Chapter 37

“Lindsay,” Donald said her name softly. “We need to talk. Please, let me explain.”

Blonde hair swayed against her shoulders as she shook her head no. “I don’t want to talk.”

“I was scared, I was petrified. I didn’t know what to think, what to do. The left side of my car was folded up like an accordion and I couldn’t put any weight on my leg. It was Thanksgiving Day and my dad had to drive four hundred miles one-way to come take me back home. I spent six hours in the hospital getting poked at and prodded.” Donald didn’t have any recollections of the accident itself. One minute he was driving south on Route 93. The next, Sheriff Spaeth and members of the Sulaco County Fire Department were cutting him from his vehicle with the jaws of life and loading him onto a stretcher. “My parents still haven’t let me live that day down. I had them believing I was spending the night with my buddy, Kenneth Miller, at his house across town.” Not that I was driving all the way to Nevada to lose my v-card in a brothel.

Oh, the hell Donald’s father put him through once he found out...

“That still doesn’t explain why you never bothered to tell me you shredded your knee in an automobile accident the day after you came to see me!” A mix of hurt and anger hovered in Lindsay’s eyes.

“I didn’t want you to worry about me.”

“I would’ve liked to know!” Lindsay snatched her smartphone from her purse and furiously typed out a text. A response to her good friend, Becky Watson, from Rhode Island. “God, Donnie. We spoke at Christmastime, and I called you on your birthday in May too. And both times, you went on and on about how hunky-dory your life was. We’ve been texting each other four, five times a week. You’ve had multiple opportunities to tell me.”

She put her phone away. “That ... ours was the favorite party I’ve ever had, period, because I liked to think a big part of it was real. You and I have known each other since we were kids and you told me all about the crush you had on me growing up. I felt so honored, so flattered.” Lindsay gazed to one side as if playing back the memories in her mind. “I had so much fun with you, I felt so relaxed, and came to care about you that day, too, Donnie. I even loaned you money so you could stay at the Twin Tops and get a proper night’s rest! Do you think I do that for every guy who comes to see me?” Her fingers coiled into fists. “Guess what, buster? You’re the only one... ever.” She stared at him for a long moment, sucking all the oxygen from his lungs. “And you couldn’t tell me that you wrecked on the way home?”

“Look, I’m sorry.”

“And here, I’ve always been under the impression I helped give you the greatest day of your life.” She flashed her hand up and, with a sneer, looked away.

“You did give me the greatest day of my life! It was the day after where everything went to hell.” This morning, how could Donald have envisioned that he’d wind up in Palm Springs tonight with Lindsay Anastacio, of all people, attempting to soothe her over after he hadn’t been completely honest? My guildmates have been blowing up my phone, wondering why I’m not in the raid. “Besides, you were busy in Nevada. I lived hundreds of miles away. You had your career and were taking college courses. And to tell you the truth, I didn’t even know if you’d care.” She speared him with another glare as he added, “You had your ... I mean, you were a ... a ... a...”

“What?” she exploded. “Say it. Say it. Go ahead and fucking say it, Donnie.” Lindsay shoved back in the restaurant booth and slammed her fist on the table. “A prostitute? Is that what you were gonna say? A prostitute who is incapable of caring and whose only motive is draining your money?” Her nostrils huffed outward. “People want to hold that over my head these days and make unfair assumptions. That’s not who I fucking am.”

“No!” he fired back, breath choking in his lungs.

She eyed him with a tight-lipped expression. “After our date, I never even thought of you as a client. I thought of you as a friend. And I spent nights lying in bed – multiple nights – wishing I could go back in time and make it so you and I were friends in school too. I felt so Goddamn guilty for the way Zack and Clancy treated you, the way they bullied you, and it made me sick to my stomach that I allowed it to go on.”

“God, Lindsay, I love you! I’ve always loved you! And I never once thought of you as a ... a...”

“Then what you were going to say?”

“Huh?”

“You didn’t know if I’d care because I was a...?”

“In a relationship. I read online how about you were dating some multimillionaire CEO from Salt Lake City.”

“Who? Mike? Michael Steele?” Lindsay’s visage turned fierce once more, but her tone had dropped several octaves. “That sonofabitch is the reason I went back to the brothel. He beat the hell out of me and stole everything I owned.”

That response didn’t register with Donald, unfortunately, because once his first tear broke free, the rest followed in a deluge. “I d-d-didn’t mean to hurt or up-upset you.” He leaned across and thumped his forehead upon the table, his palms flat and splayed down on either side, and cried with the force of a person vomiting on all fours. “God, I’m such a fuck-up. I fucked up like I always do. I’m sorry, Lindsay. I should’ve told you. All I’ve ever wanted is to be good to you, take care of you. I ... I’m so sorry.”

