Take me out of here

Chapter 3: Take Me Out of Here

For one second, I forgot how to be a person.

My lungs stopped. Every thought went white and silent. The only thing left in the world was a trembling five-year-old kneeling on my hospital bed with his fingers wound into my sleeve.

I saw what Aunt Vivian did to your car.

"Ethan." The mask was slipping. I could feel it. "Say that again. Slowly."

He glanced at the door, then back at me. His lip wobbled.

"The night before, I woke up thirsty, and the garage light was on. Aunt Vivi was on the floor under your car with a flashlight. She had Daddy's tools." He dropped his voice. "She saw me. She put her finger like this." He pressed one small finger to his lips. "She said it was a surprise for Mama. And surprises are secrets. And good boys keep secrets."

The room tilted.

"And the next day?"

"You took me to school. We went down Marrow Hill, and you pushed the pedal and nothing happened." His eyes filled. "You pushed and pushed, Mama. You yelled hold on, Ethan, and you turned the wheel so the hurt would be on your side, not mine."

I had no memory of it. But I knew it was true. It was exactly what I would have done.

"A man from the next car pulled me out. I only got a bump. But you wouldn't wake up." A tear slid down his cheek. "Then Daddy came. And Aunt Vivi. She said if I told anyone, the bad people would take you away forever. And it would be my fault."

I pulled him into my arms before I could stop myself.

He clung to me, small and hot and shaking. I held him so tightly I was afraid I'd hurt him. Five years old. They had handed him a lie and told him it was his to carry.

Something in me went cold and very quiet.

"Listen to me. You did nothing wrong. Nothing. You're the bravest boy I know."

"I didn't want to say Mommy," he sobbed. "Every time, it feels like swallowing a rock. But Daddy said it's a game, and if I play good, you'll come back."

"I'm right here." I took his wet face in both hands. "And I'm pretending too. So we're playing a game together now, and this one is ours. Can you keep a secret for me?"

He sniffed hard. "A real one?"

"The realest one."

He nodded so fast his curls bounced.

"In front of them, you call her Mommy. You smile. You act the way you've been acting. But when no one's looking, you're my boy, and you're on my side. And I'm going to fix this. I promise."

Footsteps in the corridor. Fast and heavy.

His eyes went round. I swiped his cheeks with my sleeve, squeezed his hand once, and dropped back onto the pillows with my face smoothed into bland confusion.

The door opened. Daniel filled it.

His gaze swept the room and landed on Ethan, perched on my bed. It sharpened.

"Ethan." His voice was light, but a muscle jumped in his jaw. "What are you doing in here, buddy?"

Ethan slid off the mattress like he'd been trained to. "I came to say goodnight to Nora."

"I told you not to bother her."

"He's not bothering me," I said in the foggiest voice I owned. "He was telling me a joke. Something about a frog."

Daniel looked at me for a long moment. Studying. Measuring. I understood, with a jolt, that the man I'd shared a bed with for seven years was searching my face for a lie.

I gave him nothing but warm, foggy trust.

"You look flushed," he said. He crossed the room and laid the back of his hand on my forehead, the way he did when I was sick. A thousand times, he'd done it.

My skin crawled. I leaned into his palm and smiled.

"I had a strange dream," I said. "Sorry. I keep forgetting things."

His shoulders eased. For a heartbeat, something that looked like regret crossed his face.

Then it was gone.

"Get some rest, Nora." He steered my son out with a hand on his back.

Ethan looked over his shoulder once. I winked.

His whole face lit up.

~

I didn't sleep.

I lay in the dark listening to the monitor count my heartbeats. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Vivian on her back under my car, a flashlight clamped in her teeth. Smiling, probably. She always smiled.

I had held that woman while she cried. I had fed her soup when she had the flu.

By dawn, the fear had burned off. What was left felt like a blade laid flat on a table.

At eight, Daniel kissed my forehead. Meeting with the lawyer. Back after lunch. I told him to have a good day and counted until his footsteps faded.

At eight fifteen, Vivian came in a lavender dress to collect Ethan for school. He stiffened when she brushed the hair from his forehead, then melted into the act like he'd been taught.

At eight thirty, a man in a visitor's badge and a navy sweater pushed a wheelchair through my door.

"Morning," Adrian said.

I had never been so glad to see someone.

"Take me out of here."

He stopped. "Now?"

"I can't stay in this room another hour." My voice cracked, and I hated it. "I can still feel his hand on my forehead."

