy in the rubber gloves as I begin poking around in Arnold’s drawers. Everything in here appears to be typical—socks, underwear and a never-ending collection of sweaters, which I still find fucking weird considering the temperature outside.
Next, I move on to the closet, where I find all of Arnold’s khaki pants hung neatly in a row.
“Doesn’t this guy ever get tired of wearing the same shit,” I mumble to myself.
After I have swept every drawer and the closet, the last place I’m supposed to look, according to all the movies about prison I’ve ever seen, is underneath the mattress.
I pull back the cover and sheets on Arnold’s neat bed and pull the pillow from its case, finding nothing. Finally, I lift the mattress, and my eyes land on the notebook I gave him a few weeks ago. I pick it up and turn it over in my hands. This doesn’t look like it contains any paraphernalia, but I’m curious as to what this thing might contain since Arnold refuses to allow me to see it.
It’s an invasion of privacy, but I open it up and flipped through it. There are a lot of weird scribbles—drawings of flowers and prom dresses—and it seems to have several journal entries. That doesn’t surprise me at all. I shouldn’t have expected it to be filled with anything other than the one incident that I know he’s obsessed with.
Just as I’m about to close it, a name catches my eye, and I quickly flick the page back to make sure I really just saw what I thought I did. There, amongst the intelligible scribbles, is a heart with the words Arnie plus Annie scratched across the middle of it.
It could be a coincidence. I mean, how is it possible that one of my clients, other than Tyke, would even know about my sister. Annie is a common name, right?
I go back to the first page and begin scanning the pages with a more careful eye. Sentence after sentence, line after line, the same name appears. Annie . . . Annie . . . Annie.
“When Annie turned me down for Junior Prom at Walter Payton . . .”
“I watched Annie from afar, but she didn’t know. She didn’t suspect. One day, I wanted to make her love me. Annie should’ve been mine.”
I gasp and cover my mouth with my hand. Goose bumps erupt all over my body and a chill runs down my spine as I stare at the thoughts of a clearly unwell man, but what shocks me even more and confirms my worst fear is that he lists the high school that Annie and I attended.
“Oh, my God.” I remember him. Arnold is Arnie, from our high school. I remember when he asked my sister to prom, and I laughed at him while my sweet sister let him down easy. It was cruel of me to do that, but we were seventeen and I couldn’t believe a four-eyed geek like Arnie thought he had a snowball’s chance in hell with Annie.
I race through the book where each page chronicles Arnie following my sister to college and then on to adult life.
“I was supposed to be on that flight with her, but the idiot cab driver made me late by taking a route that lead to a traffic jam. I’ll never forgive myself for not dying with her. We were meant to be together forever, dead in eternal bliss. The feelings I had toward Annie didn’t go away. I had to find a way to continue my obsession. Lucky for me she had an identical twin sister. It felt too good to watch Frannie the way I did Annie. I could pretend she was my Annie. If I couldn’t have Annie, I would have her substitute.”
I swallow hard as things begin to click and fall into place. If Arnie went from following my sister to following me, he could’ve been lurking around that frat party and taken that picture of me that the blackmailer sent. That was shortly after Annie died, so it would fit with the timeline.
“My parents found out about my obsession. They found my scrapbook where I created pictures of mine and Frannie’s wedding. I thought it was beautiful. My mother thought it was disgusting. They wanted to send me away—lock me up where I couldn’t follow Frannie anymore, but I couldn’t have that. My parents cut me off—took my trust away, but that won’t stop me. I’ll find ways to get money. No one will take my Frannie away from me. No one. I’ll kill anyone who tries. So, I ran away. Changed my name and followed her to the rehab center I knew she got a job at. This is the perfect place for me to get close to her.”
My heart thunders in my chest. If this hadn’t been discovered, how far would Arnie have gone? Would he have hurt me? Would he have hurt Tyke?
“You okay in here?” Timothy’s deep voice causes me to jump.
I place my hand over my chest as I turn around to fa
ce him. “I . . . I don’t know.”
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he says, stepping farther into the room. “Did you find something?”
I nod and hold out the notebook to Timothy with a shaky hand. “You could say that.”
