The Babysitter Read online

  Well, no.

  Something was different.

  My sponge was gone.

  I always had the pink ones with the purple scrubby side. Always.

  And yet in the holder, all I found was a weird piece of beige material. It almost looked like a loofa. Like you use in a shower.

  And, well, I knew I hadn't put it there.

  Someone had been in my apartment.

  But before I could get myself too worked up, I remembered Finn had been here, had taken the picture for me.

  And, judging by the foreign smell in the space, something strong and industrial almost, I realized he must have cleaned.

  And, apparently, left the loofa.

  Weird, but okay.

  On that idea, I went to my fridge, expecting it to be emptied out. He wouldn't have scrubbed my apartment and left food rotting in the fridge.

  But when I opened the door, there was food. The shelves had clearly been scrubbed mercilessly clean, so clean, in fact, it was almost a wonder that there wasn't blood from his fingertips leftover.

  But the food itself, it was all fresh.

  New.

  Like maybe when he had gotten word that Miller was coming to get me, he had driven up to fill my fridge back up.

  Curiously, I moved to the cabinet where I stored my pantry items, pulling the door open.

  There was no denying the smile that pulled at my lips at finding it completely loaded with spaghetti and boxes of macaroni and cheese.

  Or the way everything seemed to hit me right in that moment. All the pain I had been denying on the walk, on the ride, it all came charging back, crippling in its intensity.

  I crumbled down there, right on my immaculate, loathed kitchen floor, curling up on my side, letting the pain well up and pour out, not even trying to keep the sounds of my sobs quiet.

  No one who might have heard would have even cared.

  Not in this world where very few people even knew their neighbors.

  Eventually, I fell asleep there, the crying, the walk, the way Ranger had woken me up in the middle of the night all joined up together to take me down.

  I woke up with a numb arm, a crick in my neck, my eyelids swollen nearly shut from crying, and so cold that my teeth chattered.

  I pushed myself upward, sitting back against the counter, a headache starting behind my eyes, spreading to my temples until my whole brain felt like it was in an ever-tightening vise grip.

  On a grumble, I pulled myself up off the floor, walked myself into the bathroom, turned on the shower, nearly scalding myself as I got in, forgetting how much faster the water heated up here than in the woods.

  I stayed there until the water ran cold, crying anew when I washed my hair and my body in soaps that smelled like the old me. I knew Miller had grabbed some of Ranger's soap, but, oddly, I figured that if I had to be the old me again, then I had to smell like her. And as I dressed, I decided I had to look like her as well, putting on my old clothes, drying my hair the old way, going through my nightly beauty routine the old way.

  Maybe it would be easier that way.

  A clean break, as the saying went.

  The problem being, of course, as I curled into my own bed, that what was broken away wasn't just him, wasn't just Gadget and Captain and even Red.

  It was me.

  A big part of me.

  And I felt like half a person back in this world, overwhelmed and uncomfortable even if, admittedly, my mattress was much more comfortable than Ranger's couch - or even Ranger's bed - had been. Even if the room was warmer. Even if there was no dog snoring or whining.

  I slept then, dreaming of crickets and owls, of crackling fires, and hands in my hair.

  I stayed there a whole day and night, letting myself wallow, letting the pain wrap its arms around me like an old friend.

  It was only on the second day that my mother's voice whispered in my head, an old memory. Back from high school when I rolled the dice on a guy who promised a future, took my virginity, and then moved onto the next girl within a week. She'd found me sobbing in my bed for the third night in a row, coming in, sitting down, and placing her hand on my hip.

  "Some men will be worth two nights of your tears, Meads," she informed me with a knowledgeable nod. "But not a single one in this whole wide world is worth three nights of them. So you are going to get up. We are going to order pizza. And watch a movie. And move on, okay?"

  She'd been right. That boy had not been worth three nights of tears. Neither had a single one after that.

  And while a little voice in my head - okay, a shrieking, megaphone-wielding one - told me that if there was a man who was worth three nights of my tears, it was Ranger, I somehow felt like my mother would be disappointed if she could see me wallowing.

  So I got up.

  I showered.

  I got dressed.

  I made myself a box of macaroni and cheese. Then ate the entire thing on my couch in front of the TV, watching that very same movie my mother and I had watched. It had been a favorite of hers, one about a couple who could never make it work until after a tragic accident crippled the heroine. She always found it romantic. I thought it was sad, though I had never told her that.

  But sad wasn't a bad thing, not right then. Somehow, it felt validating. I maybe understood why she liked it. After my father, after the pain and disappointment and abandonment she had felt because of him. Then watching a movie about a man who had found his woman, who had wanted her, wheelchair and all.

  I got it now.

  And I watched the movie three times in a row before I remembered that this life, well, it came with complications, obligations.

  Like the things I had never handled before someone... well, just before.

  My missing credit cards, my IDs.

  I found my laptop, the click of the keys overly loud to my ears so unaccustomed to them, signing into my bank, checking my balances.

