Baby Doll, page 14
“You can’t be here. You can’t. Go away or I’ll call the cops.”
“Let me in, or I swear to God, I’ll make a scene. Let’s see how they react when a pregnant woman collapses on your front porch.”
Missy’s patrician features appeared to be wilting under the pressure of recent events. She surveyed the mob, then slowly opened the door and Abby slipped inside. This was where her sister’s tormentor had lived. The decor consisted of muted earth tones, high-end furnishings, and expensive artwork. Missy’s parents, her mother in pearls and pastels, her father in a button-down, were flawless. Like stepping into a Brooks Brothers catalog, Abby thought. They were sitting at the dining table, but when he saw her, Missy’s father stood up.
“Miss, what’s going on?”
Missy’s mother stood too, wringing her hands nervously. “Edward, this isn’t right. She can’t be here.”
Missy plastered on a tight smile.
“Mother and Daddy, we’re just going to have a quick chat. I’ll be back in a moment.” Head held high, Missy led Abby into the study and closed the door behind them.
“Tell me what you want,” Missy said, getting straight to the point.
“Missy… God, what a stupid name. But listen, Missy, your stupidity offends me. It offends me and annoys me, and it ends today.”
Missy tossed her head, her eyes flashing. “I’m not going to be insulted in my own home. My father was right. You should go.”
Missy moved to leave the study. Abby grabbed Missy’s arm and held it tightly.
“Every time I close my eyes, I see my sister begging Lancaster’s favorite English teacher for her freedom. I see Lily’s desperation and loneliness and terror as he rapes and beats her over and over again. You can go on the news. You can go on every talk show with that fake-ass photo, but none of that changes what he did to her. None of that makes Mr. Hanson a nice guy. Mr. Hanson likes to torture little girls. He likes to destroy families and feast on that misery.”
“You’re wrong—”
“Are you really stupid enough to finish that sentence? I’m not wrong. If you knew what he did, if you heard what he did…” Abby’s voice cracked. She kept squeezing Missy’s arm, taking pleasure in hearing her whimper. “Are you seriously trying to tell me you never once saw a glimpse of the monster that ruined my sister? Not once?”
Missy hesitated. Abby wanted to destroy this woman; she wanted her to pay for what she’d said on the steps of the jail.
“Monsters don’t breathe fire, Missy. The monster in this town is a real man who teaches high school English. A man who’s kept a sex slave locked in his basement for years, and his wife was too dumb to know about it.”
“Stop it. Please, stop it.”
Missy had begun to cry, snot streaming from her nose. Abby loved watching this woman crack. She fed off Missy’s distress like carrion after a road kill.
“Admit it, you stupid bitch. Admit you knew something was off. You did, didn’t you? Didn’t you, Missy?”
“Yes… I mean, I didn’t know for sure but… but he was gone so much. I knew he wasn’t writing a book. And I saw websites. Things he wanted to do. But I thought…”
“That as long as he still put on his V-neck sweater and came home smelling of cologne and chalk dust and told you about his day at work, as long as you still had barbecues with the neighbors and missionary sex once a week, you could forget about what you saw.”
“I’m so so…”
“Don’t. Don’t waste your breath on useless apologies. ‘Sorry’ is a word. An empty, meaningless word. And what he did, what you let him do, can never be erased by a word.”
Missy was sobbing uncontrollably now. Her father appeared in the doorway, his face an angry red mask.
“You need to leave.”
Abby moved closer to Missy, her voice a whisper. “If you go on TV again and call my sister a liar, I will kill you.”
Missy broke down. Abby ignored Missy’s father’s shouts and threats and headed out of the house.
By the time she climbed back into her mother’s car, Abby was grinning. Lily might not be speaking to her. She might not know how much Abby cared. But Abby was going to do whatever it took to make sure these people never fucked with her sister again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
LILY
Tears are for the weak.” That’s what Rick always preached. Before Rick took her, Lily was a crier. She cried at anything. Country music. Hallmark movies. A YouTube kitten video.
