Rescued Page 5

  “Ms. Perkins, I’m gonna go work on the dining room floor if that’s alright,” he said. “I’ll chat with you and Lorrie later.”

  He looked at me as he said my name. Yes, that would be nice. There was still a lot for us to talk about, but it would have to wait.

  “Of course dear,” my aunt replied. “Thanks for cleaning up.”

  He left for his home improvement duties, leaving me and my aunt at the kitchen table. Even if I had to wait to continue my talk with Hunter, I was finally alone with my aunt. Maybe I could finally get some answers from her at least.

  “Aunt Caroline,” I started, “I’m starting to wonder why you and Uncle Stewart are being so nice to Hunter.”

  She looked at me innocently. “What are you talking about?”

  “Come on, why did you invite him to stay over with us? It’s not that I don’t like it but I just don’t get it.”

  My aunt squinted and smiled bemusedly to herself. “Lorrie, I remember how everything was going between you and Hunter when you were still at Arrowhart. With you taking another leave from school and everything, your uncle and I think it would be good for you if you have something stable in your life.”

  I looked at her but didn’t say anything. Stable? Me and Hunter?

  “We want you to be happy Lorrie,” she added. “Whatever it takes.”

  I guess it did make me feel better to have Hunter around, even with everything that had happened between us. He could have just stayed in a motel and visited me, but maybe it was better this way. My aunt and uncle must’ve been really worried about me if they were willing to go to such lengths for my happiness. Aunt Caroline might have liked having Hunter around, but I had my doubts about how Uncle Stewart felt about it.

  My eyes wandered to the wall next to the kitchen table. It was covered in photos of the Perkins family. The two boys opening up Christmas presents. My aunt and uncle on their wedding day, smiling and happy. There was even a picture of me when I was just a baby, sitting in front of a coloring book.

  There were no pictures of my dad, though.

  “Why don’t you have any pictures of my dad up?” I asked.

  My aunt froze mid-sip for a split second, but continued to drink from her mug. I shifted in my seat, suddenly uncomfortable. Though we had talked about my mother’s death, Aunt Caroline and I almost never spoke about my dad’s suicide.

  She was quietly staring into her cup so I didn’t say anything. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up.

  “No reason, really,” she said. “We took the pictures down when we were redoing the kitchen and I guess I must’ve forgotten to put those back up.”

  It seemed like a strange reason, but I didn’t want to keep talking about it. What would my dad have thought? Would he be sad that we had forgotten him? Even though I knew it was stupid, I was a little worried that I might forget what his face looked like. My dream had scared me, however silly that seemed.

  “Can I see them?”

  She frowned for a split second before answering. “Of course. They’re all in that room at back of the basement with the rest of your father’s stuff.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I think I’ll go find them.”

  I got up from the table. Aunt Caroline looked thoughtful, but just nodded.

  I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, and maybe it was a bad idea to open old wounds, but then again, didn’t I tell Hunter that we couldn’t keep running from our problems? Now was as good of a time to face the past as any.

  Chapter Six

  MEMORIES

  I walked downstairs, flicked on the lights, and surveyed my surroundings. My aunt and uncle treated the basement mostly as a place for storage, and it showed. Cardboard boxes lined much of the space against the walls, and my cousins toys were scattered everywhere. Keeping my eyes on the ground, I weaved my way around Hot Wheels and Legos to the back room. I wanted to see my dad’s face again.

  I walked through the room’s door and flicked on the lights. It was even more crowded than the rest of the basement. The room was small and contained nothing but boxes of my dad’s things. An L-shaped path to the back right corner from where the door was hugging the left wall was the only thing that made the room somewhat navigable.

  I took a deep breath and pulled the lid off the box closest to my feet.

  Sitting on top of some binders were several drawings I had made as a child. I put the lid down, picked up the delicate stack of yellowing paper and began flipping through.

  Each of them was a colored pencil drawing of three people—a mommy, a daddy, and a little girl—in various settings. Several were in front of a house, one was in a park, another was on a beach. One of them even had a dog, which was a wish I’d had as a kid that had never been fulfilled. They were all drawn by a happy little girl from a happy family.

  As I stood there, flipping through some of my earliest art work, I began to shake. That little girl was gone. I was never going to feel the things I had felt when I was making those drawings ever again. The security and innocence I had felt in those days had been taken from me.

  Tears formed in my eyes and beaded down my cheeks. I wiped them away with my sleeve and put the drawings back into their box so I could keep looking for pictures of my dad.

  After sifting through several boxes I finally came to one with pictures in the back corner of the room. I shakily picked up a thick stack and began to flip through them.

  The first few were pictures of my aunt and uncle, but then I saw it. My eyes fell on an image of a college-aged man wearing a mustard-colored button down shirt and tan chinos. His dark, curly hair sat on his head youthfully, and he was clean-shaven. It was my father smiling happily for the camera, though I could barely recognize his boyish face. The picture had been taken well before I was born.

  My lips turned briefly up then down, and I looked around the room, waiting for tears to come. To my surprise, they didn’t. It was just like when I read his suicide letter. I felt like I should cry because that’s what people did, but when it came to my dad I just couldn’t.