  Amazingly, everything was untouched save for what seemed to be the withdrawals of a few auto-pay bills. Wherever the cards ended up, no one had used them to drain my accounts. Which was lucky, since I clearly did not have my old job anymore. Not after up and disappearing like I had.

  Work.

  "Ugh," I grumbled, slamming closed my laptop, tossing it to the far end of the couch.

  It was funny how things - like mindsets - could so effortlessly change. Had you spoken to me a mere month ago, I would have told you that I much preferred the monotony of office work, of desk work to the physically arduous work of manual labor. And yet now, I would have chosen the labor over the mind-numbing rote tasks done to the tune of clicking keyboards, mindless chatter, and the unassuming top forty adult alternative radio station that played on repeat eight hours a day, every day of the week.

  But there wasn't exactly a lot of manual labor jobs in New Jersey. Not ones that would want a woman anyway, let alone one as clueless as I was. I'd learned some things, certainly, but I was no expert. Even if I could find such a job, I would be the least hirable candidate - this woman whose resume only included banking work.

  What could I do, though, without being able to use my old work as a job reference?

  On a sigh, I pulled myself off the couch, going into the kitchen, slipping a pod into my Keurig, smelling the coffee filling the air, something that now only brought memories of Ranger in his kitchen, pouring boiling water over grounds in the press.

  The pain was as raw as it had been days before, aching enough to make my hand press to my heart again, but I took my coffee, pushed the thoughts away, down. I pushed them down. I decided there was no away. But down was a coping mechanism I could work with.

  Deep down.

  Like the other thoughts.

  The uglier ones, but ones that hurt all the same.

  Standing there, I poured milk into my coffee. Cow's milk. It tasted different than goat's, which I had gotten so used to. My gaze wandered around, landing on the landline. I had no idea why I even had it. Except maybe because it
came included in my cable and internet package. And perhaps because I lived alone, and having another way to access to 911 if my cell phone was carelessly tangled in bedsheets or still in my purse after work.

  But there it was.

  With a blinking light.

  The bills had that number, so I didn't ever have to have them calling my cell.

  I had automatic calls from two companies - my cellphone that I didn't have anymore and my car insurance when I didn't even know where my car was. But the third one didn't have a computer voice.

  No.

  It was a familiar voice.

  "Hey, Meadow. It's Jim," my boss' voice talked to me through the speaker. "I'm so sorry to hear about your grandmother. Your sister told us you would be out of town for an indeterminate amount of time. I just wanted to reach out to let you know that when you do return, you will always have a place with us. We might have to change schedules, but, yeah, you're family here. We hope everything is good. And hope to see you soon."

  My sister.

  It didn't take long to know it had been Miller. That she had likely called a long while ago. Maybe after I only missed a few days of work. She conjured up a story. Gave me a safety net.

  Miller handling my job, Finn handling my food and cleaning my apartment.

  These people really could fix things. Make them right.

  Well, maybe not right.

  Right would be me back in the woods, back in Ranger's arms, back with Gadget and Captain, back getting my ankles pecked by Red, back with dirt under my nails, back with achy muscles from work.

  Back in the only true happiness I had maybe ever known.

  I took a deep breath, let it out, pushed it down.

  Down.

  Down.

  It was a practice I figured I would have to get good at. Because I wasn't sure it would ever stop.

  Some emotions were harder to deal with than others.

  Anger and frustration, for example, usually burned hot and were brushed away just as easily.

  But other things.

  Like regret, like hope disappointed, like longing, like, ugh, I didn't even want to think it.

  If I thought it, it made it so much more real.

  I had to call Jim back.

  I had to go to work, have an income, pay my bills, live my old life. Even if I was a new person. Even if the old mold felt tight and uncomfortable, pinched at my skin, chafed at my spirit.

  Maybe I could start a little garden on my balcony. It was useless otherwise, too small even to put a bistro set on it. But I could grow something. Get a little piece of that other me back.

  Maybe someday, I could move. Get a townhouse with a little yard. Have a real garden. Rescue a dog no one else wants, but likes me.

  Maybe the old me and the new me could make friends, learn to inhabit the same body.

  The idea of that, somehow, brought on more pain, making me realize that anytime I petted a dog in the future, I would think of petting Captain, that anytime my hands were in dirty planting, I would think of how Ranger had taught me how to do it.

  Maybe the only way to fully move on was to renounce all those things, as painful as the loss might be at the beginning.

  Resigned, I drank my coffee, deciding I would get a single chair for my balcony, maybe get myself a parakeet or guinea pig, something to love, something to give my time at home a purpose other than watching mind-numbing television.

  I had to rebuild.

  I had to move on.

  I had to forget.

  And so I tried.

  Except, like the nightmares when I had been burying memories of what had been done to me by a blue-eyed, soulless man, my subconscious refused to forget, brought me nightly images.

  Some sweet.

  Beautiful.

