Page 36 of Hideaway Whirlwind
“You thought—” Elliott rushes past me to throw himself out the back door and jump down the stairs. He clutches his middle, doubles over, and heaves into a dead bush gone scraggly with the freeze along the siding. “No,” he says, gasping for breath when he’s finished, a vein bulging at his temple.
The chill sets in the longer we’re outside, and I hug myself, rubbing my arms as my teeth start to chatter. “But—”
“I neverexpectedsex. I wanted you, Birdie. I wanted you,all of you, not just your body.” The nextlookhe gives me is one as if I’ve stabbed him in the heart and twisted the knife, and he asks in the most tormented voice I’ve ever heard, “Did you have to force yourself to have sex with me?”
“Not after the first time,” I say quietly. “I wanted to after that.” More than that, I secretly looked forward to it. Craved it. Cravedhim. Never wanted the night to end.
My admission does nothing to ease his agony, and Elliott doubles over again. When he stands and swipes the back of hishand across his mouth, I shove the knife in deeper, as much into myself as him. I have to. He needs to know that there can never be anus.
“But that doesn’t mean I want to be in a relationship,” I tell him. The fact that it doesn’t ring true, either, as I consider what a life would be like with Elliott—if who he has presented himself to be is, in fact, the real him—is terrifying. I have to break the pattern that my mom started and I’ve followed, if not for myself, then for Sydney and Kendall.
Tears roll down Elliott’s colorless face into his beard. He nods once, then turns and walks away, picking up the pace until he’s full-on running across the yard into the woods.
“Elliott,” I call out, rushing down the stairs. “Wait!” He’s not wearing any shoes or socks, and his thin T-shirt isn’t enough to keep him warm. “Elliott!”
I make it to the treeline, tripping over a branch I hadn’t seen in the dark, crashing shoulder-first into a tree trunk. I will my eyes to hurry up and adjust as I look left and right, even turning in a circle, taking two more precarious steps in my socks that are already soaked through with slush, my feet turning numb. But it’s as if Elliott has become one with the night, as big and still and silent as the trees.
“Come back! Elliott, please!” My voice grows quieter, my throat raw. “Please, come back,” I can barely say at last, shivering so hard that it twists my stomach, and I think I’m going to throw up, too. I didn’t mean for it to happen this way. For any of this to happen.
When I completely lose feeling in my feet, I finally trudge back to the cabin and give the woods one last sweeping glance from the deck, holding my breath as I listen for the sound of his footsteps or heavy breathing. But all I hear is the whistle ofthe wind and the slow-moving, thawing creek. “Please, come back,” I whisper, tears frozen to my cheeks as I think about what could happen to Elliott with hardly a stitch of clothing on if he doesn’t come home soon. “Please.”
Storm scratches at the door, and I finally turn my back to let her out of the cabin. Instead of bounding down the steps to use the restroom, she faces the yard and barks a few times, waits, then barks again. When nothing answers her back, she sits and stares up at me, cocking her blocky head to the side.
“I messed everything up,” I tell her, stroking her ears. I can’t leave my babies to follow Elliott into the woods and force him to come back home, if I were even able to find him, which I doubt I could. And I have no way of calling anyone for help, either.
Storm noses my hand, then trots into the cabin. I follow her inside and down the hallway, where she circles her puppies in the second spare bedroom. So I do the same, climbing into bed with my babies and throwing my arm over them. They’re my whole world and the very reason why I can’t let myself get sucked into anything that could threaten the future I want to give them.
Now that they’ve started, the tears won’t stop coming. My babies and I are safe and warm and comfortable while Elliott is out there, alone in the dark, and it’s all my fault. It always is.
Elliott
Birdie’s fading voice is like jagged glass shredding me from the inside out as I push deeper into the woods, and I only stop moving when she stops calling out for me. As much as I’d like to keep walking and never look back, never have to face her or reality ever again, I simply can’t. Not when she’s still outside, exposed, and hurting—even if she hurt me first.
Hardly lifting my feet from the ground when I return to the treeline in a crouch so as not to make any noise, I watch Storm come outside and bark a few times before nudging Birdie into the cabin. Only then do I sit with my back against a tree trunk, ignoring the cold that burrows deep into my bones and black heart.
I unlock my phone and open my photos app, tap select, then tap on every single picture I’ve taken since meeting Birdie. I even go so far as to hover my finger over the trash can icon to delete the pictures. But no matter how much I argue with myself that I should get rid of them for my own good and forget about the little family I’ve come to think of as mine, I can’t do it. I can’t do anything but torture myself, once again, by replaying every interaction Birdie and I have had, seeing them all in a new light. She wasn’t lying to me or herself when she said nothing was real. I just hadn’t wanted to believe it.
Though I have nothing left in my stomach, I twist sideways to heave again, thinking of what it must have felt like for Birdie to go through with having sex with me when she didn’t want to. How disgusting and traumatizing that must have been.
I was so delusional. A downright fool. I bought into the mythical whirlwind bullshit that everyone espouses and thought I had been lucky enough to be chosen. That Birdie hadbeen chosen for me. I’m old enough to know better. Nothing and no one would ever choose me after what I’ve done. Not even myself.
Chapter 17
Teagan
I fly out of bed when Storm howls her head off from the front of the cabin, tripping and landing on my hands and knees when my feet get tangled in the comforters and sheets.
“Mommy!” Sydney is already crying when she sits up in bed, hugging Kendall tight as Kendall does her polar bear. “What’s happening?”
I lunge up and toward the door. “Stay here!” I lock the bedroom door from the inside before I leave, my heart beating so fast in my chest I’m worried it’s going to give out on me, my head pounding with a headache after crying myself to sleep last night.
Storm’s barking nearly drowns out the repeated knocks on the front door, her hackles raised, and I wish more than ever Elliott were here.
“Re—” I think better of commandingreleaseas Elliott had done to get her to relax. If it’s Priscilla out there, then I’ll be grateful to have Storm standing with me between Priscilla and the kids.
I drag a kitchen chair toward the pantry on the left wall andclimb onto it, rolling up on my tiptoes to reach Elliott’s sawed-off shotgun he keeps hidden from little hands on the top shelf. With no idea how to use Elliott’s gun, or if it’s even loaded, I hold it up the way I’ve seen him do. Only then do I peek through the front window, my shoulders sagging when I see who it is.
“Release,” I tell Storm with my hand on the doorknob. Instantly, she calms and trots off a few feet, though the hair on her back is still raised. I, on the other hand, struggle with turning the deadbolt and letting our visitors inside. I already miss Elliott, and we haven’t even left yet.
