Chapter 3

Reece

Blood pounds in my ears in perfect rhythm to the bang of my heart against my ribcage.

"Hello?" he says, and I think it's the second time he's said it. He doesn't know it's me. I changed my number some years after he left.

"Uhm, yes. Hello?" My voice is scratchy. I clear my throat and try again. "Hello?"

The pause is so long I have to check my screen to see if we've been disconnected.

"Reece?" He sounds taken aback. Still, my name coming out of his mouth sends anguish rushing through my body, whooshing up from somewhere faraway and clogging my throat. I can't speak. I stuff my fist into my mouth, choking back sobs. Abby is gone , I want to tell him. You're gone too. And Abby too.

"Reece?" Soft. He knows something is wrong. Just like always.

My sobs explode inside my throat: nasal inhales and snotty exhales, helpless hums clawing their way up from my throat and through the spaces between my fingers.

He lets me cry. He stays on the phone with me. My screen is wet. The heels of my palms are wet. The tears won't stop.

He stays on the phone with me.

I don't know how long I cry for but when I finally collect myself and my anguish is replaced with a shame so deep I'll surely drown in it, he's still there.

"I—I'm sorry." A humiliating stammer to go with my mounting shame.

"You're not okay." His voice is tender. I chew on the inside of my cheek, pressing my lips together so I don't cry again.

"Rough day," I choke out, unable to keep the runaway sniffle from the end of my answer.

"Rough day?"

"Rough life."

Silence.

Talk , I want to tell him. Say something so I can hold onto the sound of your voice.

"Why did you call?" He's trying not to offend me with his question. I know it from the way he drags it out. Like dragging it out will make it sound less offensive.

I wipe my phone screen, using my sleeve to remove the smudges caused by my tears.

"What happened?" he finally says, when it's clear I have no answer to his first question.

I clean my screen some more, unlocking it so I can see his name. Asher Cameron. Ash. My Ash. Not my Ash anymore.

More than his name, I watch the time tick by. Four minutes and eighteen seconds. Nineteen seconds. Twenty. How long can I stay connected to him like this, someone else's husband?

"I just – everything is so fucked up. I didn't know who else to call. I – I have no one else to call. I just – I just need to get away from here."

Like Julie, I too, need to get away. The urge to just disappear takes hold of me like a devilish power. Yes. This is what I need. I need to disappear. Go to a place where no one knows me, where I can be myself and no one will care. And even if they do care, I won't care because I won't know them. I need to go somewhere where I can start over. Forget about this life. Except Abby, and Julie to an extent. But Abby doesn't live in Arizona. She lives inside me now. And Julie is wherever Julie needs to be. I'll take Abby with me. What more do I need?

"Can I come to Iowa?" The words are bullets flying out of my mouth, landing before I even realize my finger is on the trigger.

The day before Ash left Arizona, I begged Mrs. Cameron to let me see him one last time. "I'll protect Asher," I told her. I promised , like my promises meant anything. "Just please, let him stay."

"You're not brave enough yet, love," Mrs. Cameron said. Her eyes shone with tears. "One day, you'll be brave enough to be yourself."

Asher would be finishing high school ‘back home' somewhere in Iowa. I never knew Asher had any other home beside the one he had on the other side of our property here in Paradise Valley.

No, I couldn't have the details, she said. She was so sorry, but it was for the best.

"Maybe when you're older," she said. Braver. And by then, it will be Asher's decision. He can stay in contact with whomever he wishes. But for now, she and Asher's dad need to help him through this.

I should've hidden the journal better. I shouldn't have been so careless. I shouldn't have waited until long after they left to admit the truth to my father that I was gay.

"Can I at least say goodbye?" I'd asked around the lump in my throat.

"Reece, sweetheart," Mrs. Cameron said. I hated the kindness in her voice. "Asher is hurting right now. He may never stop hurting. Your father has forbidden him from seeing or talking to you, and we've been given notice to leave the property by the end of tomorrow. And I don't know how much your father has told you, but Asher's scholarship offer from Notre Dame has been revoked. Your father isn't being discreet about his role in that. Asher isn't in a good place. Please give him space and time."

The space was the distance between Paradise Valley and somewhere in Iowa. The time, eleven years and counting.

‘Somewhere in Iowa' has been my beacon for eleven years. All through college. Through a year backpacking across Eastern Europe. Through three years of marriage. Through the birth – and death – of my daughter.

And still, ‘somewhere in Iowa' is the only place I ever wanted to be.

I'm met with more silence. So much silence I almost end the call. "I have some things I want to tell you. I – I have some questions too. I want to say sorry for . . . for everything. I want to come to Iowa, Ash. Please?"

"Iowa – at least the part where we live – isn't like how it is in Paradise Valley, Reece." His voice is soft, like a gentle parent.

We. I want to scream and scream and scream into the fucking void. "What's it like?" I ask instead.

"Small. Very quiet. Not very many people but there's lot of people-watching . Nobody minds their own business. We live on the outskirts of the town in a cottage near the woods. Very rural. It's not your scene at all."

Not my scene? He's acting like we didn't spend almost every waking moment as kids in the woods behind his side of the property eating prickly pear jam. Does he think I've changed? "Maybe I can visit for a week," I say. "I can visit you and – and—" The word tastes foul in my mouth. "You and your husband," I finish, managing to keep the resentment out of my tone.

Asher isn't convinced.

"I used to be your best friend, Asher," I say shamelessly. "Surely, I can visit my former best friend and his spouse?" Because I can't say husband a second time and not feel the sickness in my stomach.

"I'll talk to Sawyer," he says.

"What if he says no?"

"We don't own Iowa. You can visit anywhere you like."

Yes. It's only him I can't visit if his – if – Sawyer says no.

"I don't think he'll mind but I need to run it past him first."

Devoted husband, Asher. He should have been my devoted husband.

I set aside my inappropriate, raging jealousy. I want to go to a place where no one knows me. Why can't I also live in the woods where I never have to look at another human being ever again? Maybe Asher and . . . and Sawyer, but if I never saw another person ever again, I would die happy.

"Thank you," I say.

"Have you been well, otherwise, Reece?" He's talking to me like those times when I would cry because my father told me how stupid I was for failing a test. Not his words. The sound of his voice. So much worry in it, like my sadness hurts him.

Have I been well? No. Not at all. Not even a little bit. Not since the day my father forced him and his family out of our town because no son of his was going to be a homosexual, and, according to my father, it would be Asher's fault if I turned out gay. I never figured out until much later that Asher's mother was my nanny, and his father was an employee at my father's company. That the house they lived in belonged to my father and was just a perk of Mrs. Cameron's job.

I always stupidly thought Mrs. Cameron was our neighbor who liked to take care of me and make me food and let me stay till late at her house next door.

My father used his power and influence to push them out.

"I'll talk to Sawyer," Asher says again. He tries to hide the sigh at the end, but I loved him first, and I know when Asher is worried about me.