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Matt let out a soft gasp.
Her arms were covered in writing.
Not just writing, but names. The names of people in town. So many, possibly everyone in town. Several had lines drawn through them—Lynn Tatum, Norman Heaton—others were inflamed, irritated; the source of the itch. It looked like blue ink, but the pen he’d given her wrote only in black.
Matt reached for her wrists. “What the hell is this?”
She tried to pull away, but not before he grabbed her. Electricity shot up his fingertips, through his arms and torso. Matt’s body went stiff, and his vision burst in a bloom of white.
52
Matt
THE PAIN BEHIND MATT’Seyes exploded, expanded out from his pupil, then blinked back out as quickly as it came. The world rolled sideways, and when it righted itself he was standing in the living room of his small apartment, facing the kitchen.
Addie Gallagher was there, so was he. Somehow, Matt was watching himself with her from across the room.
Addie was holding a bottle of Jim Beam, this mischievous look on her face. “Does that uniform of yours come with handcuffs, Deputy?”
Her words were slurred, obviously drunk. She brought the half-empty bottle to her lips anyway and gulped down two large swallows.
“You shouldn’t be here,” both Matts said—the one standing in the living room and one standing next to Addie in this, what? Dream? Vision?
Memory.
Living Room Matt knew exactly what this was, because thiswasn’t the first time he’d relived it. He wanted nothing more than to forget it, take it back, undo what came next, but he knew he couldn’t do that any more than he could erase words carved in stone.
“If you didn’t want me here, why did you call?” Addie stepped closer to the Matt in the kitchen and held the bottle toward him. “It’s okay, nobody will ever have to know. This can be our little secret. I’ll give you the things she’s not and not a single soul has to know.”
Kitchen Matt snatched the bottle from Addie’s hand, ripped it from her grip, went to throw it across the room at the wall in some drunken rage, but Living Room Matt knew he wouldn’t. On some level, they all knew that, even Addie, because she only smiled. Her fingers fumbled through the buttons on her blouse until it was hanging loosely from her shoulders. She wore a black silk bra beneath. “Hey, remember that party at Brian Lowman’s house in tenth grade? His parents were gone and he invited everyone over, then kept us down in the basement, thinking his folks would never know as long as nobody went upstairs?”
“We went upstairs,” both Matts said softly, his words as slurred as hers.
“We went upstairs,” she purred. “Went up to the kitchen and had a party of our own.”
“That was a long time ago,” both Matts replied, both stepping closer to Addie.
Still facing him, Addie backed up to the kitchen counter and hoisted herself up. “You put me on the counter, just like this, told me to lie back”—and she did—“just like this. Then you did a shot off my belly … my breasts …” She drew her finger down from the center of her breasts, over her torso, slipped it under the waistband of her jeans.
“That was a long time ago,” both Matts muttered for a second time, the words bumping together in a single drunken breath.Kitchen Matt raised the bottle to his lips and took a long, hard drink—both Matts felt the smooth burn in their throats, their bellies.
Addie unsnapped the button of her jeans and pulled the zipper halfway down, revealing a hint of pink underwear. “I’ll do things to you Gabby would never consider, let you do things to me … whatever you want. I know what you like, Matt, I always have. And it will be our little secret.”
Both Matts stood in silence for several long moments, then Kitchen Matt raised the bottle of bourbon back to his lips even as Living Room Matt muttered, “No, don’t …” because he understood that was the moment he went over the edge, with that drink.
Kitchen Matt shuffled closer, got within inches of her, set the bottle down on the counter.
“I’m glad I came back,” Addie breathed, her fingers playing across the buckle of Matt’s belt. “All these years, nobody’s ever fucked me like you.”
Neither Matt heard what she said next, because Kitchen Matt grabbed her by the band of her jeans and pulled her toward him as if she weighed nothing. Living Room Matt shouted for him to stop, lunged toward them both—
Matt cracked against the desk, his knees and thighs hitting the center drawer with enough force to nearly tip the desk over. Both legs on his side smacked back down against the tile with a loud crack and Matt fell back into his chair. The bottle of Advil rolled across the top of the desk and fell to the floor, then the office went silent.
When Matt managed to look back up again, the girl was no longer in the chair opposite him but standing in the far corner of Ellie’s office, her back pressed against the wall, vigorously scratching at one of the names on her arm—Arwa Gilmore—there was a line drawn through it that hadn’t been there a moment earlier.
Words slammed into his head. Unspoken, yet as loud as a shout—
Hope not ever to see Heaven. I have come to lead you to the other shore; into eternal darkness; into fire and into ice.
