12. Shadows of Doubt
I cried by myself in the dark for longer than I cared to admit. It felt pathetic, but Marta’s confession seemed like the end of the world. I didn’t want Ace to be with someone else.
Even if I hadn’t been hopelessly in love with him, I’m not sure I would have ever been okay sharing him with some other girl. Ace had always been mine and mine alone.
He didn’t have any siblings, and his mom died when we were young, so it was just him and his dad, and his dad was one scary motherfucker. It’s why we almost always went to my house instead of his.
If this new girl came into his life, she would take him away from me. No girlfriend would be okay with her boyfriend being as close to another girl as Ace was to me.
He would stop spending as much time with me. He would stop sleeping next to me every night.
Another bout of intense sobs escaped my chest. I didn’t know what I would do without Ace.
Reaching down to my side, I grabbed my phone. I needed to call him. I needed to hear his reassuring voice and get an update on when I was going to see him again.
The screen lit up, and I gasped when I saw my notifications.
Since putting my phone on silent, I had 125 missed calls and countless texts from Ace.
Why hadn’t I checked it earlier? Was I that afraid he’d mention this Clara girl that I’d not be able to handle it?
Ace I miss you. This isn’t nearly as fun as hanging out with you and your brothers.
Ace What are your plans for tonight? Going to invite Marta over?
You haven’t seen her in a while.
Well, that’s kind of sweet. He sent those texts around the time I got home from school.
Ace Okay, I’m going to need you to answer me now. Are you okay?
Why aren’t you answering your phone?
Ace
What’s wrong?
Ace
Answer your phone.
Ace I don’t know why you’re avoiding me but I need you to fucking talk to me here.
Ace
What the hell is going on, Doe?
Ace Doe, I swear to god, if you don’t answer your phone in the next two seconds, I’m going to lose my
fucking mind.
Ace I’m not kidding, Doe. Don’t make me hunt you down.
As if he knew I was looking at my phone, his name and contact picture lit up my phone screen as he called me.
I considered answering it but then thought better of it and hit the rejection button instead. He would just yell at me for not answering sooner if I talked to him.
uld be okay with I sent a quick text instead.
Dorothy Sheesh, why are you freaking out? I’m fine.
His reply came within seconds.
Ace Do you have any idea how worried I was? What happened? Tell me what’s wrong.
Dorothy
Why do you think something is wrong?
Ace Because I know you. I can feel it. You’re upset about something.
Now answer my call.
I stared down at his message in confusion just as the screen lit up with his call once again. He could just feel that I was upset about something? That made zero sense.
Nothing ever made sense when it came to him, and after the emotional roller coaster I’d just been on, I was so sick of it. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with it.
I hit reject again.
Dorothy I’m fine. Watching a movie with my family. Can’t talk.
It was a lie but a white one. With that, I turned off my phone and put it in the drawer of my bedside table where I wouldn’t see it or think about how angry I was making Ace.
I needed a distraction, so I wiped the remainder of my tears away and grabbed my laptop to watch a horror movie.
I had never seen one, but horror was Marta’s favorite genre so had always recommended several movies to me.
But surprise, surprise, Ace never let me. He said that if I got scared during the voodoo scenes from The
Princess and the Frog, there was no way I would be able to handle a real horror movie.
But he wasn’t here tonight to stop me, was he? So, I could do whatever I wanted.
I loaded up the movie and hit play.
Take that, Ace.
*** I was an idiot.ad. He would just
Yep, I admit it. Watching the horror movie had been such a bad idea. I now understood why Ace had always told me I couldn’t handle it. I was only ten minutes in and I was about to pee my pants.
Why the hell did they have to use such suspenseful music? Any time a character turned a corner, the music got more intense, and I had to squeeze my eyes shut in case something popped out to eat them.
Someone knocked on my bedroom door, and I nearly shat my pants. It wasn’t even a hard knock, either, but a gentle tap, like the person on the other side thought I might be sleeping.
I clasped a hand over my racing heart and took a deep breath, trying to get my emotions under control.
“Come in,” I called out.
