No Boundaries (18 page)

Melissa and Andi made their way to the back deck where they sipped beer and gazed up at the stars.

“So,” Melissa started after a long silence, “you’ve been a little quiet this evening. Are you doing okay?”

Andi realized Melissa had waited until they were alone to ask the serious questions. She knew Andi wouldn’t have wanted to talk openly in front of Jimmy. She saw the worry in Melissa’s eyes.

“I’m as okay as I can be.” She paused. “I think I had started to believe I could put all this behind me. I just wanted to live a normal life.”

“You still can, Andi, nothing has changed.”

“Hasn’t it? For the rest of my life I’ll be looking over my shoulder. I’ll never be certain he won’t come after me. Even if he doesn’t get out this time, it’ll happen eventually.”

“No one has any guarantee that something bad won’t happen, Andi. But you can’t stop living. You can’t just sit around and wait for something that may never come.”

Andi picked at the label on her beer bottle. “It’s all so crazy. We weren’t even supposed to have to think about this for years.”

“I know. But we’re going to put a stop to it. He won’t get out.”

“I hope you’re right.” Andi sighed and took a drink of her beer.

Melissa regarded her for a long while, and the attention made Andi self-conscious.

“What?”

Melissa pursed her lips as if trying to decide if she should say something. “You and Gwen look really good together. I can tell she’s crazy about you. God, could she be any more gorgeous?”

Andi smiled. “She is, isn’t she?”

“She seems to be taking this pretty well. Does she know everything?”

“Most of it. She knows about Boyd and James.”

Melissa was studying her and it made Andi uneasy.

“What about the other stuff?”

Andi didn’t answer. She looked off into the darkness, not wanting to admit her cowardice.

Melissa sat up in her chair and looked hard at Andi. “You haven’t told her, have you?”

Andi met Melissa’s gaze. “No.”

“Andi, you have to tell her. Let her be there for you,” Melissa said, sounding incredulous.

Andi closed her eyes tight and thought of Gwen. She liked having someone in her life who didn’t know about her past. She felt more normal not having Gwen look at her and see everything. By telling Gwen her story, she would allow the evil to soil the purity of their relationship and the innocence would be lost.

She tried to explain the inexplicable. “Maybe if all this had happened when we thought it would, I would have had time to build a life with Gwen I couldn’t let go of, but not now. I can’t let anyone else get hurt because of me. We’re just getting started, Mel. This isn’t something I can just tell her.”

“You’re afraid she’ll leave you the way J.C. did.”

Andi’s hands clenched at the mention of J.C.’s name. Gwen was nothing like J.C. She was so much more.

“She’s different, but yes. I know she would never walk out on me the way J.C. did, but yes, I’m afraid I’ll lose her. I’m afraid all this will be too much to handle or, worse, that James will get to her. I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to her.”

Melissa reached out and placed a hand on Andi’s arm. “Oh, sweetheart, Gwen will understand. But you have to tell her. I saw the way she looked at you. She loves you, Andi.”

Andi shook her head. “I just don’t know.”

“Do you trust her?”

Andi sighed. “Yes.”

“Okay then, tell her. Wouldn’t you want to know how to help her if things were turned around?”

Andi knew Melissa was right, but she had no idea how to tell Gwen the truth. The whole truth.

“You say you want a normal life. Well, that means letting people into your life, letting people love you, and letting them help.”

Andi dropped her head back onto the seat with a thump. “I let you in and look what happened.”

“You were not responsible for what happened to me, Andi. I can’t tell you how much I wish things had been different.”

Melissa dropped her gaze. Andi could see the muscle in Melissa’s jaw jerk as her teeth clenched.

“Hey, we can’t go back there,” Andi said, getting up to go sit next to Melissa. She put her arm around her shoulder.

“I know,” Melissa said, her voice weak as she glanced up and met Andi’s eyes. “But I’ve missed you.”

“I know,” Andi said with a sad smile. “I’m sorry I ran away.”

They were silent for a while as they drank their beer and watched the stars.

Andi was the first to break the silence this time. “How do you get through it, Mel? How do you make the nightmares stop?”

