Collared Read online

  I wonder what he studied. I wonder what kind of job he has. I wonder if he went to senior prom. I wonder about everything.

  “You were always a good student.”

  A small laugh escapes his lips. “I was a good student. Kind of hard to keep that up when I spent most of my time trying to find you.”

  “You looked for me?” I say it like a question, but I already know the answer.

  I’d caught a glimpse of him on some national news station when Earl Rae had slipped out and I’d stolen a few minutes of TV time. Torrin was giving an interview to one of those big news anchors, wearing a T-shirt with my picture on it, and talking about how he hadn’t given up on finding me even though it seemed like the rest of the country had. That was two years after my kidnapping.

  “Of course I looked for you. Everyone did. Your dad and the department turned this city upside down looking for you. I never stopped looking for you. I’d still be looking for you if they hadn’t found you.” He pops his knuckles and wanders a little closer.

  The air thins again.

  “I feel weird talking about myself with everything that happened to you. We should be talking about you, not me.”

  I shift in bed. I don’t want to talk about me. I’d much rather talk about him. “I spent the last ten years in the same house, with the same man, on a fifteen-foot length of chain.” The words spill from my mouth like an avalanche, gaining speed with each one. I can’t stop them. I can’t take them back. “There. Now we’ve talked about what I’ve been up to.”

  He swallows another apple, his forehead creasing. “Jade—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, Torrin.”

  It’s the first time I’ve said his name in months. Maybe years. It seems to hit him as hard as it does me. His eyes seal shut.

  “A psychiatrist already talked me to death about it earlier, and I’m going to have to go over the whole thing tomorrow with a couple of detectives. I don’t want to talk about it any more than I have to.”

  His fists curl at his sides. He tries to unclench them, rolling them a few times, but it doesn’t work. “He kept you chained up?” The words come out sounding strange. Like his jaw has been wired shut and he’s trying to speak.

  “It wasn’t, like, in a dungeon or anything,” I say quickly. I won’t mention the first year when I was kept in a dark, damp closet that could have qualified as a dungeon. He doesn’t need to know that. His dreams don’t need to be haunted by it too. “I got to roam the kitchen, my bedroom, the bathroom . . . even most of the living room.” I’m so concerned about making him feel better that talking about Earl Rae doesn’t cripple me like it did with Dr. Argent earlier.

  He moves closer and looks at the chair beside my bed. He looks like he’s going to take a seat, and at the last minute, he stands taller. “Did he . . .” He has to work his jaw loose to continue. “Hurt you?” His eyes flash again.

  “Not in the way you’re thinking.” My voice wobbles. He notices.

  He looks away again, but not before I notice him wince. “I’m so sorry, Jade. God, I’m sorry.”

  I bite my lip because I’m not going to cry in front of him. I’m not going to let him see me in pain. I’m going to end this nightmare for him once and forever. At least one of us can find some peace.

  “I am too,” I say.

  “I never should have let you walk yourself home that night. I shouldn’t have left your side until you were inside safe.” He stops to take a breath, but he’s going to keep going.

  I jump in because I know this path. It never ends. “This isn’t your fault, Torrin.” My hand curls around the bedrail close to him. “It’s not your fault there are sick people in the world.”

  He stares at my hand, studying it. I wonder if it looks as foreign to him as it does to me. “No, it’s my fault I let my girlfriend get taken by one of them.”

  “No, don’t.” I shake my head. “That’s all in the past now. Forget it. Let it go.”

  He turns until his back is facing me. Even beneath his rain jacket, I notice him quiver. “I’ll never be able to let that go. He took your life from you. He took my life by doing so.” Torrin’s knuckles pop when his fists curl again. “He took everything. I’ll never be able to forget it. Never.”

  I’ve known Torrin Costigan since we were five and my family moved in down the block. I know him better than I know my own brother and sister. I feel like I know him better than I know myself now. Something’s wrong. Other than the obvious.