He didn't argue. He didn't tell me it was risky or that the doctors needed to sign off. He crouched so our eyes were level.

"Can you walk?"

"Yes."

"Then we leave in five minutes. I'll handle the front desk." His eyes didn't leave mine. "Once you walk out, there's no easy way back. Understood?"

"I don't want to go back."

"Good."

I wrote a note on the back of a menu card, in a loose looping hand that wasn't quite mine. Daniel, I'm sorry. I couldn't breathe in here. I'm going to get some air and think. I'll be back soon. Don't worry. N.

I propped it against Vivian's lilies.

Then I took Adrian's arm, and we walked out into the morning like two people who had always known each other.

~

His house sat at the edge of the city, where the streets thinned and the trees began. It wasn't what I expected. No glass tower, no marble. Just gray stone, a slate roof, and tall windows glowing gold under a heavy sky.

"I thought a man like you would live in a penthouse," I said.

"I did." He unlocked the door. "I got tired of living above the world."

The house smelled of cedar and old paper. Books lined the hall. A fire was laid in the stone hearth, and a silver-haired woman in her sixties came out of the kitchen, took one look at me, and said, "Oh, you poor lamb." My throat closed.

"Mrs. Bell runs the house," Adrian said. "She'll feed you."

"Hot soup, hot bath, clean bed," Mrs. Bell announced. "In that order. Argue and I'll hide your slippers."

I didn't argue.

I sat in a clawfoot tub until the water went tepid and cried until my chest ached. When I came out in a borrowed robe, my hair dripping onto the floorboards, I felt scrubbed hollow.

Adrian was by the fire. He'd shed his jacket and rolled his sleeves to the elbow. Without the suit he looked younger. Tired. A man who hadn't slept well in years.

He poured me tea without being asked. "Drink."

I wrapped both hands around the cup. Outside, the first fat drops of rain began to patter on the glass.

"Ethan told me what happened," I said.

His head came up.

I told him everything. The garage light. The flashlight. The pedal hitting the floor. The little boy with a secret too heavy to carry.

He listened without interrupting. When I finished, his hand had curled into a fist against his knee.

"I'll have the wreck found," he said. "If there's evidence, I'll get it."

"Did Daniel know?"

"I don't know."

"If he did..."

"Then he answers for that too."

The fire cracked. I stared into it.

"I'm still waiting," I said. A laugh broke in the middle. "That's the worst part. Some stupid piece of me is waiting for him to walk in and say it was all a mistake."

"Nora."

"How do you stop loving someone who did this?"

He set down his cup and crossed to my chair. He knelt so he was looking up at me.

"Not all at once," he said. "One hour at a time. Then one day you notice it's quiet. And you can hear yourself."

He was close enough that I could see gold flecks in his gray eyes, the small scar through his left brow. His hand rested on the arm of my chair, not touching me.

"Why do you care?" I whispered.

"I've asked myself that." His tone stayed even. "I went to that hospital to hurt Daniel Hartley. That was the plan. Then I watched you smile at the people burying you. And I decided I wasn't going to stand by and watch."

The air between us pulled tight.

"Adrian."

"Yes."

"I'm not Daniel Hartley's wife anymore."

I said it out loud for the first time. It rang in the quiet room like a bell.

"Whatever that ring meant, he threw it away the second he decided I was disposable," I said. "That woman is gone. I don't know who I am yet. But I'm not hers."

Neither of us moved. His hand lifted and stopped an inch from my cheek.

Then his phone rang.

He closed his eyes, jaw tight. "My investigator. I have to take it."

He crossed to the window. I watched his back go rigid as he listened.

"When?" he said, low. "And the footage?"

A pause.

"Say that again."

I set down my tea very carefully.

He ended the call and stood still, staring at the rain. When he turned, whatever warmth had been in his face was gone.

"They found your car at a salvage yard on the east side. The brake line was cut. Not worn. Not leaking. Cut."

I had known it since Ethan spoke. It still hit like a fist.

"There's more. Your garage had a security camera. That footage should have been stored on Daniel's home server."

"And?"

"It was deleted. Three days after the accident. From Daniel's own login."

The fire hissed. Somewhere in the house, a clock began to chime. I sat frozen in a stranger's robe, in a stranger's house, while my whole marriage turned inside out.

Vivian had cut the line.

But Daniel had erased the proof.

"Then he knew," I whispered. "My husband knew exactly what she did. And he covered it up."

Adrian didn't answer.

He didn't have to.