Timothy’s brow creases as he takes the book and tucks the clipboard under his arm. His eyes scan through the last entry that I read and his head snaps back up to meet my stare. “Has he hurt you?”
I shake my head. “No, but . . .”
I hesitate. If I tell Timothy about the things Arnold has been emailing me then I’ll be fired before I have the chance to quit. Timothy is too straitlaced to keep this secret for me.
“But what?” he probes.
I might as well lay it all out. It’s better coming from me than from Arnold. God knows what he’s capable of, or what he’ll do when he discovers that I know exactly who he is and what he’s been up to.
“I believe Arnold has been emailing me—blackmailing me with pictures and videos.” I pull my phone out of my back pocket and pull up the picture of me with Tyke. “He sent me this after catching us in the woods.”
Timothy squints as studies the thumbnail on the screen. “Are you saying you’ve been having an inappropriate relationship with a client?”
I pull the phone back and stuff it into my pocket. “It’s wrong—unethical and completely against the Hippocratic Oath, I know, which is why I was just in the middle of writing my letter of resignation. I knew this was going to come out because someone filmed us, but I was hoping by quitting it would all go away. I tried to stop it from happening.”
He sighs. “You know I have to report this, don’t you?”
“I know,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry.”
Timothy takes a moment to scan my face and his lips turn down into a frown. “I can see that, and for what it’s worth, I’m sorry that I have to say something. If it didn’t go against everything I believe, I would keep it to myself.” He lays Arnie’s journal on his clipboard. “I’m going to go explain everything to Dr. Shepherd. He’ll take over from here.”
I nod. “Okay.”
While I’m in my cabin packing, a knock on my door causes my heart to sink. I’m sure this is Wayne coming to fire me.
I open the door and surprise washes over me when I discover Tyke standing before me, looking absolutely edible in his jeans and T-shirt.
“Tyke? What are you doing here?” I question.
He pushes his blond hair back from his face and then shoves his hands deep in his front pockets. “Dr. Shepherd and I just had a talk in his office.”
I bite my bottom lip. “What did he say to you?”
“He knows everything about us, and he mainly questioned how I felt about the situation. He wanted—” A grin crosses his face as he pauses for a brief second. “He wanted to know if you had taken advantage of me in my vulnerable state, because you crossed the line with me since I was your client.”
I run my fingers through my hair. “And?”
Tyke laughs. “I told him you raped me.”
I smack his arm. “That’s not funny. This shit is serious.”
He grips my hips and tugs me closer to him. “I know. That was a poor choice of joke. I told him that I’m in love with you, and that I pursued you until you finally gave in. I explained how you fought against the inevitable really hard, telling me how wrong it was, but I made it impossible for you to not fall in love with me.”
I put my arms around his neck. “You did make it tough on me to hold out.”
“I’m glad you find me irresistible.” He kisses my lips. “I love you, Frannie. No matter what happens. I want you and me and this baby to be a family. I want the real deal with you.”
“I love you, too.” The tears burn as they pool in my eyes. To hear him say he wants that with me stirs something deep within me—a longing for someone else in my life to love wholeheartedly and completely. It never occurred to me, until this beautiful man walked into my life, just how much I want a family of my own. Now, I can’t see myself being without him.
He wipes the tears from my cheeks as they stream down my face. “I hope these are happy tears?”
I nod and sniff. “They are. I can’t see myself without you now. You mean more to me than you’ll ever know.”
“I think I have a pretty good idea how you feel,” he whispers before crushing his lips to mine.
He pulls away. “Come on. Dr. Shepherd sent me to get you. He wants to talk with us together.”
Tyke leads us back to the main house, hand in hand. I guess there’s no point in hiding what’s going on between us now that the secret’s out. The moment we enter the main house through the back door, we come face to face with Sue, who is busy at the island in the kitchen, preparing dinner.
“Frannie.” Sue arches an eyebrow at me.
I know she probably didn’t expect this from me after I was so adamant that this very thing would never happen, but what can I say—I’m in love. So I simply shrug as I pass her by, and she shakes her head and smiles.
We get the same reaction from the rest of the clients. They all seem to be shocked that we’re together, which at least means we hid our affair well.
