Breathe (15 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Abby

I jumped from the truck before Garrett had even shifted into park. I raced up the walkway and through the double doors, heading for the locker rooms where I was sure I’d stashed a spare swimsuit. I had exactly eighteen minutes to get dressed and warmed up.

“You’re late, Rhoades,” Coach Scott yelled as I raced by. “And what in the hell are you wearing?”

I didn’t bother answering but I looked down at my heels and my blue dress as I changed. I had to have looked pretty foolish but if I could’ve, I’d have worn it forever. Stayed in that moment with Garrett forever.

I pulled my swimsuit on and stuffed my hair under a cap. “Cutting it close, don’t you think?” Jeff asked while I stretched beside the pool. I was surprised he was even speaking to me after last night.

“About last night,” I started.

“Don’t worry about,” he said. “I always knew you had a thing for Garrett. It’s no big deal. You too look good together. Besides, I got to hook up with Zoe last night, so I should thank him for that one.” He nodded his head toward the crowd and I looked up to find Garrett in the bleachers, sitting there still clad in his tuxedo. He looked ridiculous but he’d refused to go home and change, saying he didn’t want to miss my race.

I won my first race for him and not for the scouts and when I pulled myself up out of the water, I looked for him in the stands and not for the two men up front in their suits. But when I looked to the spot where he’d been earlier, he was gone.

“Looking for your little boyfriend,” a familiar voice asked from behind me. I turned to find Paul Ford standing there with a smug look twisting his face into a cruel expression. “You won’t find him.”

“And why’s that?”

“Sheriff just took him down to the station for questioning. ‘Bout time too. Finally, someone’s gonna pay for what happened to my brother,” Paul told me and then walked away before I could reply.

“You’re up in two minutes, Rhoades,” Coach Scott called so I ran over to where he stood.

“I have to go,” I told him.

“What? Have you lost your mind?” He pointed to the two men sitting in the bleachers. “They’re here for you. To see what you can do. To offer you a future. Why on God’s green Earth would you need to leave?”

“Sheriff Wilson just took Garrett down to the station,” I confessed. “Because of something I did. I have to help him.”

“You really gonna throw away everything you’ve worked for over some boy?”

“He’s not just some boy. He’s your son,” I cried, surprised that Coach Scott wasn’t more concerned that the police had taken his son.

“So I know better than anyone that he’s not worth it.”

“You’re wrong,” I told him. “Garrett’s worth more than everyone in this town put together. More than swimming. More than scholarships. I don’t need any of it so long as I have him. I’d waste away in this town willingly so long as he was by my side.” Once the words were out there I knew that I meant them. That Garrett meant more to me than anything else in the world. That the dreams I’d had had only made sense when I’d dreamed that Garrett was with me. If he wanted to stay in Little Bend and work a ranch, I’d stay.

I pulled a pair of running shorts on over my bathing suit and stepped into a spare pair of sneakers that were sitting at the bottom of my locker, then I ran into town toward the police station. “Garrett didn’t do it,” I practically shouted at Sheriff Wilson when I burst through the station door. Sheriff Wilson looked up at me, puzzled, then led me into the closet-sized room and set me down in a chair. “Start at the beginning,” he told me and so I did.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It started that first night at the river with Garrett, when I’d returned home late, wearing only Garrett’s sweater. I was sure Tom and Maggie would be at the bar, so I hadn’t bothered to get dressed. It was stupid but I’d wanted to stay wrapped in Garrett’s clothing for as long as I could.

Tom was home, sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for me when I walked through the front door. He startled me and I’d dropped my clothes to the floor. “You’re late,” he told me and I knew he was just looking for a fight. After all, I didn’t have a curfew, so how could I have been late?

“Where you been?” he asked when I didn’t reply. I started toward my bedroom. I knew there was no talking to him when he got like that. But he cut me off, exiting the kitchen into the hallway and blocking my route.

“What do you want, Tom?” I asked.

“I want to know where you’ve been. You were with that boy, weren’t you? Of course you were.” He leaned in. Took a whiff of my hair. “I can smell him on you.”

“I was at the river. Swimming.”

