“How was your day?” she teased with exaggerated enthusiasm, pulling away from the curb before Dayton clicked his seatbelt into place.
“Fine.”
“Don’t act so happy to see me. Please.”
He shot her a pointed look that barely contained his annoyance. “Long day, Caramello.”
“We’ll go out tonight. Make you forget all about it. ‘Til tomorrow, anyway.” Her winged-liner eyes darted to him and then back to the drenched road. “This weather is something, huh? It’s like the sky is falling out. Mom and dad would say—”
“The angels are bowling.”
Carmen produced a weak smile. “Yep.”
She’d requested leave from United, glad to abandon her mundane flight attendant duties for a couple of weeks, when she concluded through their ritual Sunday evening phone calls that Dayton was depressed.
He was, in fact, not depressed and Carmen would know that had she taken even the most basic psychology course before dropping out of community college.
“By the way,” she said, “mom mentioned she’d appreciate a call from you now and then.”
“I hope she isn’t holding her breath on that one. I think they’re still convinced I’m the bad seed.”
She laughed and the pitch of her voice rose. “You’rethe bad seed? No, I think the roles have reversed ever since you earned your shiny PhD. And I’m the tattooed daughter from a family of doctors who ran away to Los Angeles, where all the other lost souls collect and decay.” Her grip on the wheel tightened. “They have no reason to think that now, do they? They don’t know about Audrey, and what they do know about … that was a long time ago. High school. It’s in the past. Right? I mean, I haven’t gotten a confessional call from you since you moved to this fuck all town. You’ve changed.”
An ache spread through his chest in time with the white flooding her knuckles. Of course, there was a handsome list of misdeeds to which Carmen wasn’t privy. He’d committed unspeakable acts.
Some, unforgivable.
“Right,” he echoed.
They turned onto the highway and the car struggled in its acceleration to keep up with the hilly, winding road. Water collected in ditches and dripped from pine needles. A deer lay dead at the edge of the pavement, a blotch of red staining its fur, and Dayton looked away. It was too familiar.
The rain. The blood.
“I love you, but honestly? This wagon is a piece of shit. It stalled out on me twice today. I’m sure the balance in your savings account has a comma in it. Maybe it’s time to upgrade.”
The comment hit Dayton like a sharp slap.
Kenna. Her childish, blue bike. He’d almost forgotten.
“Pencil in a change of plans for the evening.”
4
MARKED
August was the warmest month in Oregon.
Relief was seldom granted by way of shade or a light breeze, but even so there was no escaping the humidity. That silent predator, thickening the air and sticking to skin.
It was how Kenna felt as she set foot on campus the first day of term. She looked out at the buildings, the lawn, the place she had called home for four years. Something had shifted. Or perhaps she was the one who’d changed and she was seeing the university clearly for the first time. Students passing by without hellos and the overgrown ivy on the brick and the third-floor window in Markham Hall, always illuminated with a light unbefitting its dark past.
Tugging on the strap of her bag, she took it all in. She had never heard of graduate school when she’d arrived in Branch Spring, but she’d gone straight to the dorm address her guidance counselor had written down and figured out, day by day, how to function in the real world.
As Kenna idled on the sidewalk leading out of the parking lot, she wasn’t sure what was a greater testament to her endurance: the milestone of making it to grad school or besting Dayton at his own twisted game.
Redoing her practicum ruined her summer but it hadn’t delayed her studies. She was still on course for the life and career she wanted. That was all she thought about as she breathed in and the heavy air weighed down her lungs.
A gentle breeze wrinkled a flier poorly attached to the nearest lamppost and the motion caught her attention. She stepped closer, drawn in by the smiling girl in the picture. It was fate that she even saw it at all since the staff were swift to take down anything illegally posted to campus property.