He holds me a moment longer, fingers digging into my flesh, before releasing.
I walk on and he follows. “You know, I’ve been wondering something for a long time.”
“You’ve been wondering about a lot of things, haven’t you?”
He laughs and keeps talking as if I hadn’t said anything. “My father wasn’t a kind man. There wasn’t a shred of humanity in that shriveled, shrunken little slab of rotting meat he called his heart. Why did he let you stay here, help you get clean, and give you a job?”
My hand tightens over the shears and I struggle to keep my breathing under control. It’s a question I’ve asked myself a thousand times since everything happened, and even all these years later, even after living on the man’s property for seven years, I still feel like I don’t fully understand.
I have theories. Guesses. Good ideas.
But the truth?
I came to grips a long time ago with never knowing the truth.
Not in a place like this surrounded by people so used to living in fantasy and twisting themselves into gossamer spider webs of deceit that I’m not sure anyone really knows anything anymore.
And the only man that might’ve is gone.
Good riddance.
Kellen stops ghosting after me and I walk on a few paces. “Think about it, Tara,” he calls after me. “We’ll have lots of time to discuss details but I’m sure we can work out a deal.”
I use my free hand to flip him off over my shoulder.
He laughs and his footsteps recede over the rocky ground.