Page 67 of Accidentally Mine
Honestly, I didn’t know what any of that meant.Turned out that helping my father run his spreadsheets a few years in high school hadn’t equipped me to be ready for this.Gnawing on the inside of my cheek, I looked around as Steve stared me down through those big coke-bottle glasses.
I couldn’t concentrate with him looking at me like that.
“All right, all right,” I said, standing.I found a few banker’s boxes in the corner and started to pile some of the papers inside.“I understand you want an answer right away, but I can’t do that.Let me take these home and look them over.And I promise to give you a call tomorrow.Just give me twenty-four hours.Okay?”
He frowned.I was quickly starting to hate my father’s business partner.I wanted to scream at him,Give me a break, why don’t you?My father just died and I know nothing about his business!
Maybe that meant I should’ve just ceded it all over to Steve and wiped my hands of it.That was clearly what he wanted me to do.But my father had invested so much in this business.His whole life.I couldn’t just let it go like that.
I ended up filling up five boxes with paperwork.Steve helped me drag them out to the front room, all the while telling me we really needed to move and that he wished I’d just trust him.Maybe I should’ve.I had enough to worry about as it was.
When I had all I needed, I ordered an Uber on my phone.A scruffy kid in a Toyota showed up and nearly tore up his car driving up on the curb parallel parking, and I wished I had Ernest.
And then, when I loaded the stuff in the trunk, got settled, and the kid asked me, “Where to?”I almost gave him Brent’s address.But I got real and told him my aunt’s house.
At the house, the kid dumped all the boxes on the curb.Ernest, at least, would’ve helped me bring them inside.Instead, I spent the next fifteen minutes lugging them up the stairs.
When I was done, I made myself a tasteless mac-n-cheese in my aunt’s microwave, then sat in front of the television and started pulling out papers, making stacks to separate things by month.About forty-five minutes in, my eyes started to cross.
I needed to go running.
Back in Long Grove, running was my life.When I wasn’t writing my stories, I ran.I had a treadmill in my apartment for the days that the weather didn’t cooperate.I was devoted, imagining the day I’d have to run from Anthony.I’d also been signed up for self-defense classes.I’d write my stories, run, go to self-defense.Wash, rinse, repeat.I never deviated.I was afraid to deviate.
I threw on my exercise clothes and headed out to Thomas Park, where I went for a five-mile run around the monument at Dorchester Heights.The park was busy with kids and families, perfectly normal, nothing suspicious.As I ran, it felt good to be in the sunshine, to get the blood flowing again.Running always helped to relieve the constant stress I lived with, so that I could think.
I couldn’t let my father’s business go without performing due diligence.
So yes, I would go through those papers tonight, and I would make some sense of them, so I could give Steve an informed decision.
Then, I had an even more important task to complete.I couldn’t leave town without telling Brent why I was leaving.So, I would go and see him and tell him everything, about Anthony and why I ran and why there was no way I could stay here even now.
I only hoped he wouldn’t think that I was abandoning him.Even though I felt like I was.He wasn’t bleeding on the side of the road this time, but the fact was, I’d gotten to know him and care about him.I’d done all that, knowing we could never happen.
As much as I’d like to pretend it was different, it wasn’t.
I was abandoning him, yet again.In fact, this time, it might be worse.
19
Brent
“Brent?”my assistant, Tate Sullivan, called as I stood in my office in Brookline, looking out over the Pike.
I’d tried to work, had actually gotten a few things accomplished.But now I’d gotten caught up in thinking about how Roselynn ran that night, wondering how she’d managed to keep driving after an accident such as that.She was kind to everyone, doted on her aunt, and was sweet with me.I had a hard time believing she’d even hurt a fly.
Only one thing would’ve made her leave an accident like that: Necessity.
Now, more than ever, the pieces were coming together in my head.She’d had an abusive boyfriend, this Anthony.He was powerful and dangerous.This man had been after her, and she’d run for her life.
I whirled around when Sullivan cleared his throat.He was looking at me with a curious expression on his face.Just out of college earlier this month, he was new to Key Tech, but was likely already used to me spacing out at odd times.I scrubbed my hand over my face.“Yeah?”
“The latest reports from the most recent round of trials are in your email box,” he said, pointing at my laptop.“I thought you’d like to take a look.”
I gave him a distracted smile.“Thanks, Sully, I will.”
Later.
I went to my phone on my desk and opened it to the messages I’d sent to Roselynn.Three of them.She hadn’t responded to a single one.