“And this is what you wear to go swimming, huh?” he asked, lifting the hem of the sweatshirt, revealing my wet underwear. I smacked his hand away so he slapped me across the cheek so hard I tasted blood. Thankfully he was drunk. He stumbled a little from the effort and I was able to get around him, into my bedroom. I locked door. Listened to him pounding away on the wood, telling me that I wasn’t to see Garrett again. That he wouldn’t have me walking half-dressed through town, embarrassing him.

Monday night, the night Tom died, Garrett called while I was working my shift at the bar. Asked me to meet him at the river that night. So I asked Uncle Jim if I could leave early. That way I could still be home on time and Tom wouldn’t know where I’d been. But Tom was waiting for me outside my uncle’s bar. Corned me in the alleyway. He asked me where I was headed so I lied and told him home.

“I’ll take you,” he offered, but I refused. “I’d rather walk,” I told him and then he hit me, this time jamming his fist into my stomach. He grabbed me by the wrist, tried to pull me to his car but I resisted. I pulled away and he slapped me across the cheek, sent me flying to the ground. I put my hands out to stop myself and winced in pain when my palms met the gravel.

“See what you made me do?” he accused and pulled me to my feet by my hair. I remember praying that Uncle Jim would walk out the door. That he would see Tom and what he’d done to me. I remember wishing Uncle Jim would kill him. I remember wanting him dead.

But no one came to save me and then I was in the passenger seat of Tom’s Buick but he wasn’t taking me home. “You wanna swim, Abby? I’ll take you swimming,” he told me. “It’ll be fun. Just like old times.”

He drove us down to Waverly. To the spot where we went swimming that first night when Tom had kissed me. When he’d told me I was beautiful.

I didn’t want to get out of the car when he parked. I had this terrible feeling that if I did, I wouldn’t be coming back. That all those wishes I’d made to become a part of the river would finally come true.

Tom opened the passenger side door, yanked me from the car. I fell onto my knees in the grass. He stripped down to his underwear. He pulled my up, told me to get undressed. I shook my head no and he hit me again. Pushed me to the ground, kicked me in the stomach. I heaved and vomited on the grass and he kicked me again. I rolled over and I kicked back at him. I wasn’t thinking. I just wanted to make him stop. I hit him square on the knee but it didn’t stop him. Just fueled his rage.

He got on top of me and I felt my stomach lurch again. He pinned my hands above my head with one hand and shoved the other up my shirt. I screamed and I thrashed beneath him but I couldn’t get him off. He was too big. Too strong. He kissed me on the mouth and I wanted to puke. He asked me if I still loved him and I spit in his face. “Come on, Abby,” he said, slapping me across the cheek again. “Be a good girl, Abby. You love me, right, Abby?”

He released my hands to undo the buttons on my jeans. He was looking down and I knew it was the only chance I’d get. I knew that he’d kill me when he was through with me. I scoured the ground with my fingertips for anything I could use and I came upon a rock. It was large. Hard and heavy and I could get my hand around it. I grasped it with my fingers and swung up, hitting Tom on the side of his head.

Blood splattered my face, my shirt and Tom collapsed, falling off of me and on to the ground. I pushed myself to my feet. Kicked him in the gut with all my strength and then I kicked him in the face. Again and again. I kicked him until I didn’t have the power to kick no more. Then I sat down on the beach and called the one person I knew would help me, no question asked. I called Garrett.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Abby,” Sheriff Wilson said when I’d finished telling my story. “I want to thank you for coming in here. For telling the truth. But I didn’t arrest Garrett for Tom’s murder.”

“But Paul…”

“Paul lied to you. I brought Garrett down here to ask about the break-in at Dr. Cross’ office. He left his jacket. Rented it from a place in Carthage. Turns out the store owner uses serial numbers on a patch sewed right into the lining for tuxes he rents out. Led us right to Garrett.”

“That wasn’t Garrett’s fault either. I asked him to. To protect Charlie.”

“I figured as much, but since Dr. Cross isn’t pressing charges, there’s not much I’m gonna do about it. I just wanted to scare him. In fact, I already had Karen drive Garrett back to the school to get his truck.”

“Oh, so what now?”

“Well, we found Tom’s car in Waverly,” he stood up and paced the other side of the room again, like he did the first time he questioned me about Tom’s death. “How did you get home that night? Did you call Garrett to pick you up?”

I nodded.