  There’s more. I can feel it. I can see it. He’s trying to tell me something, but he can’t.

  Acknowledging that makes my stomach feel like it’s being ripped open. “What’s the matter?”

  “Besides finding out that this whole time you were two hours away?” His voice is rigid just like his posture”

  My legs tingle like they’re going numb or just waking up from being numb. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  He takes a moment to reply. “It’s been ten years. Probably a lot.”

  I wait for him to add something else. He doesn’t. He doesn’t want to say whatever it is, but I need him to. How can I move on unless I know? He was most of my whole life back then. I need to know if he can still be in it. My eyes drop back to his hands again. No ring. But that doesn’t mean anything. That just means he isn’t married. It doesn’t mean he isn’t in love. Someone else could crawl into bed beside him every night, curling around his warm body.

  Even if there is no one, just because I’m back doesn’t mean he wants me back. A decade’s gone by. I’m not the same girl he fell in love with. I’m not sure if even a sliver of her is left in the broken woman lying in this hospital bed.

  “Your knuckles. You still pop them when you’re nervous, you know?” I say when I catch him rolling them again.

  He stops the moment I mention it.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, turning in the bed to face him.

  He doesn’t turn around, but his head drops. “I didn’t know . . . I wasn’t sure . . . if I’d ever see you again. I never stopped looking—I never stopped hoping—but I just didn’t know.”

  I’m falling. I’m falling and there’s no end. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again either. It’s okay. Whatever you have to tell me, I’ll understand.”

  His head lowers even more, and I know that whatever he has to tell me, it might finish the job of breaking me. “You’re comforting me,” he says to himself. “You’re the one who’s been through hell, and you’re comforting me. It should be the other way around.”

  I focus on the exposed back of his neck, the bands of muscles pressing through the skin. “Just tell me, Torrin. You and me, that was a lifetime ago. I’m a different person now. You probably are too.” I swallow, but this time instead of flames, ice encases my throat. “It’s okay.”

  When he catches himself popping his knuckles again, he slides his hands in his front pants’ pockets. “I came prepared to talk about you . . . to see you . . . not to talk about me.”

  “Plans change.” I’m hinting at more than his conversation agenda, and from the way he tips his head back at me, he knows it.

  “I wasn’t going to tell you this until later. With everything . . . everyone . . . I didn’t want to spring one more thing on you right at first.”

  He’s got someone. He’s moved on. Part of me is happy, but part of me feels like I’m losing my whole life all over again. Ten years is a long time—a lifetime for teenagers like we were when I was abducted.

  He’s moved on, and that’s a good thing, I remind myself because I know I can’t love him anymore the way he deserves to be loved. I’ve gone too long without feeling it, too long without expressing it, and learning to love again is not like riding a bike—it doesn’t come back naturally.

  “I’d rather have it all come at me now than spread out over weeks,” I say, my hand gripping the bedrail a little tighter. I’m not sure if it’s keeping me from drifting off or falling away, but it’s keeping me her
e, with him, and that’s where I need to be right now. “The sooner I know it all, the sooner I can move on with my life.”

  He lets my words stagnate for a minute, then he exhales. It sounds like he’s been holding his breath for the past ten years.

  “I’m sorry, Jade,” he whispers, like he’s confessing a crime.

  Then I hear him unzip his raincoat followed by the rustle of him shrugging out of it. His back is still to me, and I’m not sure why. Or maybe I do. He can’t look me in the face and tell me what he has to. I can’t imagine what could be so bad Torrin can’t look me in the eye and confess whatever it is.

  “It’s okay,” I say again because it is. Once upon a time, I had the love of a really wonderful person. That’s more than most people can claim.

  His shoulders tense at my words as he hangs his jacket over the back of the chair. He’s dressed in a dark, short-sleeved shirt. Torrin was never much of a black fan. He used to live in faded jeans and colored tees. It looks like darkness has touched him too though. I wonder how deep its claws have gotten into him.

