Chapter 18: The Truth
The coffee maker gurgled through its last hissing breath, and the smell of dark roast began to seep into the bedroom. Allan's thumb traced lazy circles on my thigh, his eyes half-closed, content in a way I had never seen him. I should have been content too. Every part of me was warm and safe and wanted.
But something sat heavy in my chest, a stone I had been carrying since the day I opened my eyes in this body. He had told me things last night, real things. He had trusted me with his secrets. And I had let him hold me, kiss me, fall asleep beside me, all while keeping the biggest truth of my life locked away.
"Allan," I said, and my voice came out smaller than I intended.
He opened his eyes fully, reading my face. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong. I just..." I swallowed. The locket felt cold against my throat. "There's something I need to tell you. About why I'm really here."
He didn't pull away. His hand stilled on my thigh, but he stayed close, his gaze steady. "Okay."
"I'm not just some girl who moved to Vermont because her parents died." The words tasted strange in my mouth, half-truth and confession braided together. "I'm in witness protection."
The silence stretched. His brow furrowed slightly, but he didn't look away. "Witness protection," he repeated.
"Yes. I testified against some people in Chicago. Bad people. I saw something I wasn't supposed to see, and I went to the police, and they put me on the stand, and..." I let out a breath. "The trial happened. They got convicted. And then they relocated me. New name. New life. This town."
He was quiet for a long moment. His hand moved from my thigh to my hand, his fingers threading through mine. "What did you see?"
This was the dangerous part. The truthful part. "A murder. I was walking home from work and I saw it happen. A man, in an alley. There were three of them, and they... they beat him and they shot him, and they saw me. They saw my face." The memory surfaced unbidden, the wet sound of it, the way the man's body had crumpled. "I ran. I called the police. I gave a statement, and then a deposition, and then I testified in open court. That's when everything changed."
Allan's thumb stroked across my knuckles. "How long ago?"
"Feels like a lifetime." I laughed, a hollow little sound. "Because it sort of was."
He was quiet again, processing. I could see him working through it, the pieces of my story realigning. The evasions, the loneliness, the way I had flinched at certain questions.
"So Sabrina Parker isn't your real name," he said.
"No."
"Your parents didn't die in a house fire."
"No."
He looked at me, and there was no accusation in his eyes, only a quiet gravity. "What is your real name?"
"Sabrina Zygurski." The name felt foreign and right at the same time, the only thing I had left from before. "I was born Sabrina Zygurski. I've never been to Buffalo. That's all part of the cover. I don't know anything about Buffalo, New York, and I never lived there. It's just what they put on the paperwork."
He nodded slowly. "Chicago. That's where you're from?"
"Yes."
"And the people you testified against, they don't know where you are?"
"No one knows where I am. That's the point. They gave me this house, this name, this life." I gestured vaguely at the room around us, at my own body. "Everything you see is a construction. A very careful one."
He was quiet. The coffee maker had fallen silent, and the house was still around us. I could feel my heart beating in my throat, waiting for him to pull away, to look at me differently, to be angry that I had lied.
Instead, he lifted my hand and pressed a kiss to my knuckles. "Thank you for telling me."
"You're not... upset?"
"I'm not upset that you lied to protect yourself. I'm upset that you had to." He held my gaze. "That's a hard thing to carry alone. You've been carrying it alone, haven't you?"
Something cracked in my chest, a fissure I hadn't known was there. I nodded, not trusting my voice.
"I won't tell anyone," he said. "Sabrina Parker, Sabrina Zygurski, whatever name you go by, it doesn't matter to me. You're still the same person who fixed that carburetor with me. The same person who made me watch Die Hard." A smile tugged at his mouth. "The same person who laughed at my story about the chicken dispute."
"That story was funny," I managed.
"It really wasn't. But you laughed anyway."
I laughed now, a watery sound, and he pulled me against his chest, wrapping his arms around me. His heartbeat was steady under my cheek, and I breathed him in, letting the warmth of him steady me.
"You're safe here," he murmured into my hair. "Whatever you're running from, whatever's out there, you're safe with me. I meant that when I said I'm not going anywhere."
I closed my eyes. The stone in my chest had not dissolved, but it had shifted. I had told someone the truth, at least most of it. The rest, the part about this body being borrowed, about the man I used to be, that stayed locked away. Some truths were too heavy to hand to someone you loved.
But I had handed him a piece of it, and he had held it carefully, and that felt like enough for now.
"Thank you," I whispered against his chest.
His arms tightened around me. "Always."
"Always," he said, and the word settled over me like a blanket pulled up to the chin.
