Page 13 of Corrupting Ivy

“Yep.”

I don’t know what I was doing. Getting involved with other people’s problems is not what I do. I keep to myself, and it works for me. But there was this compulsion to help her, tearing my sensibilities right out from under me.

The dark, sleepy town sat quiet, allowing our footsteps to echo off the rundown buildings as we passed by.

“I didn’t catch your name,” she asked, stumbling over a piece of crumbling sidewalk. If she falls on her ass one more time, I would have no problem leaving her there to fend for herself.

I sighed. Here came the small talk… “Randall.”

“Randall. That’s a nice name. It’s my first time meeting someone named Randall.”

I’d be happy to be your first for many things.

“I’m Ivy. Do you live here? I haven’t seen you around since I’ve lived here, and I practically know everyone.”

A perfect name for someone who had the possibility of ruining me. A poison. An itch that shouldn’t be scratched, or the urge would spread like cancer. “I grew up here,” I said as leaves skittered across the asphalt in the breeze, bringing along with it the scent of cow manure and oil from the fields down the way.

She laughed, the sweet sound filling my ears. “So you do then?”

I glanced at her, her lip between her teeth, stifling her laugh. How much further was her home?

“Not anymore.”

“You’re not one for idle chit-chat, are you?”

Ivy paused at a metal staircase attached to the brick wall that had been there for decades, bringing the small-talk to an end.

So she suckered old man Walter into giving her a room above the diner. Walter always took in the strays—a bleeding heart, that one.

“I’m not much for talking.”

Consider it one of the sticky residues of my childhood, left over like a stain on my adult life. Talking too much in Ma’s home, or talking over her, was a sure-fire way to be locked in the closet or beaten with the switch.

“I get that. I didn’t talk for a while after…” Her words trailed off as she tensed. “Thank you for walking me home.”

She climbed the stairs that looked as though they could collapse in a slight breeze and dug her key out of her pocket as she hit the top.

Ivy was safe… for now.

There wasn’t a bone in my body that wasn’t screaming at me to watch her in her home all night just to make sure that asshole didn't come through her door, but I shoved it down and tried to disconnect that switch of emotion that tried firing up.

I spun on my heel and walked away before I gave into that urge to become like Alek—obsessing over a woman.

“Randall,” she called out to me.

I stopped but didn’t turn around.

“It’s a night of firsts for me, so before you go judging me, just know, I’ve never done this before.” She paused, and I still refused to turn around. “Do you want to come in? I have a couch you can sleep on. It’s better than the chairs that I’ve banished you too from locking us out.”

I stared out into the shadowy distance.

The old businesses that were around even when I was a kid were dim and vacant until morning. Bright stars twinkled in the night sky as this eerie silence engulfed us while I wrestled between what I wanted to do and what I should do. Something that was always in sync… until her.

Turning around, I caved in. It was better than being eaten alive by mosquitoes and sleeping, sitting up in the wide open with barely any protection, aside from the knife I took from Ma’s truck.

I climbed the stairs and watched her tense smile contort the closer I got.

“You sure that’s such a good idea?”

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