Melissa’s gaze burned into Andi, all the emotions of the past four years pouring out like a tsunami. “I don’t know. Sometimes I spend hours talking to Jimmy. Sometimes I don’t sleep at all. I don’t know that the nightmares will ever stop. There are times when the memories are so vivid it’s like it’s happening all over again.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“When I saw what they did to you, it killed me. What they did to me was nothing compared to seeing you hurt that way.”

“Mel.”

“Don’t worry. I’m okay. Things happened so fast and there was so much going on. You were vulnerable, and I never should have let things get out of hand. If I had done my job and protected you better, you wouldn’t have been hurt. I didn’t blame you for leaving.”

“You’re wrong, Mel.” Andi took Melissa’s hand. “You did everything you could. What happened was not your fault. I ran because I couldn’t face you, knowing that every time you looked at me, you would see what he did. I thought it would be best if I wasn’t around as a constant reminder of what happened. If it wasn’t for me, they never would have hurt you.” Andi’s last words came out strangled, and she swallowed, trying to hold back her emotions.

Melissa stared at Andi, her expression a mixture of hurt and surprise.

Andi squeezed Melissa’s hand. “After everything you had been through because of me, I knew you would never be able to look at me the same way. I would always be a reminder to you of the horror and pain. I thought it would be better for you if I just…disappeared.”

Once the words had started, all her feelings poured out. Andi couldn’t hold anything back. “I felt so much shame and guilt. Throughout the trial I could hardly look at you because I could still hear your screams in my head. I was reliving every minute of that night, and I didn’t want to be that reminder for you.”

“Oh, Andi.” Tears spilled from Melissa’s eyes and ran down her cheeks. She knelt in front of Andi. “I’m so sorry, Andi.”

Andi leaned in to Melissa and wrapped her arms around her. “I’m sorry too, Mel. I’m sorry I was a coward.”

Melissa’s lips brushed Andi’s cheek before she buried her face in Andi’s shoulder and cried. They held each other, mourning their loss and trying to heal the hurt with a small portion of understanding. When they broke apart, Andi stroked Melissa’s cheek with the back of her hand.

Melissa gave her a half-crooked smile and sighed. “I can’t believe we never talked about any of this.”

Andi shook her head. “So much has changed. You have Jimmy now.”

“And you have Gwen,” Melissa said with a grin. “What do we do now?”

Andi’s eyes burned from the remains of her tears. “We fight back.”

“See, this is exactly why you have to tell Gwen everything. Just be honest with her. You’re going to need her.”

Andi shrugged apologetically. “I just can’t.”

“Shit!” Melissa pulled away from Andi suddenly as she stood and began to pace.

“Mel?” Andi was confused by Mel’s sudden change. Was she having a panic attack? Had Andi somehow triggered it?

“Give me a minute.” Melissa waved her hands in the air as if she was fighting to breathe. Her pace was frantic and she wouldn’t make eye contact with Andi.

Andi stood and approached Melissa, placing a hand on each of her shoulders. Melissa tried to turn away, but Andi held her tight in her grip.

“Mel.” Andi’s voice was commanding and it made Melissa stop and look at her. “Talk to me.”

Melissa’s voice trembled. “When you left, you left me believing I failed you.”

Andi’s heart sank. “I’m sorry, Mel. I thought I was doing the right thing. I couldn’t ask you to forgive me. I was falling apart. You were trying to heal and I couldn’t ask you to take on my part in this too.”

Melissa pushed Andi away, her eyes hot and glaring, burning into Andi. “Damn it, Andi, that was my decision to make, not yours, and it isn’t yours now. Gwen deserves the truth! She needs to choose whether to stay or go, or your
kindness
will haunt her forever. Stop trying to figure out what everyone else thinks, needs, or feels. Just let us in.”

Andi stood dumbfounded. She had never considered that Melissa would have made a different choice. Would Gwen?

*

Gwen watched Andi get ready for bed. She had been distant and distracted since her time alone with Melissa, and Gwen was beginning to worry. She was aching for some way to ease Andi’s unrest and somehow make her nightmare end.

“Is something wrong?” Gwen asked as Andi rearranged her clothes in the drawer for the third time.

Andi shook her head without looking up. “No. I just have a lot on my mind.”

“Why don’t you come to bed and tell me about it?”

