Lying awake late into the night, I interrogated the shadows crawling across the ceiling. How did I end up here? I deceive with every breath just to go on living. Why is everything in my life a lie? The darkness offered no answers, only shapes that looked back like they knew more than they were willing to say.

  This is the way it’s always been, came Thorn’s sadistic voice in my thoughts.

  With him came the swarm. Though I could not see them, I felt them, a ring of unseen accusers pressing close. low humming inside my skull rose again, like the family dog growling at unexpected guests. They had come to feast, and their words were sharpened behind their smiles.

  Do you remember the first time you told a lie? whispered one of my tormentors.

  I reached for the memory and came up empty. I remembered punishment as far back as two years old. I remembered the sting, every blow preserved in sharp detail. But the lie itself was gone, scrubbed clean by time or fear.

  I remember trembling when I lied.

  You were afraid, said a voice. You lied because you were a coward.

  Lying was how I stayed alive, I retorted. In so many creative ways he told me he’d kill me. I believed him. How can anyone tell such a man the truth?

  It’s the coward’s life. It’s the way of a weakling shirking all responsibility.

  To himself, added another voice.

  To his woman and her child.

  To truth and justice.

  At last came my father’s voice adding, To family.

  I thrashed beneath the sheets, chasing comfort and finding none. My body stayed rigid, every nerve tuned too tight, my thoughts clashing and swelling until they became a noise I could not escape. The night wore me down piece by piece, leaving me hollow by morning.

  Four cups of coffee at breakfast and a thermos to go.

  Caffeine addiction is a subtler vice. You don’t get anywhere near the danger, thrill, and rapid decay that you find with alcohol, meth, or bath salts (or so I’ve heard). That’s part of what makes it so insidious. Everyone’s just giving the drug away, so what harm could it do?

  It’s a quiet intruder, the kind that moves in without breaking a window. It lives in your walls, behind your eyes. It doesn’t scream at you in the dark. It works the nails loose, one by one, until you cannot explain why you are coming apart. You are always weaker for it, because it steals your sleep and leaves you awake with yourself. I may dread nightmares, but dreamlessness is far worse.

  When you are deep in a caffeine binge, people call it drive. Ambition. They do not see that you are smothering your dreams to keep moving. That the speed is a defense. One distraction after another, stacked like sandbags against the flood of painful truths.

  Bartenders will cut off a man who’s had too many shots, but no barista cuts you off for too many espressos; even as your heart races, your body trembles, and you snap at every minor inconvenience.

  The fork slipped from my fingers and clattered on the table.. My nostrils flared as if someone had just made my mother cry, and I snatched it up again to finish my meal.

  “Always in a hurry,” Carol said as I took my last bite of sausage. Derek and Lloyd had barely begun to eat. Katie was still pouring herself a glass of orange juice before sitting down.

  “It’s not a race, son,” said Lloyd. “No one’s gonna take it from you.”

  I offered a nervous, “Sorry,” before downing the last drops of my fourth cup and rising from the table. “I’m going to get to it. The planting beds aren’t going to refill themselves.”

  Soon, I was at the soil pile with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. One load at a time, I filled it, pushed it down the path, and emptied it into the beds. The work was dull, honest, and punishing; the kind that left one arm aching more than the other by day’s end.

  I tried to anchor my thoughts to sugar beets, carrots, potatoes. Anything that grew quietly in straight lines. The past kept testing the fences of my mind, and I met it with sweat and repetition.

  The planting beds sit just a few feet from the ranch’s long driveway. Thus, when a visitor arrived, I was the first to know. It was a car marked “County Sheriff,” and I knew one of the deputies drove it. The driver saw me first. I felt it. Instinct told me to run, but instinct had betrayed me before. Running only paints a clearer target.

  My pulse hammered. My throat tightened. I bent lower over my work, as if it were all that existed in my little world.

  The brakes whined. Doors opened and closed. Boots chewed gravel on the way toward me.

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  Why me? Aren’t you here to talk to Lloyd?

  The footsteps left the drive and entered the grass. I cursed the gun I had left in the loft, then cursed myself for imagining it would make a difference.

  His shadow stretched across the planting bed. He cleared his throat.

  “Yeah?” I said, not looking up.

  “Katie here?” The voice was young. When I glanced up, the face matched it. Early twenties, maybe less, with confidence borrowed from the badge.

  Something protective rose up and drowned out reason. “What’s it to you?” The edge in my voice surprised even me.

  “I’m Cody,” said the deputy. “Katie’s boyfriend.”

  “Cody and Katie…” I chuckled at the way their names sounded together.

  “So, is she here? Hey! I asked you a question.”

  I shrugged and dumped another shovel of soil into the bed. “I don’t know. She might have headed out. I don’t keep track of her.”

  “Ah,” he said. “So, she is back from college, anyway?”

  I cursed under my breath for letting that slip.

  Cody stepped closer then, close enough that I could smell his cologne trying too hard to mask cheap coffee and authority freshly issued. His hands rested on his hips, the right against the holster of his pistol and the left upon a pair of handcuffs.

