Elizabeth Finn - Unforgiven

The water was smooth as glass, and he spent five minutes skipping stones across the flat surface, destroying that glassy surface and sending ripples out in every direction every time he cocked his arm back and slung. He found a large rock, brushed it clean, and sat with his feet up on a smaller rock closer to the water’s edge. He kept his eyes moving over the surface of the rocks—there were more than just copperheads to worry about, and he was no more excited to be bitten by a fiddleback than a snake.

Macy plodded through the water at the shallow rocky shoreline, getting wet up to her shoulders. She was destroying the bath she'd gotten earlier in the day with lake water. Cleanest, clearest lake water around, but lake water nevertheless. She’d bathed his dog. She’d clipped his dog’s nails even. He couldn’t help but wonder if she’d known whose dog it was she was wrestling in a tub—he’d bathed the animal before. It couldn’t have been an easy chore. What difference did it matter if she’d known it was his dog or not? Did he think she’d be cruel to his dog on his account? Of course not. Hatred was a one-way street with them, and it flowed directly from him to her.

“Mace!” She was trampling through some downed limbs that hung out into the water. Good place for copperheads and fiddlebacks. His dog was going to live a short life in this place. He smiled at Macy as she hopped around barking.

It was spring, and the weather was comfortable. The redbuds were in full bloom, speckling the forest with their pink flowers. It was a beautiful time of year, and his gaze fell on the opposite shoreline of his little cove, taking in the multitude of colors, but even that didn’t keep his mind from disappearing for a while.

He’d been oddly relieved to see her again. It was a confusing combination of feelings, much like it had been the other night in the hospital. In the hospital, he’d enjoyed knowing she was nervous; he’d enjoyed knowing she was in pain. There was no sugarcoating it. If it made him an asshole, a monster, a lousy fucking doctor, fine. He’d had plenty of his own pain, and he didn’t much care if she endured a bit of it. What he found most perplexing wasn’t that he wanted her hurting. That made sense. It was that he kept wanting to reassure her. He didn’t, wouldn’t give her that, but the irrational desire to ease her in some way kept cropping up constantly, and he didn’t understand it. How could he go from wanting to hurt her in one second to wanting to comfort her the next?

He gave up after a while trying to figure out what was wrong with his brain, and he hollered for Macy as he stood from the rocks and started the long hike back up the wooded hillside to his home. It was over a quarter mile of rugged and difficult terrain to his rocky backyard, and as Macy ran out in front of him, barking and bouncing like an idiot, he followed. Macy literally ran circles around him as he pushed himself up the steep incline in a near jog, and eventually, he saw his towering home.

He grabbed an armful of small branches and a few small logs and carried them up the deck stairs. He started a fire in the chimney on the back deck, grabbed a beer from his fridge, and flopped down on a lounge chair by the fire. The sky was fading to pink, and before long the pink had turned to purple and then finally to black. His next shift started early the next morning, and it was going to be an early-to-bed night for him. He just had to get his brain to stop spinning. It was her. She wound him up in a most inconvenient way. Always had to some extent. She’d always gotten to him—always—and while her effect on him was something completely different now, she was still so effectively pushing his buttons.

The next night he left the hospital exhausted after a busy fifteen-hour shift. It should have been twelve, but that was just the way it worked. He was also leaving in scrubs after his slacks and dress shirt were ruined by a gushing wound made by a rather large chunk of wood flying off a man’s table saw and into his gut. He spent more money on clothes than most teenage girls did.

He was fortunate to have a retired couple who lived a half mile down the winding gravel road that ended at his home who rescued Macy from monotony whenever he worked long shifts. They would walk over a few hours after his shift would start, let themselves in, and take Macy back to their place with them. They professed to be too old to have a pet of their own, and Darren was infinitely happy they enjoyed his so much. He’d swing by their house on his way home to collect his girl, and he’d offer them payment, which they’d politely refuse. It was their routine, and it worked.

He neared his SUV, stretching his neck as he walked, and that’s when he heard it. That voice he couldn’t seem to shake, couldn’t seem to let go of, couldn’t seem to just plain forget.