  Happy memories mixed with potentials ripped away - a house with a baby, a ring on my finger, those roses big and sturdy, beaming with giant flowers ripe for picking after years of care.

  But there were ugly thoughts too.

  The coldness of his goodbye.

  Regardless of the good or the bad, I woke up crying.

  Day in and out.

  It wasn't too long before I realized that there was only so much that could be pushed down until I ran out of room.

  And then, one day, overflowing and confused and overwhelmed by life as a whole, an idea came to me.

  And I acted on it.

  Come better or worse.

  TEN

  Ranger

  Fuck.

  Fuck fuck fuck.

  I couldn't get a goddamn thing done right. Every single little task that had become rote from so much repetition somehow became hard, made me as unskilled as a babe.

  I brewed coffee too weak.

  I sliced my hand while chopping potatoes.

  I slammed the hammer into my own thumb instead of the fence post I was attempting to mend.

  Everything was taking two or three tries.

  My body was taking a beating.

  And I deserved every last minute of the frustration, of the pain.

  I earned it.

  I was such a fuck.

  Not for making her go.

  I was convinced that was right.

  But for being too chickenshit to watch her go. I deserved that pain - watching her walk away from me.

  I earned that too.

  But I had been a coward, bounding off into the woods with my dogs, punishing my body with a run like I hadn't done in years, like I could somehow outrun the urge to turn back, go to her, tell her I didn't mean a single word of it, tell her that I wanted her to stay.

  I'd fucking kill for her to stay.

  Right there in my bed.

  Right there at my side.

  Because it was the only time in my entire fucking life that the past was gone, my demons weren't there screaming in my ear, reminding me of all the awful things I had done in my time.

  Because she made everything go quiet.

  Because I would give an arm to have that forever.

  To have her forever.

  But that was selfish.

  I'd tried to ignore it.

  It started that first night, after the greenhouse, after we had mended things, after she had shared herself with me.

  That night, curled up against me content as a kitten, it happened.

  The nightmares came back.

  They'd been gone.

  All during our rift, even a little before then.

  They'd left her alone.

  Until she was with me.

  But I ignored it.

  Figured it was a freak thing.

  But it got worse.

  Night by night.

  She was having the kinds of nightmares that made her body writhe, made sweat trickle down her body. Then, as the nights went on, made her cry out, scream out.

  There was no mistaking it.

  No wondering.

  About what had happened to her.

  Not as I sat up and listened to her scream, cry, beg.

  My blood turned cold as I tried to reach out and she shrieked to get off her, not to touch her.

  But then she would wake up with no memory of it, would smile at me, kiss me, reach for me.

  I would let it go.

  Which was maybe a flaw.

  Wanting her so much that I overlooked that something was wrong. At a deep level. A core level.

  I even tried to tell myself that even if there was a crack in her, that it was okay. That I had a crack in me as well. And I was doing alright.

  Though, the truth was that I never faced my problems. I ran from them. But they always caught up.

  And it was wrong to wish that same fate to her. To never truly heal. To always live with that fracture.

  Just because I wanted her.

  Just because I didn't want to have to go through my days without her warmth again.

  It was wrong.

  Unfair.

  She deserved to be whole again. To live a life that
didn't have her constantly running from her demons, but always finding them right at her heels.

  She needed to go.

  She needed to get help. The professional kind. Maybe if she was more open to it, if she was allowed to share, not under a gag by a government who didn't want the world to know their deeds, maybe if she gave it a real chance, they could help her. Guide her through the pain instead of hiding from it.

  She had a chance to be happy.

  A whole kind of happy.

  And once she got to that place where she could go a night without it coming back because she faced it, she did the work, she learned to move on, she could find someone again.

  Someone without demons. Someone who could give her a life in a world not surrounded by trees, hiding from the whole world.

  My stomach burned at the idea.

  Jealousy wasn't something I had known before, but it became my constant companion those days following Meadow leaving.

  Sometimes, in low moments, I punished myself with it. Why? I wasn't sure. But I did it. Thinking about her with someone else, settled down, building a family. Something I could never have with her.

  It was masochistic.

  But, somehow, that pain was better than the pain of the loss.

  At least for a few minutes here and there.

  She was still everywhere even though I had effectively cleared out all the things that had been lying around that were explicitly hers.

  But her smell was in my shirts.

  And I found myself wearing the same rotation of shirts for days because I didn't want to wash away her scent from the others.

  Her presence was in the sad bleating of the twice motherless Gadget, in the long, howling whines of Captain who refused to get off the couch where she had spent so much time with him. Hell, it was even in the circling runs Red made around the yard, as if looking for her ankles to peck at.

  She was in the emptiness of the chair across from me, the lack of someone at my side, learning, asking questions, occasionally touching me, pressing a sweet kiss to my neck, my arm, my fucking hand.

  Even as the world around me warmed up day by day, it felt colder and colder inside me.

  My house that had always been so comfortable, my own little haven in a world I was trying to avoid, suddenly felt hollow.