“My little softie,” her father had teased her. But Lily didn’t cry over the news about Wes and Abby. The news had stunned her. Wes. Her Wes. Her first love. The boy who—with one look—had made her feel as if the entire world had fallen away.
Lily couldn’t stop thinking about Abby’s giant belly, her sad eyes and heavy features, the scars lining her wrists. How had all of this happened? How was it possible that her sister had fallen for Wes or vice versa? They’d disliked each other with an intensity that bordered on irrational. Abby kept going on and on about how cliché it was that Lily was dating a jock.
“His only marketable skill is hitting a ball over a net. And he barely talks, like he’s some kind of superhero. He thinks it makes him deep and brooding when it really just makes him an asshole.”
Wes thought Abby was a stuck-up bitch and hated that she was always a third wheel. They’d both driven Lily crazy with their stupid bickering, constantly forcing her to take sides. And now they were together. They were having a baby together.
Lily had wanted to scream at Wes, to ask him why he hadn’t waited for her. But that wasn’t fair. No one, not Abby, not Wes, not even Lily herself could have imagined that she would return home. She knew all of this rationally, and yet the pain was searing.
She’d been lying in bed for hours. Sky was fast asleep but Lily couldn’t stop her mind from spinning. She’d never allowed herself to wallow in self-pity, to ask why me. There wasn’t mental energy to waste dwelling on something she couldn’t control. But now that’s all she could think about. Why did she get Rick, and Abby got Wes’s love and devotion, and his baby? Why did Abby get a nice, kind man? Because I’m not worthy, that’s why, Lily thought.
Abby got to have Wes’s baby, and Lily got Rick’s. The thought made her ill, thinking back to those nights Rick would whisper his fantasies as he violated her over and over again. And here she was, pregnant with another child. Rick’s child.
“How far along am I?” she’d asked Dr. Amari at the hospital after she’d delivered the news.
“It’s early. Only six weeks. You can still terminate.”
“You mean kill it?”
“I’m saying there are options, Lily, if you want to discuss them.”
But Lily didn’t want to discuss anything. She didn’t want anything else that would bind her to Rick. And yet, when she thought about the baby, her baby, Sky’s sibling, she was paralyzed. This was her child too. Its life was in her hands. If she were still living down in that hole with Sky, she’d have fought like hell to protect it, the same way she’d protected Sky. But things were different down there. Down there, Sky had nothing to do with Rick. Her daughter was a gift, sent from above, a sign that hope could still live on, even in the darkest of places. She didn’t know how she’d feel about this child. What if it were a boy? A sweet, young boy, who grew into a handsome young man who followed in his father’s footsteps? What if he were evil? What was she supposed to do with a child like that? Lily closed her eyes. They’d been together. Abby and Wes.
Together.
Lily was sickened. One of her biggest regrets was not giving Wes her virginity. Rick stole that from her too. She always wondered what it might have been like, to wake in Wes’s arms, to experience everything she’d read in her mother’s romance novels or seen on TV. Those tender moments, sweet, romantic kisses, the mutual respect as you discovered each other’s bodies. Those things didn’t exist once she became Rick’s property. They couldn’t exist.
Lily knew she’d never sleep now. She slowly crawled out of bed and gave Sky a tender kiss. She grabbed a sweatshirt and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. Dr. Lashlee had said she’d feel cold until she put on some weight, and she was right. Lily couldn’t stop shivering.
She made her way downstairs, enjoying the comfortable silence. In the kitchen, she beelined for the refrigerator, swinging open the heavy doors. An endless array of options greeted her. Casseroles and lasagna. Chocolate pie. Brownies. Milk and beer. Chardonnay and vodka. Whatever you were craving, it was there for the taking.
In the cabin, Lily and Sky ate whatever Rick delivered. He controlled Lily’s weight religiously. “No fatties allowed,” was Rick’s mantra, which meant treats were nonexistent. She grabbed a piece of fudge from one of the platters and devoured it, savoring the rich, decadent taste. She would have kept eating, but something outside caught her eye. Lily froze. Someone was sitting on the back porch swing, rocking back and forth. She almost screamed, called out for help, but the figure turned. Lily saw his profile. It was Wes. What was he doing out there?