Gwen was hopeful when Andi closed the drawer she had been studying and made her way to the bed. She stopped just short of Gwen. She looked down at the bedcovers, avoiding eye contact. When Andi didn’t move and didn’t say anything, Gwen sat up and took Andi’s hand.

“Hey. What’s going on with you? Talk to me.” She brushed her thumb across the back of Andi’s hand. “Did something happen between you and Melissa?”

Andi’s eyes flickered with pain as she glanced up at Gwen. “I feel like I keep messing things up for the people I care about.”

Gwen gently pulled Andi onto the bed and wrapped her in her arms. “None of this is your fault, sweetie. You’re a good person who got hurt by some really bad men. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Gwen felt Andi’s head shake against her shoulder. “Melissa never would have been hurt if it wasn’t for me.” Andi went rigid against her.

“Andi…”

“Then I left her to deal with it all on her own. I let her go all this time believing she had let me down. She thinks she failed me.”

Gwen closed her eyes against the pain she felt for Andi. She couldn’t imagine what she and Melissa had gone through. “You didn’t know that. You were doing the best you could to take care of yourself.”

“No. I was just running. I wasn’t taking care of anything.”

Gwen held Andi tighter, brushing her fingers gently though her hair. “Well, you’re taking care of things now. Maybe you both needed this time to deal with things on your own before you could be ready to face this one last fight together.”

Andi lifted her head and looked at Gwen. Her expression was so sad, so lost that Gwen became afraid. “What?”

“If you had known my story from the beginning, would you still be here?”

Gwen didn’t hesitate. “Yes. I believe I would. Our story might have started out differently if you had told me about your past, but I think I fell in love with you on that very first day, standing in my kitchen. It happened when I was holding your hand under the water and you let me work the rocks and rubble out of the cut on your palm. You were so trusting and patient despite the obvious pain you were in. And you were just so damn beautiful. I think I would have loved you no matter what you told me.”

The look in Andi’s eyes was so desperate, so wounded, that Gwen realized this was about more than just the issues with Kevin James. “Talk to me, Andi. Tell me what’s upsetting you. What happened in your life that makes it so hard for you to believe you can be loved?”

Andi stared at Gwen.

“I don’t have a family,” Andi started. “From the age of eleven I was an orphan. I grew up as a ward of the state.”

Gwen sat holding Andi’s hand, listening intently.

“I’ve told you a little about my time in foster care. It wasn’t easy to place a child of my age, so I bounced from home to home and spent a lot of time in group homes as a teenager.” Andi’s eyes had grown distant as she recalled her childhood.

“Unlike most of the children I met, I threw myself into my schoolwork. I didn’t like most of the other kids, who were often in custody because of behavioral issues. I just didn’t fit in. Every time I got close to one of the girls, they would be moved to another placement, or I would. When I turned eighteen, I opted to stay in custody for the maximum allotted time so I could attend college and obtain a degree. I learned pretty early on to keep my sexuality a secret for the most part, except for prom.”

Gwen smiled, and she was glad Andi had shared what seemed to have been the one happy moment of her teen years with her.

Andi continued her story. “Prom was great, but when my foster mother found out she had the state move me. I came out when I was nineteen. I met a young woman in college who was in my criminal justice class. We were alone in my room one evening when my case worker decided to make a surprise visit. Mae, the girl I was seeing, was sporting a black T-shirt that read
Lipstick Lesbian
on the front, and I had a love bite on my neck.”

Gwen chuckled. But Andi didn’t even crack a smile.

“Mrs. Anders, my case worker, was not pleased by the situation and placed me on a sort of probation. She kept a painfully close eye on me. I couldn’t have visitors in my room and I had a nine o’clock curfew. I even had to check in with the RA every evening. Needless to say, Mae lost interest pretty quickly. After college I threw myself into my work and earned my master’s degree. Although I was finally free to live my life, I was distant and guarded and didn’t make friends easily. Traits you’ve pointed out are still an issue.”

Andi and Gwen continued to talk for the next two hours, both sharing stories of heartbreak and vanished dreams. Gwen felt like she was getting a rare glimpse into the heart of the woman she loved. She wanted to know everything. The more Andi talked, the more Gwen understood about Andi’s emotional distance and reluctance to get close to people. She had been hurt and abandoned throughout her entire life. Gwen realized just what a task it would be to prove to Andi that she loved her and that she would never leave.