  “I thought you were gone.” This time it’s not a whisper—the words spill from his mouth like he’s cursing them.

  The bedrail is sticky from my palm sweating. “I know.” I have to pause because those two words feel like I’ve just recited the Bill of Rights in one breath. “It’s okay.”

  He stares out the window for another minute. The city lights don’t seem as bright as they did when I woke up. The sparkle’s been taken out of them.

  Finally, he turns toward me. Slowly. Like he’s fighting a herd of wild horses pulling him the other way. His head is bowed, and his arms are at his sides, his hands open and his palms facing me.

  At first, all I notice is how perfect he is. Standing in front of me ten years later. The boy I remembered is inside the man in this dark room with me. His dark hair is falling into his eyes, and his jaw is locked the way it’s been most of the night.

  It isn’t until I lower my gaze from his face that I see it. The collar. His is black with one square of white nestled below his Adam’s apple, but a collar is a collar—an object meant to control and restrain its wearer.

  Instead of answering my questions, it brings on a fresh landslide of them.

  My gaze lowers to the black button-down shirt, the matching slacks, and the dress shoes. I can’t make any of it make sense.

  “Why are you dressed like a priest?” The words don’t sound like mine, but no one else in this room could have said them.

  His eyes meet mine. “Because this is what I am.”

  The world is spinning faster than normal. My room is at the vortex of it. I replay my question. I replay his answer. I can’t make them agree.

  “No, you’re not.” I feel my forehead crease.

  He exhales slowly and moves closer. “Yes. I am.”

  My heart is beating against my breastbone so hard, it hurts. “You’re lying.”

  Torrin doesn’t stop until he’s beside my bed again. It’s the closest he’s been to me tonight. He’s close enough I can make out his scent, and it’s the same one I remember. It takes me back to that last night we were together, when I felt surrounded by that smell as I lay below him in his bed. The way it seemed to envelop me like nothing could cut through it.

  “I’m telling the truth.” His eyes travel to the monitors on the other side of my bed. His brow furrows at one of them. “I finished seminary a year ago. I’m the priest at St. Marks.”

  St. Marks. I remember it. I remember driving by it and admiring the stained glass windows and gothic architecture. Never once had I driven past it and imagined Torrin being the priest of it one day.

  One part of me hopes the drugs pumping through my veins are strong enough to cause hallucinations because maybe then this isn’t real. Maybe he isn’t really dressed like a priest and admitting he’s one. A hallucination seems more real than believing Torrin has become a priest.

  “You had to practically be dragged to mass every week. You’d sneak out of Sunday school to spend it making out with me in the church parking lot.” I lift my brow at him. He lifts his own brow back. “I thought you would have become a baby seal clubber before a priest.”

  He moves another foot closer until his belt is almost touching my bedrail. I want to touch him, but I’m not sure I can. I’m not sure if it’s allowed or if I’m even capable of it anymore.

  “Back then, so did I, but like you said, you’ve changed.” His shoulders lift. “So have I. This is who I am now.”

  I don’t know what to say. Are congratulations in order? An apology? An acceptance? I don’t know. All I know is that I feel like I’ve been saved from one prison only to be tossed into a different one. Life feels no different now that I’ve been “rescued.” I still feel trapped. I still feel alone. I still feel like I can never trust or be close to another human being. I still feel like the girl I was is dead. I still don’t know if I want to spend the next sixty years as the woman I’ve been forced into.

  “Your heartbeat—it’s too fast.” Torrin’s eyes narrow on the machine monitoring my heart. “Try to calm down, Jade.” He looks at the door then at the nurse’s call button.

  I take a deep breath. The beeps don’t slow down. “I was found less than twenty-four hours ago and just found out my boyfriend became a priest.” I try another deep breath. This one doesn’t help either. “It’s a lot to take in.”

  Torrin can’t stop watching the heart rate monitor. “I’m upsetting you. I’ll leave.” He backs up a few steps and stops. “I just wanted to see you. I had to see you.” His jaw tightens like something I can’t see is flashing in front of him.