The door opened, and my dad appeared, his silhouette framed by the hallway light shining from behind him and into my room.
“Why is it so dark in here?” He flicked on my light.
I blinked as my eyes readjusted. “I was watching a movie,” I explained, gesturing to my laptop. I noted his worried expression. “What is it?”
“Ace is texting me.” He frowned. “And calling me. Says he needs to talk to you and you’re not answering the phone.”
I stared at him. There was no way Ace would go as far as to call my dad to get a hold of me. “You’reain. He could just
kidding, right?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
I groaned and fell back down on the bed. “He texted you?” I whispered, covering my face with my hands.
Ace and my stepdad had a strange relationship.
Ace’s mom died of cancer when he was only eight years old. Mrs. Stoll’s death was hard on everyone, but especially Ace’s father.
Mr. Stoll started drinking. A lot. He stopped going to work and would often disappear for months at a time, leaving Ace all by himself without warning.
When he was around, he was a completely different person, including being cruel and emotionally abusive toward Ace, and sometimes even physically abusive, leaving Ace with horrible bruises.
Just like my biological father, Ace’s dad abandoned him when he needed him. But instead of running off, he hurt Ace, got into fights with him, and told him he would never live up to his potential.
In response, Ace started to lose his temper more often. Instead of crying or writing his feelings down in Thea journal, he threw chairs and punched walls and bit people.
Yep, you read that right: Ace would bite people when he got mad.
I was the only person who could calm him down, but there were times when even I wasn’t enough, and he’d race off to the woods and disappear for hours at a time until he got himself under control.
He didn’t like being upset around me. He didn’t want to scare me.
Even at nine years old, I was so worried about him. Everyone was.
Thankfully, Joe stepped in and took Ace under his wing.
Joe and Ace’s father spent a lot of time together. They were both key figureheads for the community, often organizing things like town functions, budgeting, and dealing with any emergencies.
They were also childhood best friends, reminding me a lot of Ace and Madoc’s relationship. Mr. Stoll was even the one who introduced my mom to Joe.
Given Joe’s history with Mr. Stoll and my, well, special relationship with Ace, Joe was the natural choice to become a second father figure for Ace after his mom died.
Since Mr. Stoll was obviously incapable of taking care of his son, Ace stayed with us for about a year from the ages of nine until ten.
Joe helped Ace get his anger under control by providing him with coping mechanisms and helped him process his mother’s death in a way that I—the fellow nine-year-old—could not. ning from behindI’m not sure what would have happened to Ace if Joe hadn’t been there to support him. Nothing good.
Even after Ace moved back in with Mr. Stoll, their relationship was never the same.
The two of them hated each other. y laptop. I notedMr. Stoll remained distant, picking fights with Ace whenever they were around each other. And Ace avoided his father at all costs, never inviting me to his place when he knew Mr. Stoll was home.
I appreciated it. Ace’s father also made me feel extremely uneasy. There was something off about him.
Unhinged. Any time I was near him, I caught him leering at me from a distance or glaring at Ace.
Plus, I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen him sober. I could only imagine how much a man his size had to drink in order to maintain a constant state of inebriation.
Thank goodness the Stolls came from money, or Ace would have been out on his butt. Mr. Stoll had been too drunk to do anything of use for nearly a decade now, leaving the community duties to Joe.
Ace had told me countless times how grateful he was to have me and my younger brothers in his life, how grateful he was to my mom and dad for taking him in when he needed it.
But as with most father-son-like relationships, where there was love, there was also tension. Ace didn’t like being told what to do. Especially when it came to me.
That posed a problem for my dad. Both men were just so protective of me, both assuming they knew what was best for me. It caused them to butt heads sometimes.
But no matter what happened between them, I knew they would still care about each other at the end of the day.
Nonetheless, it bothered me that Ace called my dad when he couldn’t get a hold of me. He was taking things a step too far. feelings down inThe mattress dipped as my dad sat down on the bed next to me. I dragged my hands down my face. He held up his phone for me to look at, showing me that Ace was calling him at that very second.
sn’t enough, and
w much a man his
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