Page 56 of The Wrong Track
I wanted him to be happy and I thought I knew what he needed for that. “I think he’s the kind of person who does better as part of a couple,” I said. He liked company a lot, like, he really wanted to sit at the table and talk. At night, in his sleep, he sometimes reached for me, too. When he wasn’t working a late shift, I’d been falling asleep holding his hand. I found that I didn’t sleep very well when he wasn’t there. I would lay, listening to all the noises in the night, and then I finally relaxed when he was next to me.
I looked up and caught Hazel watching me so I went on. “He’s very good with the baby. It’s like it’s natural, even the first time he held her.” They’d given her to him at the hospital and he’d taken to her immediately. I remembered seeing it even through the haze of pain and terror as they worked on me.
“I know,” she said, nodding. “I think so, too. He likes people in general and I really think he’d be so happy to be a dad.” And then, I watched her eyes slip to the little person I held on my shoulder and I read her mind. Here was a baby without a decent parent! Tobin could be a father to this one.
“No.” No, absolutely not. Maybe I sucked, but I was going to do my best and I also wasn’t going to force him into parenthood.
Her eyes got big. “How did you know what I was thinking?”
I didn’t want to tell her how transparent she was. Like how even in my own misery of the past few months, I’d been able to see that she was falling in love with Hatch, the guy next door, and also how unhappy she’d been over the collapse of her friendship with Tobin because of it. “It was easy to guess that,” I said.
“Ella already has a great mother. I did, too, and it was enough for me.” Hazel kissed the baby’s head. “She’s going to be wonderful.”
I didn’t want to think any more about the tenuous future that was in store for my child. “How is Hatch?” I asked, and that set us down a different conversational path, one that Hazel loved. She could talk about her boyfriend all day and into the next, and I also heard about her mom and her new husband Lyle and his daughter, which meant that Hazel had a new “sister.”
“Isn’t that great? Don’t tell my mom, but I always wished for siblings. Didn’t you love having a sister?”
I noticed that her question was in the past tense, which was true. I didn’t have a sister anymore. I stood to clean up our dinner dishes and thankfully, Hazel told me more about her new family members and stopped talking about mine.
“I had such a good time tonight, Remy,” she said as she got ready to go. “It was so fun to hang out together.”
I’d tried my hardest to be interesting and conversational, skills which I had lost over the past few years but maybe could encourage to flourish again. “I’m glad,” I said, which was true. “I’m glad you could come.”
“Anytime.” She smiled at me and turned to go.
“Hazel?” I’d thought about what I should say, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to capture it. “I’m sorry.”
“For what? Did something happen to the car? It can be fixed,” she told me.
“No.” I shook my head and tried again. “I mean that I’m sorry that we ever moved in next to you and Monica. I’m sorry that you had to get involved in all these problems. I’m sorry that you had to step into the middle of a fight with Kilian and that he hurt you, too. I’m sorry for all of it.”
Hazel shook her head back at me. “You don’t have to be sorry. This wasn’t your fault, Remy.”
She didn’t know. “I’m also grateful,” I went on. “I know I haven’t been acting like it, but I am. I’m very, very grateful for everything that you and your mom and Tobin and everyone has done for me. Thank you.” I’d imagined where I might have been without all their help, which was jail. Or more probably, dead.
“You don’t have to thank us or be sorry. I’m sure that you would have done the same for someone else and I feel like I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time to do it for you.”
No. She wasn’t understanding. What she had done—and her mom, and Tobin, and everyone—it was like how a hero would act. Again, I tried to explain. “If I hadn’t had your help, I would still be sitting in that empty townhouse, too afraid to leave. When they took Kilian away, I thought I would die. I mean, I was pretty sure he’d get out soon and come kill me. And I didn’t think I wanted to live without him. I didn’t think I could.”
“You didn’t want to live without him? He was so…”
I knew that. “I know what Kilian did. I know better than anybody.”
She still didn’t get it. She hugged me once, then again. “Tobin will be home soon,” she said, reassuring us both. “Should I stay until then?”
“No, we’re ok. Thank you, Hazel.” It took her a minute, but she eventually left.
I stood at the picture window watching her car drive away. She wasn’t right about something she’d said, not right at all. She’d been sure that I would have helped someone else, but I wasn’t the person that Hazel was. I’d had the chance to be a hero and I’d failed. When Kilian had brought home other girls, what had I done? Nothing. Nothing, except to show them how to survive the best they could. I hadn’t helped them to get away because I’d known what that would have meant for me. I’d been a coward, too terrified to act. I’d failed them.
Now, the best I would hope for was that I wouldn’t be another failure for Ella. After I put her in her crib, I sat on the floor next to it and listened to her breathe for a long time. That was where Tobin found me when he came home from his date with Lulu, and I didn’t ask him about it. We just went and fell asleep, me clutching his hand.
Chapter 12
It was hell. Utter, burning hell. I leaned over, hands on my knees.
“Keep on coming!” Tobin called from the porch. He held Ella’s arm and pumped it up and down. “We’re cheering for you.”
I ran the last few steps into the driveway and then wanted to throw myself down onto the soft, new grass that was growing in and filling his lawn. “I did it,” I gasped. “I made two miles.” Which was nothing compared to what I’d done before, absolutely nothing. But it was two miles longer than I’d run in the last four years.