She thought about rushing back upstairs. Locking herself in her room again and cuddling up with Sky. But her curiosity, her desire to know more about him, got the best of her. Lily slid open the sliding glass door just as Wes looked up from the swing, a cigarette in his hand. She felt disappointed by him. The Wes she’d known would never smoke. He’d been vigilant in his training, refusing to do anything that might poison his body. When he saw her, he leapt to his feet, stubbing out the cigarette as if he sensed she might judge him.
“Lily, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“No, it’s okay. I… What are you doing out here?”
“Abby took off after your argument, so your mom asked me to look for her…”
“Is Abby okay?” Lily asked. No matter how hurt she was feeling, she couldn’t stand the thought of something happening to her sister.
“She came back here about an hour ago, but she’s pretty pissed at me. I kept telling myself I should go home but I just couldn’t seem to leave. I didn’t realize how late it was. I should go.”
He gave Lily a quick nod and headed for the back gate. She’d been watching him, analyzing what he looked like now. He was cute, but not as cute as Lily remembered. It was almost as if he hadn’t grown into his matinee-idol good looks. His nose was a bit too big for his face, his hair was a little too short, and he had a thick, heavy stubble. But his eyes hadn’t changed at all. Deep gray and piercing. God, she’d missed those eyes.
“Wait, don’t go,” Lily called out.
Wes spun around, startled by her plea. Lily hadn’t considered what she’d say next, so she simply waved. She moved over to the swing where he’d been sitting, and sat down, shivering slightly. Wes shrugged out of his heavy down jacket and handed it to her. Lily wrapped it around her shoulders, his woodsy smell and spicy aftershave overwhelming her senses. Wes hovered a few feet away, still waiting for Lily to speak. She’d grown used to silences, always waiting for Rick to talk, never wanting to speak out of turn. At this very moment, Lily wondered what Wes was thinking about her. She knew that her skin, hair, and teeth had been damaged by her ordeal. She was scrawny, no longer toned or tan from her endurance training. His opinion shouldn’t matter, but she still wanted him to think she was beautiful.
“It didn’t happen overnight, Abby and I…” he said.
Lily offered up a slight smile. “So that’s it? No awkward silences. No ‘how’ve you been?’ Or ‘how ’bout them Phillies?’”
Wes looked uncertain.
“I’m joking, Wes. I still know how to joke.”
He smiled and she was transported to sophomore year and that sweet boy leaning against her locker, grinning as he waited to walk her to class. But Lily wasn’t going to let people treat her like she was made of glass, tiptoeing around her. Not anymore. She was going to reclaim every remnant of who she’d been.
“I’m sorry about how I reacted earlier. I… I guess I never thought about what would happen if we… if Sky and I got out. I spent so much time surviving, so much time thinking about the past, I never considered what was happening out here. And I love… I loved you so much.”
He winced and Lily realized how stupid she sounded.
“I’m not making this better, am I?”
“I loved you too, Lily. I still—”
“Don’t. Please.”
“No, I have to explain, because you can’t be mad at Abby. It would kill her if you were mad at her. I have to make you understand what happened between us.” He apparently forgot about her judgment, or maybe his nerves got the best of him. Wes reached into his pocket, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it, taking a long drag before he spoke.
“You know Abby drove me crazy. We never thought about each other like that… romantically. All we wanted was to find you. We were obsessed. Consumed. Every day we were putting up fliers, joining the search parties, scouring the forests and woods for hours on end. And then they called off the searches and your dad died, and… Abby was wrecked. By the start of senior year, people didn’t want to be sad anymore. I tried to be the Superjock and do all those things I used to love, but without you cheering me on, I couldn’t seem to care. I quit the team, and somehow Abby and I started hanging out after school. Everyone treated us like we were made of glass, but we could tease each other and listen to music and talk about you. And then one day, we were watching a movie at my house and talking about that time you hit that parked school bus—”
“And that it was a giant yellow school bus…”
Wes smiled. “How do you miss a school bus?”