“And he knew? He knew what Tom Ford tried to do to you that night?”

“Not all of it. I couldn’t tell him all of it. But he knew enough. He knew that I had killed Tom.”

“Abby,” Sheriff Wilson said, taking a seat on the table in front of me. “I know you didn’t kill Tom Ford.”

“Yes, I did,” I argued. “It wasn’t Garrett. It was me. I hit him with a rock. I watched him bleed.”

“I believe you, I know you did. But Tom didn’t die from no strike to the head. Someone shot him, Abby. Point blank with a shotgun, right between the eyes.”

Chapter Twenty

Abby

I left the station on the verge of tears. If Garrett went to prison now it would be because of me. And not just because I’d dragged him out to Waverly that night.

Crossing Main Street toward Uncle Jim’s bar, I tried to devise a plan. I couldn’t take it back now.
“Oh, I’m sorry Sheriff Wilson. Did I say Garrett was there? I must have misspoke,”
wouldn’t exactly go over well.

Nothing good’s ever come from lying
, he’d told me the day they found Tom’s body. But it seemed nothing good’s ever come from being honest either. I’d told the truth and it’d backfired. Big time. I’d practically put the needle in Garrett’s arm myself.

By now Sheriff Wilson would be on the phone seeking a warrant for Garrett’s truck. For Garrett’s shotgun. I didn’t want to believe that Garrett would’ve gone back after he dropped me at home that night. Why would he? What could he possibly have hoped to accomplish? Maybe he’d gone back to clean up the mess. To hide the evidence. He would have done that for me. I know he would’ve. Maybe Tom had attacked him. Maybe he’d had no choice but to shoot him. But why would he have taken his shotgun with him in the first place? If the blow to Tom’s head hadn’t been violent enough to kill him, what Garrett did—that was premeditated murder.

I let myself into the bar through the back door. Becca’s Tahoe was parked in the alleyway and I rummaged through my uncle’s office searching for her purse. It was under his desk with the keys on top. I snatched them and dashed back to the alley before anyone could see me.

Starting the car, I prayed Becca would forgive me for taking it without permission. Of course, it wouldn’t matter now. Once I went down this road, I’d never be able to look back.

I raced through town, careful to avoid speeding, and stopped at my apartment. I stuffed what clothes I could into my gym bag and grabbed the cash I’d been saving from its hiding spot beneath a floorboard under my bed. It wasn’t much but it would get us far enough away. I could wait tables in another town; Garrett could take what jobs he could. We could make this work. Climbing back into the Tahoe, I headed for Garrett’s house and hoped he’d be home or this whole Grand Theft Auto stunt would be pointless.

A black pickup truck sat at the end of the Scott’s driveway. I parked the Tahoe along the curb, ran through the yard to the front door, and entered without bothering to knock. It wasn’t locked. Nobody in Little Bend ever bothered to lock their doors.

The door opened into a large foyer with a living room to my left and a dining room to the right. There was a set of stairs straight ahead and behind that, down a hallway to the left, a door that looked to lead to the kitchen. I didn’t know which of the closed doors upstairs led to Garrett’s room and it seemed unseemly to go around opening bedroom doors hoping one would lead me to him. “Garrett,” I shouted up the stairs instead. “Garrett!”

“Can I help you?” a woman appeared in the doorway to the kitchen and asked. Garrett’s mother I assumed. I knew I should’ve introduced myself or at least said hello but I hadn’t the time.

“No,” I replied as I rushed up the stairs, hollering Garrett’s name some more. When I hit the landing a door opened and Garrett stepped out into the hallway, pulling iPod buds from his ears.

Folding at the middle, I placed my hands on my knees and tried to catch my breath. “Garrett,” I breathed and he laughed.

“What are you doing, Ab?”

Straightening up, I closed the distance between us and flung myself against him, wrapping my arms around his neck and laying my head against his chest. Once the initial shock of my unexpected embrace wore off, he wrapped his arms around me and bent to kiss the top of my head.

“What’s wrong, Abby?” he asked.

I looked up and into his fathomless blue eyes. “Come with me,” I pleaded. “I want to leave this place, just you and me.”

“Abby—“

“There no time to think about it, Garrett. If we’re going, we gotta go now.”