We lay there a moment longer, the warmth of him bleeding into me, the smell of coffee drifting up the stairs. But I could feel the shift in him, the way his body tensed slightly, the way his breathing changed to something more practical. The real world was waiting outside the farmhouse, with its patrol routes and its radios and its steady hum of small-town obligations.
He pressed a kiss to my forehead, soft and lingering. "I need to take a shower and get to work. I'm on the early shift today."
I nodded, though a small part of me wanted to cling to him, to keep him here in this golden morning light where nothing could reach us. "Okay."
He slipped out of bed, and I watched him go, taking in the sight of his bare back, the lean muscles shifting under his skin as he stretched. He caught me looking and grinned, a flash of boyish charm that made my stomach flip, then padded to the bathroom. The shower hissed to life behind the closed door.
I lay there for a moment, listening to the water run, before I forced myself up. My feet hit the cool floor, and I pulled on the shorts I had discarded sometime in the night, tugging the tank top straight. The mirror at the top of the stairs caught my reflection, a woman with tousled hair and a soft, satisfied look on her face. It still startled me sometimes, this face, this body, but this morning it felt less like a stranger's and more like my own.
Downstairs, I moved through the kitchen with a purpose I hadn't felt in weeks. I found a thermos in the back of one of the cabinets, dusty from disuse, and I rinsed it out, filled it with the fresh coffee that had already brewed. The dark liquid steamed, rich and bitter, the way he liked it. I remembered the diner, how he had asked for it black, and I made sure to leave it exactly that way.
I pulled out the bread I had bought, some deli turkey and cheese, lettuce, and a smear of mustard. The sandwich came together quickly, and I wrapped it in wax paper, then found a small brown paper bag in the pantry, the kind that had come with the groceries from the market in town. I tucked the sandwich inside, added a bag of chips from the cupboard, and grabbed a can of soda from the fridge, sliding it in beside the chips.
The bathroom door creaked open upstairs, and I heard his footsteps on the stairs, heavier now, dressed. I set the bag on the counter and filled the thermos cup, turning as he came into the kitchen.
He was in his uniform, the pressed khaki shirt crisp over his shoulders, the brass badge gleaming at his chest. His hair was damp and combed back, and he smelled of soap and something clean, like the woods after rain. He looked like a man who belonged to this town, this life, this quiet order of things, and something in my chest ached at the sight of him.
"For you," I said, holding out the thermos and the paper bag.
He looked at them, then at me, and a slow warmth spread across his face. "You made me breakfast."
"It's just a sandwich and some chips," I said, suddenly self-conscious. "I don't know if you have time for a sit-down meal, so... coffee to go."
He set the paper bag and thermos on the counter and crossed the space between us in two strides. His hands cupped my face, tilting my head up, and he kissed me. It was not the soft, sleepy kiss of this morning. This one was deeper, hungrier, a claim staked in the middle of my kitchen. His mouth moved against mine, and I felt his tongue brush my lower lip, a slow invitation I leaned into without hesitation. His thumb traced along my jaw, and I gripped the fabric of his shirt at his waist, pulling him closer.
When he finally broke away, he was breathing a little harder, his eyes dark and warm. "I'll be back after work," he said, his voice rough. "I'll bring dinner. Don't cook."
"You don't have to keep feeding me," I managed, my own voice shy.
"I want to." He kissed the corner of my mouth, then my forehead, then pulled back with visible reluctance. "I'll see you tonight."
He grabbed the thermos and the bag, and I followed him to the front door. He paused on the porch, turning back to look at me, a smile tugging at his lips. "The coffee smells incredible, by the way."
"That's the point," I said, leaning against the doorframe.
He laughed, that low, rumbling sound that made my toes curl, and walked to his patrol car. I watched him get in, watched him wave through the windshield as he backed down the gravel drive, and I stood there until the car disappeared around the bend.
The farmhouse settled back into silence, but it felt different now. Less empty. There was a warmth to it, a presence that lingered in the smell of his soap, in the dent his body had left in the mattress, in the thermos he had carried away with him.
I went back inside and poured myself a cup of coffee, leaning against the counter as I sipped it. The morning light spilled across the kitchen floor, and somewhere out in the barn, the truck waited, patient and solid. I had a life here now. A real one, made of mornings and coffee and a man who looked at me like I mattered.
The stone in my chest had not dissolved, but it had shifted again, settling just a little lighter. I had told him the truth, or most of it, and he had held it without flinching. Whatever came next, I would face it. And for the first time in a long while, I believed I could.
I finished my coffee and set the mug in the sink, letting the quiet settle around me. The house felt alive now in a way it hadn't before, humming with the memory of Allan's laugh, the weight of his good-bye kiss. I wandered to the front window and looked out at the yard. The grass had grown wild in the weeks since my arrival, thick and unruly, reaching past my shins in places. It made the farmhouse look abandoned, neglected, like no one cared for it.
