Page 61 of The Wives of Hawthorne Lane
Georgina pushes open the door and steps into the room. She finds her daughter sitting on her bed, her knees tucked up against her chest, tears in her eyes. She looks so young to Georgina in this moment. Like a little girl. Although Georgina knows she’s not. She’s growing up so quickly. Christina is in that strange in-between time, suspended between being a girl and a woman, where she’s not fully either and yet the world expects both of her.
“Do you want to tell me what happened today?”
Christina props her head on her knees, her arms around her shins. “Not really.”
Georgina sits on the bed beside her and smooths her daughter’s golden-blond hair. “Libby already told me some of it.”
Christina’s bottom lip starts to quiver. “Is Lucas okay?”
Georgina nods.
“It was awful, Mom. So awful. I was with Lucas in the clearing.” Her cheeks pink.
“Go on,” Georgina encourages her, glossing over this small confession.
“We were sort of…well, we were kissing. And Sebastian showed up, and he hit Lucas. And oh my God, he was bleeding and stuff, and it got all over his shirt, and then I tried to stop Sebastian, but he just wouldn’t stop, and he hit him again…” She starts to cry, fat tears sliding over the round crests of her cheeks. “He didn’t have to do that, Mom. It wasn’t like Lucas was taking advantage of me or anything. Iwantedto be there with him. We’re sort of…together? Or at least we were. He’ll probably never want to see me again now. And we were just kissing. That’s all, I swear.” She sobs, burying her face in her knees.
“Christina,” Georgina says, her voice gentle and coaxing. “I need to explain something to you. Something very important.”
Christina slowly picks up her head, her watery eyes turning to her mother.
“Sebastian had no right to do what he did today,” Georgina continues. “It wasn’t his place. And it’s not mine or your father’s either. We have rules about boys and dating because you’re still young, and we don’t want you to make mistakes that you’ll regret when you’re older. I want you to understand what it means to love and feel loved and how special it is to be with someone who cares about you the way he should.”
“Lucas does.”
“I’m glad for that. I really am. But what I’m trying to say is that you are your own person and you get to make your own choices. Your value as a woman doesn’t lie in what you choose to do or not do with a boy.”
Christina’s face turns various shades of red, but Georgina knows that she needs to finish. She needs her daughter to hear this.Reallyhear it. Her daughter can—will—be so much more than she is.
“As your parent, I always want to you guide you and protect youwhenever I can, but I haven’t always gone about it the right way. In fact, I’ve made so many mistakes that I wish I could take back. But despite all of that, when I look at you, I see someone stronger, braver than I’ve ever been. You’re going to go so far in life. I just know it.”
“Mom?” Christina says. She pauses, her lips parted as if she wants to say more, but she closes them again.
“If there’s ever anything you want to talk about, anything at all, I’m here.” Georgina takes Christina’s hand in hers, gives it a reassuring squeeze. “I’ll always be here.”
36
Audrey
Hawthorne Lane
Audrey’s sneakers hit the deck of her treadmill in a steady pattern. She turns up the music streaming through the speakers of her home gym. It was part of the recent renovations she and Seth made to the house, a state-of-the-art gym in their finished basement. She’s been more grateful for it than ever these past few days, since Colin cornered her in the alley next to her office building.
Audrey hates to admit it, even to herself, but ever since that incident, she’s been somewhat afraid to leave her house. She’s avoided their local grocery store, driven her car into the office (despite the exorbitant cost of New York City parking), and she’s skipped her sessions with her personal trainer. None of it was worth running into Colin again.
Audrey picks up her pace, her feet thudding against the spinning band of the treadmill below her. She hates Colin. Hates that he’s made her a prisoner in her own home, too frightened to so much as collect the mail from her mailbox. Audrey has never been the type of person to shy away from…well, anything. But with one swift movement, Colin has managed to reduce her to a shaking, quivering wisp of a woman. She clenches her teeth, running harder as she thinks about it, the way she’d cowered and caved to him. The heart rate on her fitness watch ticks higher as she remembers the feel of his hands gripping her arm, her throat. The way she’d been so meek and pliant—“Yes, Colin”; “No, Colin”—the way he’d smiled, his voice in her ear like a purr: “Good girl.”
Audrey refuses to be that person ever again. She’s stronger than that, stronger than he thinks she is. And next time he comes for her, she’s going to be ready. She’s not going down without a fight.
That’s the part that’s stuck in her mind, that’s haunted her in the early-morning hours while she lies awake listening to Seth snoring in bed beside her. Why hadn’t she fought? Why hadn’t she kicked and screamed and clawed at him? Why had she crumbled into dust, letting him trail his fingers over her body even though they’d felt like razor blades against her skin?
She senses movement in the fitness mirror mounted on the far wall of the gym. Seth is back from picking up their dinner. She dials down the pace of the treadmill, slows herself to a stop, and clicks the remote to cut off the music, which she now realizes was blasting over the whir of the treadmill. Audrey takes a sip from her water bottle and whisks the sweat from her brow with the small towel she keeps looped around the bar of the treadmill.
“That was fast,” she says, sweat dampening the black Lycra sports bra she wears as a top. Her body feels good after her run, fit and strong. This was exactly what she’d needed.
Seth offers no response, and Audrey turns to face him. But it isn’t Seth hovering in the doorway like a specter. It’s Colin.
Audrey gasps, and Colin casually steps into the room and shuts the door behind him. Suddenly it feels like her air supply has been cut off. Audrey panics, scanning the walls, the few shoebox-size windows near the ceiling, the firm surface of the thick metal door. Seth had insisted on that door. He wanted to soundproof the gym, isolate it from the rest of the house so he could write in peace while Audrey worked out. There’s no escape, she realizes now. She’s trapped down here. With him. Her breathing quickens.