  After a while, I returned to the picture. There he was, just as alive as I was now. Just as young. Now he was gone, and worse, he had taken his own life. I thought of his letter again.

  I just can’t, Lorrie.

  I bit my lip hard, but still no tears came.

  With a deep breath, I flipped to the next picture and felt a wave of nausea. It was a picture of my family not very different from the colored pencil drawings I had seen earlier. My parents had taken me to Lincoln Park in Chicago. Lake Michigan was in the background, and standing in front of it was my dad, a little older now and with shorter hair, his arm around my mom. Then there was me—standing not even up to my dad’s waist—with a giant stick of pink cotton candy and a toothy smile.

  We all looked happy, but my parents would get divorced ten years later, and then everything else would happen.

  Why? Why had Marco killed my mom? Why did all of this have to happen?

  Tears finally came. First some large beads in my eyes, then one quiet sob followed another as I stood there feeling stupid for coming down to the basement and doing this to myself.

  I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and looked at the picture again. My mom—her chestnut hair in a perfect nineties perm—looked a lot like I did now. Minus the perm, of course. I tried to imagine having a child in the next few years and couldn’t do it.

  It was hard to picture my future at all.

  A noise came from outside the room, and then I heard footsteps. I quickly rubbed my eyes, hoping to get rid of as much evidence of crying as possible, and held my breath.

  It was Hunter. He stopped in the doorway and seemed to evaluate what was going on. We locked eyes. “There you are,” he said. “I looked all over the house.”

  My vision began blurring again with fresh tears and he made his way through the room’s path until he was next to me. I held the photographs to my chest and buried my face in his hoodie. He put his arms around m
e and held me close.

  We stood embraced together in silence. Being close to his warmth felt reassuring and I was glad that he was here with me.

  After I’d finally composed myself, I pulled away and faced him. He waited patiently for me to speak.

  I took a deep breath and wiped my eyes once more. “I came down here to look for pictures of my dad,” I said, my voice mostly steady.

  Hunter motioned toward the pictures in my hand. “Did you find any?”

  As I began to answer a sob seized my chest and choked the words away from my throat. My vision went blurry again. I held the picture of my family in the park for him to see.

  He put a hand on my shoulder and I leaned into him, trying to stop my tears. Just when I thought I was calming down, a fresh wave of emotion overtook me. I tried hard to steady myself.

  Hunter pulled me closer into his chest and held the hand containing my family picture up for a better view. “Wow,” he said. “Is that you?”

  I nodded. “And my parents,” I added weakly. “Back when they were together. They got married young, then got divorced when I was a freshman in high school.”

  Then they were taken from me for no reason at all. I whimpered softly and I buried my face into Hunter again.

  He ran his hand through my hair and held me, saying nothing. After a few seconds I calmed down.

  “Do you remember when this was taken?” he asked.

  “I think so, but I’m not sure if I really remember it or just remember remembering it. We were at a park in Chicago, where I grew up. I guess it’s been so long that it seems like a story now.”

  He squeezed my shoulder. “I think that makes sense.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Everything just feels not real right now. With all the stuff that’s happened the last couple weeks, I mean.”

  “Yeah. Lorrie, I can’t tell you how sorry I am about the way—”

  “It’s not that!” I interrupted, more loudly than I had meant to.

  Hunter stopped cold as though I had hit him, but said nothing. I took a deep breath and gathered myself. The frustration that had been simmering since I got Marco’s letter was getting the better of me.

  “I’m sorry. I just meant that it’s not just the stuff that’s happened between us that makes everything feel strange right now.”

  He stayed silent and looked at me expectantly. My stomach churned as I thought about the letter Marco sent me. Having to talk about it made me so angry.

  “I mean, the reason I left really wasn’t you,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady this time. “Something else happened.”

  I looked at the picture of my parents while Hunter stayed quiet.

  “I got a letter from my stepfather,” I said firmly. My heart thumped rapidly in my ears.

  Hunter took a minute to process what I’d just said, then his eyes widened. “Wait, you mean . . .”

  I nodded and then broke down, hugging his torso with both arms until I left another wet spot on his sweatshirt wet with my tears.

  He brought me in closer. “Shit. I’m sorry, Lorrie. I shoulda been there for you when that happened.”

  I shook my head, pulled away, and took a deep breath. “It’s okay, you had a pretty good reason to be missing. I should have called you when I got the letter rather than a few days later.”

  His face slowly hardened. “What kinda sick bastard is this guy, anyway? Why did he send you the letter? How did he send it?”

  “I don’t know how it got through, but the letter just asked for me to write him back. He even had the nerve to ask for forgiveness and tell me he loved me.”

  “Did you write him back?”

  “No. I just went kind of numb after I got that letter. The whole thing’s a blur.”

  I considered whether to talk to him about my therapist’s suggestion to write him back, but I hadn’t even decided myself.

  “And that’s when you had your exams and stuff, right?”

  I nodded.

  He hugged me again. “I’m so sorry Lorrie. I shoulda been there for you. I coulda helped you.”