Josie crosses her arms as we pass by her, her eyes examining me from head to toe while she wears a nasty scowl on her face. Obviously, she thinks the better woman has not won in this situation, but to hell with her—to hell with all of them who are judging me right now. I love this man.
When we make it to Wayne’s office, Tyke and I continue to hold hands as we take the seats facing the desk.
Wayne steeples his fingers and touches them to his lips as he takes in our show of solidarity. “So I see everything that Timothy and Tyke have filled me in on is true, Frannie?”
I sit a little straighter in my seat. “Yes. We are together.”
Wayne nods. “Clearly. And the Arnold situation . . . well, I would like you to know that he has been dealt with. Arnold was transferred to an inpatient psychiatric facility where he will be examined and held there until the physician on staff feels that he is no longer a threat to you or anyone else in society. We also confiscated his phone and deleted all 1,457 pictures and videos he had stored—most of them of you, by the way, so he should no longer be a problem.”
I relax a little in my chair, glad not to have to worry about a video of me having sex with Tyke being leaked all over the internet. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”
“While I can’t promise you that he won’t be released at some point in the future, knowing to be on the lookout can at least be of some comfort. But I wouldn’t fret too much if I were you. Arnold has lost touch with reality, and I think he’ll be locked up for quite a while.”
“Again, thank you, Wayne. That makes me feel a lot safer,” I tell him.
“Good, good. Well, the next order of business is the two of you,” Wayne says. “Since Mr. Douglas was a willing participant in the affair, I see no reason to involve the authorities, or anyone else for that matter. Because this occurred here, at my facility, typically I would be forced to let you go, but since Timothy has informed me that you had actually already prepared your letter of resignation, I will accept that and consider the matter at hand closed. This is a little unorthodox, but if you need a letter of recommendation, I would be happy to do that for you.”
My eyes widen. I didn’t expect this to be so easy. “That’s very generous of you. Why would you do that for me?”
“You really did some superb work here with the clients, Frannie. You took the time to get to know each of them as individuals, and giving them journals to help them express themselves was very impressive. I believe what occurred between you and Mr. Douglas was a one-time situation, and I trust that, in the future, you will be more careful when it comes to being intimate with a client.”
I put my hand up. “I promise you, this will never happen again.”
“It better not,” Tyke chimes in, and Wayne laughs.
Wayne st
ands and extends his hand out to me. “I wish you the best, Frannie. Tyke,” he turns and shakes Tykes hand, “take care, and remember you can always come back if you need to.”
Tyke shakes his head while he wraps his arm around my shoulder and pulls me into his side. “No need, Doc. I’ve got my own personal counselor now.”
Standing on the porch with Tyke, while we wait for our ride to pick us up, drives home the fact that I’ll never see this place again. The pure beauty of this place will never leave my mind. I’ve never been in a surrounding as peaceful as this. Serenity Hills is definitely a fitting name for this facility.
The screen door slaps closed behind me and Kimmy comes bouncing out in a bright orange skirt with an off-white top. Her blond hair is pulled into a high ponytail that swings as she makes her way toward me. “I wish you didn’t have to go, Frannie. We were just starting to be good friends.”
I poke my bottom lip out. “I know. It makes me sad that I won’t see you anymore. There’s always emailing and video chatting?”
She laughs. “In this place—doubtful. You know the signal is crappy here, but emailing is a definite must. You still have my address from when I wrote it down earlier, right?”
I nod. “I do.”
The moment the purr of a motor creeping up the drive catches our attention, Kimmy embraces me in a tight hug. “Take care, Frannie.”
“You too, Kimmy. Keep at the design school thing. You’ve got a real eye for that stuff,” I tell her.
“Frannie?” Tyke’s voice causes me to turn my gaze in his direction. “I’ll wait for you by the car.”
Tyke kisses my cheek and then grabs my bag off the porch and carries it out to his brother’s car.
“Have fun with the sexy man meat.” Kimmy gives me a wink before heading back into the house, leaving me alone on the porch.
I turn and gaze up at the tall columns of the porch, taking one last look before I turn and head toward Tyke, who is waiting for me with open arms.
“Slow Ride” – Foghat