Mark My Words by Nick Thacker

Author:Nick Thacker [Thacker, Nick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Turtleshell Press
Published: 2019-04-29T16:00:00+00:00

19

We drank together, sipping the Sidecars quietly, pondering the fruity esters and our place in the universe. She didn't say anything, and I didn't want her to. Joey, Fellows, and Billy murmured quietly in the corner of the room near Shalice, but I couldn't hear what they were saying.

I closed my eyes and squeezed out whatever recognition of what was really happening around me, then opened them again and pretended to see my bar the way it should have been — full, happy, hearty laughter filling the air between pangs of oldies music and the clinking of glasses. My friends surrounded me, Hannah and Joey and Shalice and McNab. All of them smiling and raising their glasses to me.

I looked at the wall and tried not to see the twisted, scarred sections of blasted-out windows but the decor Joey had chosen — a painted stripe pattern on the upper half of the wall and horizontal rows of distressed wood slats on the bottom half.

Yes, I thought. That’s it. That’s the place I built.

Then I blinked, and it was all gone, replaced once again by the terror and smoking mayhem, the headlights pointing in on him and the strangers talking to Joey.

And yet Hannah was still there.

I suddenly felt as though something had physically struck me. I had to lean forward and grab the edge of the bar to keep my balance, and I wondered if this was what having a heart attack felt like. The sharp pain passed, then settled into a constant uncomfortable pressure.

I knew what it was.

It was my subconscious, telling me something I didn’t want to hear.

She came back.

She came back for you.

I didn’t want to listen, but the physical reminder — and her bright, wide-eyed face staring at me from across the bar — wouldn’t let me forget.

She’s here for you.

Not because the asshole outside kidnapped her and forced her into this miss — while that was true, that wasn’t why she was here.

She'd been to France, Italy, Germany — a whirlwind European tour, and she hadn't told me when she'd be coming back. Or if she'd be coming back at all. After her brother's and father's death and the nightmare at their estate south of here, I knew she didn't need any more reason to call it quits and just start over.

I would have done the same thing.

But I thought about what she’d said when she came in. ‘I made it to Edisto, to the old laundromat.’

She had no business in Edisto Beach except for me.

I glanced up at her face and saw the concern in her eyes.

“Mason,” she started.

“You came back for me,” I mumbled.

She nodded.

“You came back… but why?”

“For you,” she said. “You just said that.”

“Why me?”

She smiled halfway, then shrugged. “You’re… you. I’ve been everywhere, Mason. I’ve seen everything. We traveled a lot when I was younger, so this was hardly my first visit to Europe. I got halfway around the world and realized I’d seen it all already and that I was really just running from something.

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