Donald hated himself for being a wimp. This was not who he wanted to be in front of the girl he’d sell his soul to the devil for. Or the girl he’d spent every waking moment fantasizing about. Donald couldn’t stop trembling. Or freaking crying. Dammit. Why did he have to be so emotional? Donald had been with Lindsay a mere ninety minutes, yet he’d already fallen apart at the seams.

“Oh, my.” It was painful to see Donald like this. Grasping his left hand with her right, Lindsay glanced all around, and noticed they’d caught the attention of a few employees in the diner. People sure liked to rubberneck when it was none of their business, didn’t they? Like any woman in her profession, Lindsay preferred to keep a low profile. She needed to keep a low profile. “Umm, let’s both settle down, Donnie, and get out of here.” She gathered her purse and travel tote. “Here, I’ll take care of the check.”

Donald rose to his feet as well, but with a vicious grunt that belied his youthfulness.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, concerned.

“My knee hurts.”

----

“I doubt you know this, but I tore my meniscus when I was fifteen.”

“Huh? What?” Though his head had been in his hand, Donald looked up and focused on Lindsay as they shared a street bench in downtown Palm Springs. “You did?” In the west, deep pink and purple wisps were chased beneath the mountainous horizon by the coming of night, while above and in the north, ominous clouds massed.

“I did.” With Donald’s left leg draped across her lap, Lindsay conducted a massage with both hands that told his knee it was safe and loved in a way words could never describe. And for such tiny hands, they packed a mighty grip. “We had a big family reunion at our house. I was playing soccer with my sisters and cousins, and a few friends were there as well. I don’t know, I guess I landed wrong, but there was a pop in my knee, and it wound up being a torn meniscus. It wasn’t too serious, I guess, as the doctor said surgery wasn’t necessary, and it would heal on its own. But it could’ve been a lot worse.”

“I never knew that.” Donald thought he knew everything about Lindsay during their school age years too. But even with all those days of constant yearning and innocent stalking, apparently not. “When did this happen, again?”

“When I was fifteen,” she repeated. “June 2015, right after school was let out for the summer. That’s why you never knew about it because once classes started back up in the fall, my brace was gone, and I’d been through all the required physical therapy.” Lindsay gnawed on her bottom lip. “Wasn’t a happy summer. I was in pain and the rehab was tough, but I pushed through, and I don’t have any issues with it nowadays.” She brought his right hand to her lips and kissed it. “You need to get through rehab, too, Donnie. I know it’ll be brutal, but if you’re not gonna do it for yourself, I want you to do it for me.” She devastated him with those baby blues. “Promise you’ll do it for me?”

If it wasn’t for the Coronavirus, this section of Palm Springs would be closed to vehicular traffic tonight and transformed into a festive pedestrian street fair. VillageFest took place every Thursday evening and provided visitors and locals alike a sensory overload. The air would be laced with tantalizing aromas from diverse food vendors; artist booths would feature handmade jewelry, ceramics, paintings, and clothing; while live musicians, jugglers, dancers, and magicians would provide the entertainment.

Even now during Phase One of California’s reopening, with many tourists opting to stay home out of fear, Lindsay and Donald could float along the downtown businesses of Palm Springs like they were scrambling around in the ruins of a lost civilization. Palm Springs was like any major city these days that relied heavily on tourism: people riding bikes, walking dogs, cautiously getting groceries.

Perhaps the most disturbing story to come out of the area was on March 23, A Catholic Charities-run night shelter had to close after an employee and a guest tested positive for the virus (the shelter reopened on March 30). For a week, people who would have spent the night warm and safe in the shelter slept instead in a parking lot outside the Palm Springs Convention Center, directly on the concrete, in neatly taped-off rows. Behind them, in the distance, East Andreas Road shimmered, the walls of empty hotel rooms safely encased in glass.

“I’m putting ice on your knee when we get to the hotel.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on a second.” Donald jolted upright and his nose twitched. “Hotel? Who said anything about a hotel? I need to get back home.”

Lindsay made a face. “Why?”

“Because I ... I have to.”

Fuck. What was wrong with him?

“So you can play more World of Warcraft and Red Dead Redemption 2, and be further belittled by your father? So you can stay up ‘til four in the morning and drink two two-liters of soda and binge on unhealthy snacks? So you can make it to work on time tomorrow and be bossed around by that nasty old cunt who disrespected me?” Exasperation tightened like a vice in Lindsay’s stomach, and she couldn’t stop the emotion from bubbling out. “You’d rather do all that than spend the night with me?”