  “Did my parents tell you?”

  They were here hours ago, so they had plenty of time to call him. They had to know Torrin would want to know.

  He shakes his head. “We don’t really keep in touch anymore.” His hand curls around the handle of my water pitcher. When he notices it’s empty, he heads over to the sink. “I think it was too hard for them with everything and, you know, how you’d been coming back from seeing me when you were taken. Plus, I was kind of a prime suspect for a while after you went missing. I don’t think your dad’s ever really taken me off the suspect list either.”

  The water spurts on, and his back’s to me again. I feel like he’s trying to keep some distance between us, but I’m not sure how much. Did he only come tonight to see me one last time before saying good-bye? Or can we get together for coffee every once in a while?

  God. The boy I thought I would marry is now the man I’m questioning if it would still be okay to ask out for a latte on occasion. My life has been decimated.

  “I’m sorry they didn’t call you,” I say, trying to sit up a little higher. “And I’m sorry anyone thought you had something to do with me going missing.” I hadn’t considered that once. I should have. Those closest to a victim are always first on the suspect list, but it just seemed so preposterous that anyone could think Torrin would do something like that to me.

  He shrugs and pours some water into my cup before setting the pitcher down beside it. “I’m sorry it took so long for you to be found.” He manages a smile that is all guilt and regret. “I should go. It’s late.”

  My hand moves toward him automatically. He’s too far away for me to reach him, but he doesn’t miss it.

  “Don’t go. Please.” I keep my hand in the air for another second before dropping it onto the mattress. It’s too heavy to hold up. “I know he’s dead. I know he’s never coming back . . . but I’m scared.” I drop my eyes. It’s not just Earl Rae and what happened that scares me. It’s what’s waiting for me tomorrow. It’s all the tomorrows after that that scare me.

  “Do you want me to find a nurse? Maybe they could give you something.”

  I tilt my head at the IV bag. “They’ve already given me everything they’ve got. Just . . .” What is it? “I don’t want to be alone. Does that make sense?”

  I don’t know if it does. I’ve sp
ent the past ten years virtually alone. Why am I so afraid of being alone for one night?

  Torrin exhales, his shoulders relaxing. He grabs the leg of the chair with his foot and pulls it to the edge of my bed. “I don’t want to be alone either. I’ll stay.” He takes a seat and scoots a little closer. He almost looks as relieved as I am that he’s not leaving. Yet. “As long as you want me, I’ll be here. Right at your side.”

  His hand slips through the bedrail and finds mine. His fingers tie through mine as his palm slides beneath it. His hand is a little bigger than I remember. It’s a little rougher too. My fingers knit tightly around his like he’s all that’s keeping me from slipping away.

  It’s so natural, so instinctual, it’s like I never stopped holding his hand these past ten years.

  “I’ll stay awake. Keep watch. Okay?” His chin tucks over the bedrail, and this time when he smiles at me, there’s no emotion tainting it.

  I smile back, the same kind. “Okay.”

  I roll a little more onto my side so I’m facing him. With the way his head’s resting on the rail, it hides his collar. For a moment, I let myself believe that nothing has changed and he’s the same boy who asked me to marry him . . . someday . . . one day . . . barefoot and grinning.

  I let myself get carried away by that moment. I let myself feel the only joy I’ve felt in ten years. I let myself feel it . . . then I take an imaginary pin and pop it.

  That life died the night I died to the world. That life is gone.

  My eyes drop to our combined hands, and I wonder if I should pull away. I wonder if pulling away now instead of later would be easier because I’m not sure I can be friends with the man I once loved. I think doing so would be like dying again every day.

  I should pull away.

  But I can’t.

  “Is this okay?” he asks when he notices me staring at our hands. “Me . . . touching you?”

  The way he says it makes me think someone warned him about what happened earlier with my family.

  My fingers tighten around his. “This is okay.”

  His smile stays in place. “Good.”