Beautiful Mistake

I poured myself a stiff drink and paced back and forth for a while, remembering the last time I’d seen the little girl from the church—the day I’d followed her home. After everything that happened, my parents had sprung into action to protect me—calling in favors from everyone and anyone, local politicians and police. So much of what went down that day was a blur by now—except one thing. I’d lied to the little girl I now knew as Rachel for months, instead of doing what I could to get her out of that hell as soon as possible.

Rachel

After ten minutes, the class was getting antsy. I texted Caine, then decided I’d better start the lecture or the students would begin leaving any minute. There was an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. He still hadn’t responded to the text I’d sent last night when I got home from my sister’s—even though I could see he’d read it.

I lectured for a while and then took a break to play the class a few pieces we would analyze. As the music filled the room, I checked my phone from behind the podium. Nothing. Yet the text about class had also been read.

At first, I’d been concerned that Caine had gotten much sicker, maybe had even gone to the hospital or something. But if he was able to read my texts, why wouldn’t he be able to respond?

After about an hour of the ninety-minute lecture, I was so distracted, I cut the class early. Caine wouldn’t be happy about it, but that wasn’t my immediate concern. Anxious, I dialed his number before the classroom had even emptied. It rang once and went to voicemail.

When a cell is turned off, it goes immediately to voicemail. When someone is unable to answer it, it rings a bunch of times before dropping to voicemail. But when it goes to voicemail after one ring, the recipient is hitting ignore. What the hell?

I left a message. “Caine, it’s Rachel. I’m worried about you. You haven’t responded to my texts and didn’t show up for class. Can you please let me know everything is okay so I don’t start calling emergency rooms like a crazy person?”

I wanted to drive over to his apartment and check on him, but I had to be at work in an hour, and there wasn’t enough time to get there and back. Tuesday was also the only day I worked alone. I opened for Charlie because he did his grocery shopping and went to visit his wife’s grave every week like clockwork. No way was I going to interrupt that because my boyfriend wasn’t answering my calls.

Is he even my boyfriend? The entire drive to O’Leary’s, I found myself debating anything and everything to do with Caine. One little hiccup and my mind was a frenzy of paranoid observations. By the time I parked, I’d come full circle. The man wasn’t avoiding me—he simply didn’t feel well. Unfortunately, when I checked my phone, that theory was obliterated.

Caine: Feeling better. Thank you for covering class.

That’s it? No damn explanation? The knot I’d had in my stomach all morning wrenched into anger. I deserved more than that. Tossing my phone into my bag, I unlocked the front door at O’Leary’s and sprang into my opening ritual on autopilot. I flicked the lights on, turned the oven on in the back, unloaded the dishwasher, and brought out the first crate of glasses to stock behind the bar before counting out the register. Promptly at twelve, I turned on the open sign. Then I checked my phone again. Nothing.

The hours dragged by after that. Ava popped in at four—an hour before her shift started—to visit me, and I was ripe for a verbal explosion. She took a seat at the bar. There was just one other patron at the other end, a retired cop friend of Charlie’s who didn’t say much and only required a beer an hour.

“So you are still alive?” she said. “I figured maybe you’d been fucked to death by the angry professor.”

Ava took one look at my face and hers fell. “Oh no. What happened? That asshole screwed you over? Is he married, because I’ll seriously go ballistic on his ass.”

I sighed. “No, it’s nothing like that.”

“Then what is it?”

“I wish I knew.”

I then proceeded to verbal vomit on my poor friend, telling her all the details of the last few days. Well, not all the details—the incredible sex parts I kept to myself—but I told her everything that might be relevant.

“Do you think he got cold feet because you took him to Riley’s? Some men have ridiculous meet the family fears—they think that’s the last step before you drag them down the aisle.”

“I suppose it could be…although I don’t think that’s it. He never hesitated or showed any concern about going with me, and the first ten minutes or so after we arrived, he was fine.”

“What happened between the time you arrived and when he said he wasn’t feeling well and bolted?”

“Nothing, really. I’ve replayed it over and over in my head. We were sitting down in the living room looking at photo albums.”

I stared into space as I visualized the three of us—me, Riley, and Caine—sitting on the couch. Photos. Pigtails. Mom dying. Benny. It figured something would go wrong at the mere mention of that man. Then it dawned on me. Could Caine possibly be pissed because I’d lied about not having a stepfather? It was so insignificant; I couldn’t imagine that was it.

“Family photo albums? He bolted because he felt pressure.”

“But I didn’t pressure him. He had asked to see a picture of me when I was little.”

“Doesn’t matter.” She shrugged. “He’s a commitment-phobe.”

“I really don’t think that’s it.”

“Well, then maybe he was really sick? Maybe he went into your sister’s bathroom, got a bad case of the shits, and didn’t want to clog the toilet.”

I scrunched up my nose. “Do you really need to describe it like that?”

Ava shrugged. “Do you want me to justify him running out so you can pretend he doesn’t have commitment issues or not?”

Honestly, all I wanted was to get rid of this unsettled feeling. If Caine did have commitment issues and a visit to my sister gave him cold feet, I could deal with that. All I needed was honesty.

Caine

Fifteen years ago

This was the fourth stop she’d made to pick flowers on the side of the road on her ride home. Her life sounded like a clusterfuck of bad shit, yet she spotted the beauty in the middle of weeds and tall grass.