I did care for it, I realized. This strange, borrowed life had become mine, and I wanted it to look like someone lived here.
I went upstairs and pulled off the tank top and shorts, standing in the afternoon light that slanted through the bedroom window. The mirror caught my reflection, and I let myself look for a moment. The body I inhabited had become less alien to me with each passing day. The soft curve of my hips, the heavy weight of my chest, the way my hair fell in honey-blonde waves around my shoulders. It was still strange, still a costume I hadn't chosen, but it was also, undeniably, mine.
I pulled on a clean cotton thong, pale pink with a small bow at the hip. A sports bra came next, snug and supportive, lifting the weight of my breasts into something manageable. The bicycle shorts were black and hugged my thighs, ending just above my knees. My work boots were small, the laces short, and they fit my feet perfectly, a detail that still caught me off guard. Justin had worn size eleven boots. These ones were sevens, and they laced up in a blink, snug and secure.
I grabbed a hair tie from the bathroom counter and pulled my hair back into a loose ponytail, then headed outside.
The barn smelled of hay dust and motor oil, familiar and grounding. The truck sat under its tarp in the corner, patient, waiting for our next session. But today I had a different machine in mind. In the far stall, tucked behind a stack of old feed bags, sat a green tractor. It was old, maybe from the seventies, with a rusted mower deck bolted underneath and a seat cracked from years of sun. The tires were worn but held air, and the engine block was coated in a thin layer of dust and grime.
I ran a hand along the fender, feeling the cold metal under my palm. It had been a long time since I had coaxed life out of an old engine, but the knowledge was still there, buried under years of spreadsheets and courtrooms. I grabbed the toolbox from the truck's bed and set to work.
The battery was dead, but there was a charger in the corner of the barn, plugged into the wall, and I hooked it up. While it charged, I checked the fuel lines, traced the spark plug wires, and cleaned the carburetor as best I could. My hands were small now, nimble, and they fit into spaces Justin's thick fingers never could have reached. There was a strange satisfaction in that, a small consolation in this body I hadn't asked for.
The battery took twenty minutes to reach a charge. I connected the cables, climbed up onto the seat, and turned the key. The engine coughed, sputtered, and died. I tried again. Cough. Sputter. Nothing. I checked the choke, adjusted the fuel mixture, and tried once more. The engine turned over with a growl, caught, and rumbled to life, belching a puff of blue smoke that dissipated into the barn's shadows.
I laughed, a genuine, surprised sound that echoed off the rafters. The tractor vibrated under me, a deep, mechanical purr that felt like an old friend. I released the parking brake and eased it forward, steering it out of the barn and into the afternoon sunlight. The mower deck rattled, and I could feel the blades spinning beneath me, chewing at the air.
I parked it at the edge of the yard, letting it idle and warm up. The engine settled into a steady rhythm, a low rumble that promised work. The grass stretched out before me, wild and tall, waiting to be tamed.
I killed the engine for a moment and climbed down, wiping my hands on my shorts. The headphones. I remembered seeing them in the home office when I had first explored the house, a pair of bulky noise-canceling headphones sitting on the desk like they had been left there for someone who needed to block out the world. Someone who had probably been placed in this house before me, a ghost I would never meet but whose belongings lingered like echoes.
I jogged back to the house, my boots crunching on the gravel, and pushed through the front door. The office was at the end of the hall, a small room with a wooden desk and a window that looked out over the back field. The headphones were still there, just where I had seen them, black and slightly scuffed from use. I picked them up, slipped them over my ears, and adjusted the band.
Silence closed in around me, muffling the creak of the floorboards, the distant call of birds, the hum of the refrigerator. I could still feel the vibration of the tractor through my boots when I stepped outside again, feel the rumble in my bones, but the noise was gone, sealed out by the cool pressure of the headphones.
I climbed back onto the tractor, pulled the headphones down snug, and released the parking brake. The engine growled beneath me, and I eased forward, feeling the deck catch the first swath of grass. It was satisfying, watching the wild growth fold and fall in neat rows behind me. The sun beat down, warm on my shoulders, and the sweat began to bead on my skin, but I didn't mind. It felt like progress, like building something, like making this place mine.
The field was large, and I worked in long, even lines, letting the tractor carry me in its steady rhythm. My thoughts drifted to Allan, to the kiss he had given me in the kitchen, to the promise of dinner that night. The headphones let me sit with those thoughts undisturbed, a cocoon of quiet around the roar of the engine.
I had a life here. A real one. And for the first time since I had opened my eyes in this body, I felt like I was building it with my own two hands.