He smiled and I finally relaxed. “There’s nothing to think about.” He tilted my chin up with his fingertips and brushed my jaw line with his thumb. “Let me get a few things. I’ll meet you at the truck.”

My heart soared and I felt a lightness within me that I’d previously only felt in the water. I didn’t need swimming to make me whole any longer. I had Garrett and he had me.

Mrs. Scott wasn’t at the bottom of the stairs where I’d left her in my wake and I made it to the truck without having to face the woman whose son I was planning to steal. But when Garrett exited the house a few seconds later, carrying his gym bag, his mother followed behind him and from where I stood, I could hear her beg him not to go.

“Let him go,” Coach Scott appeared and told his wife. “If he wants to throw away his life for some whore, let him.” It took a moment for me to realize that he meant me and it stung more than it should’ve because it was coming from a man who I believed had cared about me. But after the way he’d treated his own son’s arrest that morning, I shouldn’t have been surprised.

“I’m sorry, Ma,” Garrett hugged her and said.

“Get back inside, Katherine,” Coach Scott ordered.

Garrett extracted himself from her embrace and handed me his bag, which I promptly placed next to mine in the bed of the truck. He opened the passenger side door for me and brushed my cheek with is roughened hand when I passed him to climb inside. He was headed for the driver’s side when I saw Coach Scott strike his wife across the face with the back of his hand.

Garrett was on him in an instant. I struggled to undo my seatbelt and get out of the car while Garrett punched him in the gut and forced him against the side of the house. I helped Mrs. Scott to her feet as Garrett’s hand closed around his father’s throat.

“In case you’ve failed to notice, I’m not a little boy anymore,” Garrett growled, low and threatening. “She won’t leave you, and God help her that’s her right. But if you lay a hand on her or my brother, ever again, I swear to you it won’t matter how far from this place I go. I’ll find out, I’ll come back here, and I’ll make sure you regret it.”

Coach Scott sputtered under the crushing weight of Garrett’s grip. I thought his head might pop. But Garrett released him, flinging him to the ground as if he were a ragdoll. Then he grabbed my hand, practically dragging me back to the truck.

He glanced sideways at me as he backed the truck down the driveway and onto the road. Though leaving had been my idea he seemed more sure than I felt. I wondered if that’s why we were friends all these years. I’d always pushed people away before they could get close and see what Maggie was really like. But Garrett…Garrett was always there, as sure of us then as he was now. I couldn’t have pushed him away if I’d tried. And Lord knows I had.

“Where we headed?” he asked as his house disappeared from the rearview.

“Can we just drive awhile?”

“I’m gonna at least need a direction, Ab.”

“West. California.”

When he laughed, light and airy, like the whole world wasn’t barreling down on us, I wanted to reach over, grab his face, and kiss him hard. “You really want to live with movie stars and a bunch of people who are more plastic than flesh?” he asked.

“It’s where my father’s from. Besides, I want to put as much land between us and Little Bend as possible. Three thousand miles seems far enough.”

“Any farther and we’d end up in the ocean.”

Reaching over, he put his hand on my exposed knee. I covered it with my own hand and he sighed like he was relieved. Like he’d been terrified of touching me.

The truck was as clean as always and the shotgun—the one that could condemn him—was in the rack behind our heads. I wondered if he kept it as clean as he did the truck. If I reached back and ran my hand along the side of it, would I find pieces of Tom? His blood? Evidence of what Garrett had done for me?

It should have frightened me more than it did. Logic dictated that I shouldn’t be running away with a murderer. I shouldn’t have left the swim meet that could have solidified my place at Penn State next year. I shouldn’t have stolen Becca’s truck and left it clear across town. And I definitely shouldn’t have been sitting there ecstatic that Garrett’s hand was on my knee. Then again, I’d asked Garrett to love me when I thought I was a murderer. How could I turn my back on him now?

“Take back roads,” I instructed. Garrett’s eyebrows knit together but he didn’t speak. I knew we’d have to stop hiding eventually. If I really wanted him to take me west, we’d have to cross the river and we’d need the bridge to do that.

He released my knee and turned the radio on, flipping through stations until he found one that was actually playing music. A country song—George Jones. One of Uncle Jim’s favorites about a man who never gave up on his love—he keeps old letters and photos, and hangs onto the hope that she’ll come back again. The song reaches its peak with the chorus, with old George telling us that he finally stopped loving her, on the day that he died. It’s a somber tune, one I’d listened to Uncle Jim croon in the bar on many occasions but never really listened to.