  “Look,” he gave a smile, practiced and thin, “I’ve had a long morning, and I don’t really have time for farmhand games. People usually find it easier to answer me straight away. Saves everyone trouble.” His eyes slid over me like I was an inconvenience that had learned to breathe, and he waited, certain the world would adjust itself to his expectations.

  “I’ll check for her,” I said, reaching into my pocket.

  He stiffened, shoulders drawing tight, as if expecting me to draw a weapon.

  Instead, I pulled free the walkie talkie and raised it to my mouth. “If Katie’s still here, there’s a fellow named Cody here to see her.”

  I knew she had not left. That much was certain. This was not about locating her. It was about giving her an opening, a chance to decide how close she wanted to handle the situation.

  Her reply crackled through static. “I’ll be right out.”

  Cody adjusted his footing. His mouth curved upward. His teeth smiled. His eyes did not.

  Can’t treat a woman too well.

  My father’s advice forced intruded on my thoughts.

  Certainly can’t put her on a pedestal. Truth is, if you’re interested in a woman, the last thing you should be is “nice” to her. They don’t like “nice” guys. Be aloof. Maybe even a little mean. Pretend you don’t care. That’s what gets ‘em. That’s what keeps ‘em.

  Given how much psychological venom he had poured into my mother over the years, I found no clean argument against him. The evidence of his philosophy had lived under our roof.

  Maybe malice really did pass for confidence. Maybe it wore a badge now and drove a county vehicle. If Deputy Cody was Katie’s choice, then maybe that said something ugly and unavoidable about what she expected from men.

  And yet there were moments, small and fleeting, when I thought I caught something else in her eyes. Something meant for me. I used to think of myself as a nice guy, back when that phrase still felt honest. Nice guys do not kill their fathers and flee the law. Maybe what she sensed was not kindness at all, but the darkness within me.

  Or I’m just imagining things and overthinking everything.

  That explanation fit more often than not.

  Katie appeared moments later, striding into view with purpose. Derek followed several steps behind her, his expression dark and unwelcoming. She stopped short of Cody, arms folded tight across her chest, as if restraining herself. I could feel the weight of animosity leveled at the deputy as if he’d scorned me rather than her.

  Cody’s face brightened when he saw her. This time, the smile reached higher. “Hey there, sweetheart.”

  “Stop calling me that!” Katie crossed the space between them in a heartbeat and struck him on the back of the head. I bit down on a laugh. “I told you it was over when I left!” She kept at him, open-handed blows snapping against his arms and forcing him backward.

  “Hey!” He swatted her hands away and retreated a step. “That’s assault on an officer of the law!”

  She stopped, hands clenched at her sides. “Why are you here, Cody?”

  “I thought since you were back we could pick up where we left off,” said the deputy with a smirk. “You can’t say you don’t still want me”

  “Yeah,” said Derek, “hitting you is a clear sign that she’s forgiven everything.”

  “The lady doth protest too much,” said Cody with a shrug.

  “Get out of here!” Katie demanded. “After what you did to Max? I don’t want to ever see you again. You hear me?”

  “It’s a small community, sweetheart,” said the deputy. “I imagine we’ll bump into each other at the feed store.”

  “Imagine something else,” said Katie. “Now, you heard me. Unless you got a warrant, this is trespassing. Get lost!”

  The air felt thinner, colder. His gaze drifted over Katie, then Derek, measuring them in the way men do when they think they have a right to assess what they see. Then it came to rest on me, and there it stayed. Curious. Appraising.

  A curious cop is the last thing I need.

  I dropped my eyes to the dirt. Meeting a predator’s stare only invites it closer. Maybe if I denied him acknowledgment, I would blur into the scenery. I bent to my work, shoveling soil with renewed focus, trying to become nothing more than another sound in the morning.

  Yet, his eyes continued to linger. My mind went blank, and something was wrong. I felt like I was in a dream again and nothing was real. Somewhere, someone beat a drum with a booming, rapid rhythm. I grew dizzy and raised a hand to my tightening chest.

  Deputy Cody grunted. Gravel crackled as he turned away, boots replaced by tires as he climbed into his car and rolled down the drive.

  A long breath that I hadn’t realized I’d been holding escaped my throat at last.

  Katie cursed under her breath and started to walk away.

  I licked my lips and said, “If he shows up again, do you want me to say you’re not here?”

  “No,” said Katie. “If he comes back, let me deal with him.”

  “You sure?” I asked.

  “You’re sweet to care so much, but yes.” She rubbed the tips of her fingers against her forehead, soothing her stress. “It’s no use hiding.”

  I hope that’s not true.

  “You and I have very different philosophies,” I said with a nervous chuckle.

  She gave me a smile meant to reassure me, then turned and left with Derek.

  I went back to my work, shovel biting into soil, muscles burning with the effort. Sweat soaked the band of my hat, and it was most welcome. Anything to stay anchored in the present. Anything to keep my thoughts from straying to the feeling that hounds were barking at my heels.