  “It’s okay. We both could have done things differently. I should’ve reached out for help sooner.”

  Hunter frowned and then took my free hand in his. “Lorrie, you’re never gonna have to reach very far because I’m gonna be right there by your side. If I have to save you from a freezing lake, I’ll jump in. If I have to follow you to the ends of the earth, I’ll find a way. If I have to crawl on the ground to be by your side, I’ll crawl to you until I’m next to you. There’s nothing that will stop me from being there for you, Lorrie. Not my MS, not anything.”

  The intensity with which he held my hand and said the words he said startled me. When I looked up into his gray eyes I not only knew he meant it, but that I wanted him to mean it. Desperately.

  “Hunter,” I whispered, tears emerging from my eyes and trailing down my face.

  We stood chest to chest. He took his hand from mine and touched my face lightly, wiping away my tears. His touch set my body aflame. My breaths shortened as I froze in my place.

  His hand came under my chin and tipped my head up toward his. He touched his lips to mine, tentatively at first then firmly, his warm mouth sealing against my lips with a desire so strong it made me tremble. I hugged my arms tighter around him, pressing my body against his as our tongues played softly.

  It was over before I was ready. One of my hands went from his back up to grip his short hair. I tried to pull him back down toward me, but he resisted.

  “Lorrie,” he moaned. “You said we can’t go too fast.”

  My eyebrows shot up and my eyes opened wide. “You don’t want to kiss me?”

  “Of course I want to kiss you, I just don’t want to mess things up between us again.”

  Part of me wondered if he had a point, but when I looked into his eyes I realized this was just where I wanted to be. I loved kissing him, and there was nothing wrong with it. If Hunter hadn’t come all this way to find me, I’d probably still be totally lost right now.

  “Hun, I really appreciate you listening to what I said yesterday. But I don’t think it’s going to hurt if you kiss me again, okay?”

  He paused a second, then his hands flew down to my butt and he hoisted me up quickly, his mouth crashing against mine. I gasped and then smiled against his lips, kissing him back. This was more like we were. This was okay.

  This time I was the one to break off the kiss, though I was still smiling. “Worried?”

  He made a show of considering my question. “Not really.”

  He started leaning back in for another kiss.

  “Lorrie?” my aunt called.

  It sounded like she was downstairs. I tapped Hunter’s shoulders and he put me down hurriedly. We both straightened our clothes and I flattened out the pictures still in my hand as best I could.

  She appeared in the doorway a few seconds later. “Oh, there you are Hunter. Are you two alright?”

  “I was just showing Hunter some pictures of my dad,” I said quickly.

  Her lips made a thin line and she nodded. “Okay. Well, don’t stay too long.”

  “We were just coming up,” Hunter said. “Plenty of work to do today.”

  Aunt Caroline smiled and then turned to go back upstairs without a word. Hunter gave my shoulder a quick squeeze and we made eye contact. His look was apologetic. I shrugged and nodded my understanding as he walked around the boxes in the room and out the door.

  When I was alone again, I looked down at the picture in my hand, the feeling of Hunter’s lips still fresh on my own. My dad was gone, but that didn’t mean I had to forget him.

  I decided to continue flipping through the pictures of him in my room. Stack in hand, I left the storage area and followed Hunter and my aunt upstairs.

  Chapter Seven

  MOVING ON

  When I came upstairs I found Aunt Caroline at the kitchen table writing out a list of groceries she had to get for the week
. Judging by the noise, Hunter was already back at work in the dining room.

  She looked up from her list as I came into the room. “So did you find some pictures of your father?”

  I stood for a moment and processed her question before flipping to the first picture I found of my dad and handing it to her.

  She took it hesitantly, looked at it, and put her hand to her mouth. “Oh my goodness, his hair! Bill had such beautiful hair when he was young.”

  I didn’t know what to do, so I did nothing. How long had those pictures been down there?

  “That is such a nice picture. What are you going to do with it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I just wanted to bring it to my room for now, I guess.”

  She tore her eyes away from the photo in her hand. “Okay. What are your plans for the day?”

  “For now I was just going to keep flipping through these in my room. It would be nice to have some pictures of him upstairs. Maybe I could go get some frames later at Target or something.”

  She winced, but quickly got her expression back to neutral and handed me the picture. I took it from her and went up to my room, thinking about her reaction to my idea of getting some pictures of my dad in the house.

  Once I was in my room, I plopped onto my bed, lay on my back on top of the off-white comforter, and began sifting through the pictures.

  They didn’t seem to be in any chronological order. I was in many of them, but there were also several with my dad’s cousins and other people I only remember seeing a handful of times at family reunions. All in all, I’d grabbed about twenty pictures.

  The picture that stuck out to me was toward the very back. It was a shot of my mom and dad on a tropical beach. They both looked like they might still be in college. The picture had definitely been taken before I was born.

  Seeing the way my parents were lovingly embraced made me think of my relationship with Hunter. Kissing him again had been a high and I definitely felt lucky that he had come after me. There was no doubt in my mind we needed each other.