Chapter Twelve

They stayed as long as hospital visiting hours allowed, then returned to the farm. Larry managed to convince Shannon to eat before sending her off to bed.

“She’ll be okay, now that she knows Pete’s going to be fine,” Leah assured him. “She’s strong. And stubborn.”

“Maybe that’s why you two are best friends?” he teased, and she laughed.

“Probably. We met the first day of freshman orientation, standing in line to get registered. Later, when we got to the dorm, we found out we’d been assigned as roommates. Small world, right?”

He nodded.

“Anyway, she and I just hit it off immediately,” Leah continued. “We got along so well that once freshman year was done and we weren’t required to live on campus anymore, we found an apartment together.”

Larry sensed there was more to the story, but he kept quiet.

“Hey, I noticed there’s a fire pit out back,” she said suddenly. “Could we build a fire, maybe sit out under the stars for a while?”

“Coming right up,” he said, and smiled.

Larry deftly arranged bigger and smaller pieces of wood in the pit, added kindling, and got the fire going. Then he grabbed two lawn chairs, plus a blanket for Leah in case she got cold.

They settled in as the night sky deepened and the millions upon millions of stars began to twinkle overhead.

“That is so beautiful. Peaceful,” she murmured as she looked up.

“It is,” Larry agreed from the chair to her left. “When I was little, we used to come up here every summer. Best months of my life. I lost count of the crawdads I’ve caught in the creek over there. And smores. Packed away a ton of smores that were made right here, over this fire pit.”

Leah smiled at the memories he was sharing with her.

A long silence drifted in as they watched the flames, then the sky.

“A little over a year ago, I started seeing this guy named Gregg,” Leah said quietly. “And at first, everything was fine.”

Larry turned his attention from the stars to her and waited patiently for her to continue.

“We’d been dating three, maybe four months? Something like that. And things had started to turn. He became jealous, paranoid, obsessive. Tried to tell me how to dress, how to wear my hair, what classes I should take.”

She took in a huge shuddering breath, then kept going.

“Shannon was worried about it, and she tried to talk to me, but he’d convinced me it was all in my head,” she said. “And then one night, everything became crystal clear. I was working as a waitress at the time, and I’d finished up a night shift and was walking to my car. A man approached me, pulled a gun, and forced me into my car and told me to drive.”

Larry held his hand out, and she clutched it.

“I was scared to death. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. And then, I got mad. I had put on my seat belt out of habit. And I noticed he didn’t. So, I accelerated to about forty-five miles an hour, then drove into a light pole on purpose.”

Larry gasped in surprise.

She took another deep breath, and he squeezed her hand in solidarity.

“After the airbag deflated, I shoved my door open and undid my seat belt and ran, screaming for help. Luckily, a police cruiser had just turned onto the block, and they stopped and helped me.”

“What happened?”

“They took him to the hospital to get checked out, and then they took him to jail. And that’s when the real nightmare came out.”

Leah glanced over at Larry, saw his concern, and continued.

“Come to find out, he was Gregg’s dealer. Gregg was hooked on cocaine, and I had no idea. He told the cops questioning him that he and Gregg had made a deal.”

Her voice was turning hard and cold, and Larry tightened his grip on her hand, somehow sensing he hadn’t heard the worst part yet.

“He told them Gregg owed him a lot of money. And then… then he told them that Gregg had offered me up as payment,” she said, a single tear streaking down her face as she stared into the flames.

“Like I was a bargaining chip. Like I was a piece of property.”

She looked over again at Larry and saw and felt the outrage threatening to consume him.

“I thought he cared about me. But he didn’t. I was disposable. That’s why what Robert did with the locket made me so angry. It felt like he was using her, the same way Gregg tried to use me.”

“Understandable,” Larry murmured, caressing the back of her hand with his thumb.

“I pressed charges, and I testified, and they’re both in prison now. And Shannon never left my side through any of it, Larry,” she revealed. “She kept me safe, and she kept me sane through it all. As a matter of fact, it was her idea for us to move to a different apartment, just in case anybody else who knew Gregg came around.”

Another deep breath.

“Shannon stuck with me, when a lot of other people would have bailed. So, when we went to my place to get her some clothes, and I saw it was wrecked, I almost lost it. I thought somehow Gregg had managed to find out where we’d moved to and sent someone. And I was terrified that by sticking with me, she’d been put in danger, too.”

That’s why she’s so protective of Shannon. It also explains why she reacted the way she did that day, he realized with sorrow - and shame.

Leah immediately noticed his change in demeanor.

“What?” she asked.

“I grabbed you that day,” Larry managed as he replayed the scene in his head, his throat choking with emotion as he tried to speak. “Leah, I…”

She stood and moved in front of him, taking his face in her hands and making eye contact.

“Look at me,” she said sternly. “Larry, listen to me. You’re not Gregg, and you’re not the man that tried to kidnap me. I know you’re not. You’re nothing like them.”

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, full of remorse.

And in that moment, she led with her heart. Leah leaned in and touched her lips to his, kissing him gently, and noticed his eyes went wide with shock.

She stepped back and softly said, “I’m turning in for the night. See you tomorrow.”

And she walked back into the cabin, leaving a restless Larry Fuller behind to stare at the flames and think.

***

Leah entered the cabin as quietly as possible so she wouldn’t wake up Shannon. She thought briefly about crawling into the bed – she knew Shannon wouldn’t have minded bunking together. But she decided against it.

“I’m probably going to toss and turn all night, and that’s the last thing she needs,” she said to herself. She stretched out on the couch, pulling the blanket that was spread across the back down over her, and stared at the ceiling.

It had felt really good to tell Larry about what she’d been through, she realized. She hadn’t known just how liberating sharing all that with him would be. It had been a much-needed catharsis for her soul.

But then I kissed him. And I think that was a major mistake. He didn’t react like I hoped he would. Maybe I read it all wrong, and this is one-sided after all, she thought, and the thought made her melancholy.

She wiped her cheeks, willing herself to banish the new wave of tears that had come unbidden to the surface, and sometime later, she drifted off.