But I don’t remember much of that. My mind was blank with terror.
Instead of reliving it, I find myself imagining Preston’s journey in. I picture him coming out here alone at night, not knowing if he’d find a body or a stash of stolen goods, if he’d find anything. Not knowing if he was walking into a trap.
I wonder how long he waded through the water before he found me. I remember hearing his voice, how it woke me. I picture him casting the light of his headlamp around, how creepy this would be if I were alone, without his reassuring presence at my back. He must have been determined as hell to come all this way.
I imagine what he thought when his light finally hit me. When he saw me tied up, hanging against that tree, my body bound and gagged with the hood covering my head. I see that picture in my mind, the one he sent me to show to the twins, the blood running down my arms from my bound wrists to my shoulders, down my legs to the ground.
“Here,” Preston says. I twist around and see him looking at his phone. He puts it up and pulls the kayak up to the base of a tree. There’s a little island of dirt around the swollen root base. It looks so small, I’m not sure more than two of the boys could have stood on it at a time.
“Are you sure?” I ask. “Can you find something that precise with your phone?”
“Yeah,” he says, pulling my kayak up to the tree, too. “It’s like geocaching.”
Like geocaching.
The ridiculousness of his statement strikes me as hilarious, and I have to force myself not to laugh. He takes my hand and helps me out, and we stand on the little hillock, inches apart. I could reach out and touch the tree where they tied me.
“What now?” I ask.
“It’s up to you,” he says. “It’s your exorcism.”
It strikes me again how fitting his choice of words. Royal is my demon, but he can’t be exorcised. Like an addiction, people say you have to really want to quit before it will work. I don’t think I ever really wanted to quit Royal, even when I hated him. I still hate him half the time, but his demon has invaded me, put in roots. It is part of me. When I went into the darkness, it became a part of me. I can never truly leave. It became my own, melded it with. Trying to exorcise Royal would be like trying to separate two tendrils of smoke once they’ve combined into one.
When I went into his darkness, it went into me. And I don’t want it to leave.
“I brought stuff,” Preston says, snagging a backpack. “I have a hatchet. Gasoline and matches. I can leave you alone and go over there for a minute if you want to be alone. Hell, I’ve got food if you want to sit here and have a fucking picnic.”
“I don’t understand you,” I say, shaking my head. “I’ll never understand why you’re so nice to me.”
“Nice?” he asks, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “Didn’t you just accuse me of taking advantage of you and not giving a fuck whether you wanted me to fuck you all those times?”
“That’s still true, too,” I say. “But you don’t have to be nice to me anymore. You don’t even have to talk to me. You could have told me to fuck off when I texted. I’m not a Darling. You’re not responsible for me just because you rescued me out here, Preston. I still love Royal. You should hate me.”
“We’ve all got demons,” he says. “We just deal with them in different ways.”
I nod slowly. “So I’m not your sun. I’m your demon.”
He shrugs. “Some people try to atone for their sins. Some people repeat them. One way or another, this town fucks everyone up. But it’s still my town, and I failed it. If I see a way I can help even one person, isn’t it my job to at least try?”
“Shut up and feed me,” I say. “You’re going to make me cry.”
Preston shakes his head and opens his backpack, but I see the smile he’s hiding, and it makes my heart break for him. He deserves so much more than I can give him, so much more than this town. I will never do for him what he’s doing for me right now. This town will never do for him what he’s doing for it.
“Maybe the real place that has power over us isn’t a swamp or a bridge,” I say. “Maybe it’s a town.”
five
Harper Apple
Preston spreads out a blanket, and I sit with my back against the tree and my heels right at the edge of the water. He sets out two kinds of fancy crackers, olives, cheeses, sliced meat with coarse black pepper coating the edges, thin sheets of smoked salmon that come apart in flaky layers, and a bottle of wine.
“Rich people,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“You don’t eat cheese and crackers?”
“How much did that wine cost?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. Not much. Probably fifty bucks. I didn’t know if you’d want it, so I didn’t bring the good stuff.”