“How many times do I have to say that it was in my blind spot?”
He laughed and then caught himself, as if the moment was too solemn for jokes. He continued.
“I don’t even know who kissed who. We both freaked out. Didn’t talk for days, but by then she wasn’t your sister anymore. She was my best friend. She wasn’t you, Lily. I wasn’t replacing you. Abby was never like you. Never as lighthearted or easygoing, but she did everything with this intensity that made her hard to ignore. Most importantly, she understood how losing you changed me.”
“So you’ve been together ever since?”
“No. I got into Penn. I didn’t want to leave her, but we both decided we needed to see what life was like when we weren’t both missing you or punishing ourselves for not being able to save you, or for not being the one who disappeared. And then…” He trailed off.
“Then what?”
“I finished school and came back here to take care of my dad, and somehow, we fell back into old patterns.”
“So that’s all it is now? Old patterns?”
He evaded the question, but Lily realized he never said he loved Abby. He hadn’t said it once.
“Abby never stopped believing that you were alive. You have to know that. Anything you want, she’ll do it, Lil. She’ll leave me. She’ll give up our baby if you ask her to.”
“That’s crazy. I would never ask that. And she’d never do something like that.”
“You don’t know her. Not now. You don’t know what losing you did, what you coming back means to her.”
Lily didn’t answer. What else could she say? Leave her. Be with me. We’ll raise Rick’s children together. We’ll have the life we were meant to have. It was almost impossible, being this close and knowing he’d moved on. If this were Rick, he’d want her to lash out at Wes and Abby. Get even for their betrayal.
He would say, Make ’em suffer, Baby Doll. They deserve to suffer.
After all, Wes hadn’t simply chosen another woman to love; he’d chosen her twin sister. If she used Rick’s logic, it would make sense that she’d want to destroy them both. But Lily was grateful that Rick hadn’t completely ruined her. She was still capable of her own thoughts and actions. Wes seemed to understand that Lily had heard enough.
“Good night, Lily. I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through. But I’m glad you’re home. You have to know that.”
He disappeared into the darkness. Lily sat on the porch swing, still wearing Wes’s coat, inhaling his scent. She realized what she had to do. She couldn’t keep this baby. That was clear now. She was going to call Dr. Amari and set up an appointment. Once she’d taken care of that, she was going to prove to herself that Rick was wrong. She was capable of being loved by someone good and kind. She knew she was. Lily knew what she had to do—she had to make Wes love her. Whatever it took, she would make that happen.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ABBY
The alien invader was kicking up a fucking storm. That’s what first jolted Abby out of bed. But it was the smell of coffee and bacon that made her grab her robe and hurry out of the room. She needed to make sure Lily wasn’t freaking out about the photos. She made her way down the hall, expecting to find Lily and Sky in their room, but the door was wide open, the bed neatly made. Driven by anxiety, Abby picked up the pace, worried something had happened.
Abby rushed into the kitchen and stopped short. Lily was wearing their father’s faded “Kiss the Cook” apron and manning the griddle. Eve was cutting strawberries, while Sky stood on a stool beside her grandmother, watching with fascination. It was as if Abby had entered the twilight zone. She wondered if she’d slept for several days or even weeks, or if somehow the events of last night hadn’t occurred.
Eve saw Abby first and smiled reassuringly. “Are you hungry? Lily wanted to make us all breakfast before your grandparents left for the airport.”
“I’m starving. What can I do?”
A genuine smile spread across Lily’s face. She waved Abby over.
“You can butter the toast. Eggs are almost done.”
Abby took a place beside her sister. “Lily, we need to talk.”
“No need. I was so overwhelmed yesterday I wasn’t thinking clearly. But I can’t focus on the past. It’s always been about you and me, Abs. We’re good. No matter what.”