Garrett turned onto Bridge Street and I held my breath, praying we’d make it across and out of Sheriff Wilson’s jurisdiction. Main Street and Blackwater Bridge—a two-lane stone arch bridge—came into view.

Crossing the intersection at Main Street seemed to last an eternity and when we’d finally made it a black Dodge Charger appeared in the rearview mirror. It followed us quietly until we were on the bridge, then the driver turned on his red and blue lights and gave a quick blast of his siren.

“What the…” Garrett started. I could feel the truck begin to decelerate.

“No,” I shouted. “Don’t stop. Just go. Please.”

“Abby, what the hell? I can’t just not stop,” he replied but he released the brake. A second and third car appeared and one sped around into the eastbound lane to pass the truck. Up ahead, the cruiser turned to its side and stopped, blocking both lanes of traffic.

Garrett braked and shifted the truck into park. “You want to tell me what’s this is about?”

Turning toward him I could see the confusion in his eyes. The hurt. I felt even worse than before. This was all my fault. Sheriff Wilson was going to arrest Garrett again, this time for real, and he was going to send him to jail. “I’m so sorry, Garrett.” The words weren’t enough. Couldn’t even come close to expressing how sorry I was. How could an apology make up for ruining someone’s life? All I’d wanted was to get us out of this place and now, because of me, Garrett was about to go somewhere infinitely worse than Little Bend.

“I thought they’d arrested you this morning for Tom’s murder,” I confessed.

Through the window I could see Sheriff Wilson open his cruiser door. So he’d been the one to pass us. He turned off his siren, stepped out of the car, and leaned against the inside of the open door.

“I told him what happened that night. What Tom tried to do to me. I told them it was me that killed him and not you.”

“What you did was self defense.”

“But what you did wasn’t.”

“Abby, what are you talking about? You think I—

Sheriff Wilson’s voice cut Garrett off, filled the air, amplified by a megaphone. “I’m gonna need you two to step out of the truck,” he ordered, his calm voice, almost gentle, belying the authority underneath.

The river moved below us, away from Little Bend. Taunting me with its freedom. Calling me toward it. I wanted it to swallow me. To drag me down into its depths. To hide me beneath a placid exterior. I’d done this. I’d opened my mouth and placed Garrett and his gun at the scene of the crime. How would he ever be able to forgive me? How would I ever be able to forgive myself?

A Taylor Swift song played on the radio—a song about white horses and shattered promises. About how life wasn’t a fairy tale. I guess we all couldn’t have happy endings.

“Abby, I…” Garrett tried again.

“Keep your palms raised and leave the doors open,” Sheriff Wilson’s instructions continued.

“I’m sorry,” I said again then opened the door. I stepped out and Garrett did the same. We walked until we met at the front grill. Garrett looked at me. “I love you,” he vowed and he reached for my hand. I took it in my own, turned to him and wrapped the other around the back of his neck. I pulled him to me. Kissed him like I was afraid I’d never be able to taste his lips again. For all I knew it could be the last time I’d ever be able to touch him. Garrett surrounded me. Enveloped me in his arms. I felt free and safe and wholly loved for the first time in my life. Garrett loved me. Did anything else matter at that point?

Hands gripped my waist. Pulled me from Garrett. I felt the growing distance between us in my bones. They ached. I ached. I ached because I couldn’t feel him anymore. Because I wasn’t whole anymore. Because like Becca’s miscarried baby, a part of me was being torn from my soul.

I fought the hands restraining me. I fought to return to the safety of Garrett’s arms. Uncle Jim spun me around, picked me up, and carried me away, kicking and screaming, back toward Sheriff Wilson’s cruiser.

Tears blurred my vision and I watched Karen and two other deputies force Garrett to his knees. They handcuffed his hands behind his back. Someone was wailing, tortured and brutal like, and I realized that it was me. I cried and screamed and fought. I wanted Garrett with me. But Uncle Jim wouldn’t let me go. He held on to me until we were in the back of Sheriff Wilson’s Charger. Held tighter as we drove away from the bridge. Away from the river. Away from Garrett.