Page 40 of Reckoning

Meyer

I didn’t know why I expected anything other than her unrelenting anger. When I spoke with Joshua before I left to stay at the office for the week, I was standing by the bed helplessly as he showed me her ragged fingernails and the bruises along her hands and arms from pounding on the door. I could barely breathe myself for the pain encircling my torso. My jaw ached as if broken. All I could focus on, however, was the woman before me, the fury still evident on her face despite a level of sedatives in her system that was enough to knock out someone twice her size. I reached forward to try to smooth away a wrinkle on her forehead, leaving behind a smear of my blood.

“Shit,” I muttered and picked up a damp washcloth. Did she know that the way she felt when she woke up on my floor the day after my birthday was how I woke up every day for years? Aching and bruised from head to toe, unable to think past the pain?

Probably not.

I didn’t want her to.

“Here’s some rubbing alcohol,” Joshua said, and I took it from him before kneeling at the bedside, placing one of her small hands in mine and dabbing at the cuts on her fingers with a soaked cotton ball. She hummed a little and tried to pull her hand away, but her muscles were too disconnected from her brain to do much. When the cuts were clean, I clipped away the frayed edges of her fingernails, then smoothed a moisturizing ointment over her hands and up her wrists. The process was rote memory by now. I just wasn’t used to doing it on another person.

“You shouldn’t let her see you like this. It will undermine your authority.”

“I know that,” I snapped, rising to my feet and wiping my hands on a towel. “I just … she’s my responsibility.”

Joshua nodded solemnly. “That she is.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose, wincing at the pain it caused before dropping my hand. “He doesn’t come here. Throw her over your shoulder and camp in the woods if you need to.”

Sighing, I took once last look at her before leaving the bedroom with Joshua on my heels. “I’ll be downtown. Just tell her I went somewhere on business. I’ll be back in a week, maybe less.”

“You should take the time to heal. You’re no use to her incapacitated.”

I resisted the urge to hit him.

“Keep her alive until I get back.”

Grabbing my bag, I ran to the garage and pulled out too fast, kicking up dirt and rocks with my back wheels as I sped toward the exit. As I passed the main house, Anita leaned against the gate, smiling and waving at me as I blew past her onto the open road.

Now that I was back and felt the brunt of her ire for myself, I thought I hadn’t felt half as powerless as I did the day I drove away from her.

*

She ate dinner with me, but only because I commanded it. She was silent the entire time, clattering silverware and chewing with her mouth open. I didn’t say a word and just let her be angry. She’d get over it eventually.

She went to bed right after dinner, excusing herself as I poured pure whiskey into my glass and drained half of it in one go. I turned to watch her walk up the stairs, admiring the way she swung her ass as if trying to taunt me. She probably was. But she turned the corner, and a moment later, a door slammed, and I was on my own again. Joshua watched me worriedly from the doorway, but every time he tried to sit with me, I shooed him away. I wasn’t interested in conversation with him. I just wanted to forget I’d ever given her the phone and go back to the barn when we were moments away from connecting on a level deeper than I’d ever dared myself to hope was possible. Whatever chances of that happening were, they were gone now. I didn’t doubt she’d never forgive me.

It was after midnight by the time I stumbled to my bedroom, falling through the door onto the carpet. It didn’t seem so scratchy to me; what was she always going on about? I pushed myself to my feet slowly, willing the liquid in my stomach to stay there and not spill all over the floor, and looked at the woman who was doing more to destroy me than my father ever could.

She was lying in my bed, her bare back turned toward me, and one arm underneath her head, hand stretched underneath her pillow. In my drunken state, it didn’t occur to me how strange this was; that she would profess to hate me in the afternoon and then turn up nearly naked in my bed at night. I leaned against the doorframe and took another drink of my whiskey, admiring the play of moonlight across her skin. There was a scar across the right side of her back, between her spine and her shoulder blade. What had caused it? An injury? Surgery?

I’d never get to ask her.

I downed what was left of my alcohol and stumbled toward her, the journey taking longer than it should have as my feet refused to listen to my brain, but eventually, I made it to the bed and sat next to her. She shifted slightly, hand moving beneath the pillow, but she didn’t wake.

“I’m sorry, Maddie.” I didn’t expect the words to come out so hoarse. I cleared my throat and dropped the glass to the floor; it thudded and rolled a few inches before slowing to a stop. “There was so much more I wanted to do for you. More I wanted to do for myself. But now …” I extended one finger and touched that scar gently; it was softer than the rest of her skin. “You just do the best you can.” A chuckle escaped me. “That’s silly. Of course you will. You always do.” My hand back in my lap, I sighed heavily. “Not me.”

Bending over made my head spin, but I did it anyway, wanting to be close enough to kiss her one last time. But I froze inches from her cheek, remembering how much she’d hated me first for violating her, then for keeping her from her family. I exhaled heavily and sat back up. I wouldn’t get a last wish. It was the least I could do to respect hers.

I fell against the bed several times as I walked around it to the bathroom, then shut the door behind me as quietly as I could. Only once the lock was turned did I flip on the light and pull from my pocket the sedatives that I used when I couldn’t sleep from the pain of dislocated ribs, a smarting black eye, emergency surgery to set a broken finger or toe when I fucked up at work and Conrad disciplined me at home. Joshua gave one to Madeline the night her parents were here, but I had just filled the prescription. There were plenty left.

I remembered my empty glass on the floor of the bedroom and thought about going to retrieve it, but I didn’t want to walk anymore. Looking around, I realized I was on the floor, back against the tub, laughing at my predicament. How did I get down here?

Pulling myself to my feet had the unintended consequence of spilling the pills all over the floor. Falling to my knees, I picked them up one by one and placed them in my palm. I kept a tight grip on them as I crawled to my feet and turned on the faucet. How many of these could I take at once? I squinted at the pills, which seemed to have doubled. That was fine.

Three in my mouth, a drink of water. Then three more. Then three more.

These worked fast; that was the point of them. And I was drunk enough that they seemed to double in strength, and then I was falling, the remainder of the pills clattering into the basin while I collapsed to my knees and knocked my teeth against the edge of the counter.

I tasted blood on my tongue, and my head hurt so much, but I was finally falling asleep for the last time, and there would be no more pain for me over there. Wherever that was. No chance of anyone finding me and fucking it up for me again. Maddie was asleep, and Joshua wouldn’t bother us. Not after last time.

The word faded at the edges until it was suddenly black, and I was left with nothing but the unsettling awareness of my own pulse, slowing beat by beat, and the smell of Madeline’s shampoo before I felt nothing at all.

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