Page 26 of Safe
If left to my own devices, it was damn near impossible to just forget what had happened in the bathroom. I spent the rest of the drive doing a lot of contemplating. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was about Danielle that had piqued my interest. She was nothing like Riley. Riley was quiet, shy, and timid. And Danielle, well, Danielle was a spitfire. If I had met Danielle a year ago, or met her under any other circumstances, I would have written her off as high-maintenance and stubborn, not worth the trouble to me. I couldn’t quite pinpoint if I was so intrigued by her because I knew the exact circle of Hell that molded her into the person she was, or if it was something else.
The drive was almost as insufferable as her attitude towards me. The long stretches of flat, empty land did nothing to distract me from the tangled mess I was trying to sort out. I didn’t need this shit. I was perfectly content just going to work, coming home, and getting through however much time I had left in life. I wasn’t looking for trouble, or love, or distractions. And yet here they were, all at once.
Wait, not love.What the fuck?
I needed a way to prove to Danielle that she could trust me, and that I understood the depths of what she was feeling; maybe not to the same extent, but enough that I could empathize. I knew exactly how to get her to understand that I could relate to her on some level, but there was still part of me that couldn’t bring myself to reveal the truth—a truth no one knew, not evenAlex. It was a part of me that I buried deep inside, locked away, and never revisited. The reality was, I didn’t know if Danielle was enough to bring it out of me, at least not yet. There had to be another way to make this all more bearable for both of us.
The rest of the drive was spent replaying those moments in the bathroom over in my head so many times that I began to question if I just desperately craved feeling someone’s skin against mine again. If that were the case, then I needed to stay as far the fuck away from Danielle as possible. There was not one single scenario where Alex would allow me to stay alive if I touched his sister. Shit, I didn’t even want him to know that I had to help her in the shower.
After a good 200 miles on the road, I found a rest stop and pulled off the highway. I figured by now, Danielle would need to stretch her legs, and I needed a good splash of cold rest stop bathroom sink water on my face to keep my thoughts at bay. I parked the car, started refueling, and opened the passenger side door, giving her a slight nudge to wake her.
“Do you want snacks?”
“Well, first off, I always want snacks.”
“Then you gotta stretch your legs. Come on, I’ll help.”
I extended my hand out to help her out of the car, but she dodged it like the plague. Her sudden disdain for my help caught me off guard. At the very least, I thought we had an understanding between us—that I was there to help her. Surely, I had proven my ability to remain composed, and it wasn’t like she could hear the thoughts, the guilt, the confusion, running wild in my mind. Right?
“I can do it myself,” she barked, back to her old bitchy self.
“You know what? Suit yourself.” I dropped my hand and left her there, walking towards the store alone, letting her figure it out on her own. I didn’t even bother looking back to see her reaction. I just didn’t care.
Just wall her off, Cody. She doesn’t want help.
I was sympathetic to the ordeal she had been through, but at the same time, I couldn’t comprehend how someone could be so fucking stubborn. The way she retreated from me, you’d think I had been the one who hit her. No, fuck that. I wasn’t Landon, not by a long shot, and I had done everything I could up until this point to prove that.
I got to the front door and looked back to find Danielle had only made it a few feet from the car. I realized her cane was in the trunk with the rest of our stuff, and she has resorted to trying to walk the distance, putting full weight on her leg. Right away, I felt like an asshole for the battle I was having in my own head as I walked away from her. I resigned myself to being the nice guy and walked back to help her. But on my terms.
“I’m not Landon, okay?” I didn’t even give her the option for help. Instead, I wrapped her arm around my neck and helped her across the lot.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means stop treating me like I’m out to get you. I fucking get it, okay? You don’t want a knight in shining armor.”
Danielle looked at me, shocked and appalled. If I were being honest, I was kind of appalled at myself.
“Who says I don’t? Doesn’t every woman?” Danielle yet again had a snapback. Call it a defense mechanism, call it a wall, call it whatever, but she was not a woman to back down, and I could see where some men, weaker men, would use that as an excuse to exert power and control over her instead of seeing it as one of her greatest assets.
“Well, find one somewhere else because it’s not me, and it never will be. I’m just the guy who’s here to make sure you don’t kill yourself trying to get fucking snacks from the store.”
She snickered, and I couldn’t tell if it was in genuine amusement, resignation to the fact that I was right, or if this wasone of those moments before a woman snaps so fucking hard that all that comes out is a laugh.
“Fair enough.”
A harsh exhale of breath left my nose, and I was relieved that her laugh wasn’t some pent-up demon about to unleash on me.
We got our snacks and got back in the car. This time, Danielle let me help her without putting up a fight about it. Maybe she had accepted the fact that she couldn’t do much without me just yet. I could see where that would be frustrating, but I mean, damn. At some point, she was going to have to learn to tolerate it at the very least.
It dawned on me as we continued our drive that maybe I had been looking at this all wrong. It very easily could have been that Danielle was embarrassed. I mean, I saw her completely naked this morning. And maybe I let out my frustration on her because I was naive enough to feel something in a moment I shouldn’t have. The longer we kept driving, the worse I felt about it. We couldn’t continue like this. Once we got to the house, I had to do my best to just avoid anything personal. As much as it would make the time drone on, this was strictly a job, and she was strictly someone who needed protection.
We were getting close to the house, and by the time we pulled down the long dirt road leading to it, I had undoubtedly made up my mind. I had spent years detaching and suppressing any feelings I had toward anyone, so this should be a walk in the park. I mean, itwasjust a job. I could treat it as such. I had to.
Danielle was still dead asleep when I put the car in park. I didn’t move for a minute or two; I didn’t wake her, and I didn’t turn the car off. Instead, I sat there, looking at this woman. I had no fucking clue how to be here and not feel something, and I resented myself for it. I had no choice, so I was going to do whatI had to do to keep her safe and put whatever the fuck was going on in my head behind me.
13. ALEX
I drove straight to the office after leaving Danielle with Cody, but my mind was a wreck. I kept having to remind myself that this was the right call. Cody would take protecting her just as seriously as I would. Settling at my desk, I spread out the crime scene reports and Landon's file, trying to focus on a plan.
