Elizabeth Finn: Unforgiven

The home was built within the tall, towering pines, and the only trees he’d excavated were those that were simply in the way of his large, rustic home and those that directly obscured his view of the lake below from his large deck. He loved his home. It made coming back to this place tolerable. It was his sanctuary—all his. He rarely had company, his family and the occasional date. He dated plenty, but he avoided letting most women come home with him—preferring to fuck them on their own ground than his. He just didn’t want to share this place. He wasn’t ready to share any real part of himself yet.

He let Macy run while he collected wood for the outside chimney on his deck, and he stacked the wood on the already plenty high woodpile. When he hiked down to the lake with Macy in tow, he walked carefully. He wasn’t interested in falling victim to a copperhead bite, and he sure as hell didn’t want to pay any more vet bills when his dumbass dog got herself bitten. He loved the dog. He also really enjoyed her utter stupidity.

He’d taken Macy to a dog park once a few months ago. He’d expected his dog to make easy friends with pretty much every other animal there, and she had. She didn’t have an aggressive bone in her body. What he hadn’t expected was the overwhelming need most dog owners had to tout just how brilliant and well-trained their furry companions were. Darren wasn’t kidding himself. His dog was dumb—even by dog standards, but when he’d made the mistake of actually acknowledging such a thing, the lovely young woman he was talking to actually bent down to cover Macy’s ears as though he’d just said the most cruel thing in the world. “No” was the only cruel word his dog understood, and he spent the next five minutes trying hard to stifle his laughter as the pretty woman driveled on about her genius-level poodle. He walked away with her number and conveniently lost it in the parking lot. He knew his Macy was dumber than a box of rocks, but you’d hear no complaints from him. She was also likely the nicest dog you’d ever meet. Nothin’ much to complain about.

The water was smooth as glass, and he spent five minutes skipping stones across the flat surface, destroying that glassy surface and sending ripples out in every direction every time he cocked his arm back and slung. He found a large rock, brushed it clean, and sat with his feet up on a smaller rock closer to the water’s edge. He kept his eyes moving over the surface of the rocks—there were more than just copperheads to worry about, and he was no more excited to be bitten by a fiddleback than a snake.

Macy plodded through the water at the shallow rocky shoreline, getting wet up to her shoulders. She was destroying the bath she'd gotten earlier in the day with lake water. Cleanest, clearest lake water around, but lake water nevertheless. She’d bathed his dog. She’d clipped his dog’s nails even. He couldn’t help but wonder if she’d known whose dog it was she was wrestling in a tub—he’d bathed the animal before. It couldn’t have been an easy chore. What difference did it matter if she’d known it was his dog or not? Did he think she’d be cruel to his dog on his account? Of course not. Hatred was a one-way street with them, and it flowed directly from him to her.

“Mace!” She was trampling through some downed limbs that hung out into the water. Good place for copperheads and fiddlebacks. His dog was going to live a short life in this place. He smiled at Macy as she hopped around barking.

It was spring, and the weather was comfortable. The redbuds were in full bloom, speckling the forest with their pink flowers. It was a beautiful time of year, and his gaze fell on the opposite shoreline of his little cove, taking in the multitude of colors, but even that didn’t keep his mind from disappearing for a while.

He’d been oddly relieved to see her again. It was a confusing combination of feelings, much like it had been the other night in the hospital. In the hospital, he’d enjoyed knowing she was nervous; he’d enjoyed knowing she was in pain. There was no sugarcoating it. If it made him an asshole, a monster, a lousy fucking doctor, fine. He’d had plenty of his own pain, and he didn’t much care if she endured a bit of it. What he found most perplexing wasn’t that he wanted her hurting. That made sense. It was that he kept wanting to reassure her. He didn’t, wouldn’t give her that, but the irrational desire to ease her in some way kept cropping up constantly, and he didn’t understand it. How could he go from wanting to hurt her in one second to wanting to comfort her the next?

He gave up after a while trying to figure out what was wrong with his brain, and he hollered for Macy as he stood from the rocks and started the long hike back up the wooded hillside to his home. It was over a quarter mile of rugged and difficult terrain to his rocky backyard, and as Macy ran out in front of him, barking and bouncing like an idiot, he followed. Macy literally ran circles around him as he pushed himself up the steep incline in a near jog, and eventually, he saw his towering home.

He grabbed an armful of small branches and a few small logs and carried them up the deck stairs. He started a fire in the chimney on the back deck, grabbed a beer from his fridge, and flopped down on a lounge chair by the fire. The sky was fading to pink, and before long the pink had turned to purple and then finally to black. His next shift started early the next morning, and it was going to be an early-to-bed night for him. He just had to get his brain to stop spinning. It was her. She wound him up in a most inconvenient way. Always had to some extent. She’d always gotten to him—always—and while her effect on him was something completely different now, she was still so effectively pushing his buttons.

The next night he left the hospital exhausted after a busy fifteen-hour shift. It should have been twelve, but that was just the way it worked. He was also leaving in scrubs after his slacks and dress shirt were ruined by a gushing wound made by a rather large chunk of wood flying off a man’s table saw and into his gut. He spent more money on clothes than most teenage girls did.

He was fortunate to have a retired couple who lived a half mile down the winding gravel road that ended at his home who rescued Macy from monotony whenever he worked long shifts. They would walk over a few hours after his shift would start, let themselves in, and take Macy back to their place with them. They professed to be too old to have a pet of their own, and Darren was infinitely happy they enjoyed his so much. He’d swing by their house on his way home to collect his girl, and he’d offer them payment, which they’d politely refuse. It was their routine, and it worked.

He neared his SUV, stretching his neck as he walked, and that’s when he heard it. That voice he couldn’t seem to shake, couldn’t seem to let go of, couldn’t seem to just plain forget.

“How dare you!” He looked back to see her hopping off her shabby-looking fat tire bike and dumping it in a grassy area near his car. He took a steadying breath as his heart started racing. “I lost my fucking job because of you! Not to mention the visit from my parole officer.” He crossed his arms across his chest as she walked to him. She was wearing her own pair of scrub pants and a gray T-shirt. Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun, and there wasn’t a stitch of makeup on her face. She looked furious. Of course she was furious; she’d apparently lost her job.

“Perhaps you should have been a bit more honest about your criminal record, Bailey. Not really my problem you hid your past from your employer.” He forced himself to turn from her and back to his car. He didn’t really want to. He wanted to square off with her for some strange reason, but he wasn’t willing to get into it in the hospital parking lot. What he was willing to do was mutter over his shoulder. “Nice bike, by the way.”