Page 58 of When I'm Gone
“Luke,” Annie whispered through the crack in the door, “is he okay?”
After all this, how could she still be concerned about Brian?
“Yeah, he’s sleeping.” Luke grabbed the wastebasket wedged between the bed and nightstand. It had a few used Kleenex but was mostly untouched. With one sweep he tossed the contents of the tabletop into the shiny black bin. The bottles clanked together in the bottom of the bin liner. Luke yanked the bag out by the edges and tied it at the top. He wasn’t going to help Brian, but he wouldn’t leave him to accidentally overdose either.
Luke took one more look around the room. Annie couldn’t clean this up alone. She’d need help, maybe even professional help. There wasn’t any time to make those plans tonight. He needed to get Annie somewhere safe. He was going to take her home with him.
CHAPTER 23
“Let me get you some clean clothes. Do you want some pajamas?” Luke flicked on the cylindrical hanging light in the front hall. Annie flinched against the brightness of the hundred-watt bulb after the darkness on the car trip over. Luke had to hold back a gasp when he saw her in full light.
Her usually tidy hair was disheveled. Along her collarbone and right cheek, thin lines of blood had dried where fractured glass must have sliced her when Brian sent it exploding behind her. Across her right forearm was a reddish bruise that looked like she’d fallen against something straight and hard. And her eyes, her eyes were the worst. Swollen from crying, red-rimmed and bloodshot, they told of the pain she was feeling even more than the blood or bruises.
“Yeah, maybe I should.” She fingered a slash in the thin fabric around her ribs.
“Why don’t you go lay down on the couch? I’ll grab some clothes, then make you something to eat.”
She nodded and popped the tennis shoes off her feet, the only thing she’d grabbed during their mad rush out of the house. When Luke pressed his body through the crack in the bedroom door, leaving half-naked and totally zoned-out Brian behind him, his only thought was to get Annie out of that house. Reluctant but dazed, it only took a little encouragement to get her out the door. He told himself they could talk about the drugs and the violence when there were miles, not feet, between Annie and Brian.
Luke headed toward the stairs, and Annie’s head shot up like she thought of something. “Nothing of Natalie’s, okay?” she yelped. “A pair of your old sweats or something is fine.”
“Okay,” Luke said, unsure if it was stranger having Annie wear his wife’s pajamas or his. For a moment he considered searching through May’s drawers to see if there was anything in there that could work, but quickly reconsidered.
In his room, Luke pulled out his nicest pair of plaid flannel pants and a soft gray cotton T-shirt that had shrunk in one of his first solo laundry attempts. He stacked them on top of his dresser and quickly changed out of his date-night clothes and tossed them in his laundry pile. Normally during the summer he’d sleep in his boxers, but tonight he decided to go for something more conservative—cotton pants and a larger version of the shirt he’d picked for Annie.
“I hope these fit,” Luke called out as he rounded the corner. Sitting on the couch with her back to him, Annie didn’t seem to notice his entrance. He placed the pile of clothes on the kitchen counter and approached Annie from behind. Face down on her hands, her shoulders shook with silent sobs. He slowly placed his hand on her back, sliding it across the ribbed fabric of her shirt.
“Hey,” he whispered. “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
Annie lifted her head out of her hands. The rivers of tears on her face joined together into an ocean, her cheeks shimmering when the light hit her skin. Using her shaking hands, she swiped at her face as she sat up. Luke grabbed a tissue out of the box on the coffee table with one hand while leaving the other in the space between Annie’s shoulder blades. They regularly ran out of every other paper product, but Luke made sure to always keep enough Kleenex in stock.
“Thank you.” She took the tissue and wiped under her eyes and nose. Her breaths came in short puffs, and Luke was sure he’d interrupted a much-deserved breakdown. The last thing she probably wanted was Luke in her face as a reminder of her secret world being exposed.
“If you want to be alone, I understand,” Luke muttered. “Your pajamas are on the counter.” He leaned back and let his hand fall off her back. They could talk in the morning, or next week, or whenever she wasn’t feeling so broken that any of his words would inflict more pain. “Let me know if you needanything.” Luke stood to leave, but Annie grabbed his hand in both of hers.
“Wait.” She tugged him down and moved over to her left, leaving an empty spot. “Please stay.” He hesitated. She’d been there for him countless times over the past eight months. He wanted to help her, to save her, but all the things he needed to say would do nothing but hurt her. Annie squeezed, and Luke lost his interest in altruism. He settled into the empty space beside her and was surprised when she didn’t let go, even after he was settled into his spot. Instead, she hugged his hand against her side.
Holding Annie’s hand was very different than holding Felicity’s. Felicity’s hand was small, soft, and gave him a sense of comfort and companionship he’d missed since Natalie. But Annie ... her long, cold fingers somehow burned his skin, making him want to let go and hold on forever at the same time. Her touch scared him more than comforted him. His heart pounded, and with each beat he thought:Run away!
“Thank you for coming for me. You’re the only person I can trust.” Her voice hitched, and she paused to clear her throat. “I heard what Andy said about your dad. You know what it’s like to have someone who loves you hurt you.” She said it like he was going to agree, but his hand closed around hers, squeezing firmly.
“My father didn’t love me,” he said flatly. “Annie, what happened tonight, that’s not love.”
Annie stiffened beside him. Luke was prepared for her to get defensive and shut down.
“No,” she answered, letting out her breath in one big quavering sigh. Luke braced himself for the rest of her sentence. “I guess it’s not.” She rested against him and put her head on his shoulder. Luke was too relieved to be uncomfortable. “Will you tell me what happened with your dad?”
Luke licked his lips. Tell her? He’d never told the story to anyone but Natalie, and that was more than twenty years ago, in their hideout. Every time he was sent to a new foster home, the foster parents would try to get the story out of him. They already knew what happened—it was in his permanent file—but for some reason people thought he needed to say it out loud. It was different with Annie. He knew her secret; it was only fair to share his.
“You heard what Andy said; he was a drunk. My whole life. My mom used to say he loved too much and that’s why he’d get mad. I believed it until I was about ten. I started to notice I was the only kid sitting out at recess because my back still hurt from where my dad whupped me with his belt buckle.” Annie flinched. He wondered if she knew what that felt like or if Brian had ever tried to harm their son. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t been home since the start of the school year.
“What he did to me was nothing like what he did to my mom. He’d come home late, calling her vulgar names I’d never heard before. If she was lucky, he’d stop with the slurs; if she was unlucky, or left something out of place, or said the wrong thing at the wrong moment, he’d beat her. I prayed every night someone would save us, that God would strike my father dead. Unfortunately my father went on breathing.” Luke shook his head, still angry that he’d once believed in a God who would care about one child out of billions.
“What’s worse,” he continued, absentmindedly placing his head on top of Annie’s, “everyone in town knew he hit her. Terry knew; she’s told me that before. It was like this big extended family of enablers. No one called the cops, least of all my mom. I think she was far more scared of my father getting arrested than any physical harm he could do to her. When I was fourteen, she got pregnant. She’d had a tough delivery with me that ended with a midline cesarean. The doctors told her because of the damage from the emergency surgery, she might never have another child.
“Violet was a miracle from the day we found out about her in more ways than one. My dad stopped hitting my mom, he drank less, stayed home more, and by the time my mom was six months pregnant, he was interviewing for a new job. It seemed like baby Violet put our lives back on track. For a little while I let myself believe we were going to be a real family.”
“I didn’t know you had a sister,” Annie whispered.