“How dare you!” He looked back to see her hopping off her shabby-looking fat tire bike and dumping it in a grassy area near his car. He took a steadying breath as his heart started racing. “I lost my fucking job because of you! Not to mention the visit from my parole officer.” He crossed his arms across his chest as she walked to him. She was wearing her own pair of scrub pants and a gray T-shirt. Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun, and there wasn’t a stitch of makeup on her face. She looked furious. Of course she was furious; she’d apparently lost her job.

“Perhaps you should have been a bit more honest about your criminal record, Bailey. Not really my problem you hid your past from your employer.” He forced himself to turn from her and back to his car. He didn’t really want to. He wanted to square off with her for some strange reason, but he wasn’t willing to get into it in the hospital parking lot. What he was willing to do was mutter over his shoulder. “Nice bike, by the way.”

“You fucked me! Do you understand what you’ve done? This was all I had!”

He ignored her until he reached his driver’s-side door, but then he lost his composure and wheeled on her. “I’ve not ever fucked you, as you well know, but I sure as hell screwed you over pretty good. Seems fitting.”

“I lost my job because of you!”

“You can’t possibly think I care.” He was seething as he spoke the words, and her eyes had filled with tears.

“Yeah? Well, you used to,” she yelled at him. She stayed staring at him with her lips trembling as her tears started to fall, and with a final resigned shake of her head, she turned back to her bike and walked away.

He watched her small figure walk away from him, and he didn’t look away from her until she’d hopped on her bike and was pedaling away from him. He didn’t want her to catch him staring after her, so he forced himself to get in his car and drive away before she noticed.

That odd combination of hatred and hurt racked his brain on the way home, and once he was safely inside his own home, he flopped down on the couch and stared at his great room ceiling high above him. It was nearly thirty minutes before he realized he’d forgotten Macy, and he trudged back outside to jog the half-mile to the Anderson’s house. They were outside on their porch, and Macy was lying at their feet. She started barking the instant she saw Darren, and when Darren made it up to them, he apologized.

“I can’t believe I forgot her. My brain was just taking a break, I guess. Sorry about that.”

“Oh, it’s no problem. If we were worried, we’d have called. You know we enjoy Macy’s company.” Katherine Anderson was a plump, older woman with the sweetest face he’d ever seen. She always smiled, and Darren no longer thought she owned a frown. He certainly did, and his stress was more often than not etched on his face—at least Katherine often told him so. She also didn’t know how to hold her tongue. “You look upset, Darren. You okay?”

“I’m fine.” He sank to their porch steps as Macy wriggled up to him and tried to French kiss him before Darren could close his mouth. “Just a long day is all.” He could hear the drawl in his voice. It only ever really popped up when he was stressed. Another of Katherine’s very astute observations.

“How your folks doin’?”

She was studying him closely, looking for his deception. “They’re all right. Only see ’em once a week or so. Been so busy at the hospital.”

“Well, you make sure you get to see them soon, you hear?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Darren didn’t call anyone ma’am, but she seemed to bring it out in him with her strong southern accent. They’d retired up to the Ozarks from Louisiana. They liked seasons more than they liked hot, humid, year-round warmth. He stood and stepped down from the porch steps. “Y’all take care. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

They watched as he retreated with Macy, and with a final wave, he rounded the bend at the end of their driveway. He jogged most of the way home, still wearing his scrubs but at least with a good pair of tennis shoes on at this point. He was sweating when he finally reached his house, and he stripped out of his clothes as he stepped into his walk-in master shower. He stood with the water only barely warm, showering down over him, and he closed his eyes, seeing her. When he opened his eyes, it was no better. He couldn’t shake the image of her standing furious in front of him, her tears streaming down her cheeks and her cutting words, hell, his own cruel rebuttal. He wasn’t ready to have her near him again. He just wasn’t ready for this.

Six Years Before

“Hey, Jess, you seen Bailey?”

“Shut up! My head is throbbin’, and your voice is the most obnoxious thang in the world.” His sister was sitting slumped over the kitchen island, and even though she was being rude, he couldn’t stop the smile that pulled up his lips. She did look like hell after a night of losing literally every game of quarters they played, and frankly, she deserved her pain. “She left a note. She was takin’ a walk this mornin’, and I haven’t seen her yet today.” She looked to the wall clock. “Helluva long walk.”