Noah watched as Shay's attention was focused outside, her eyes glued to the trees that passed by in a dark blur.
It was an hour and a half drive of silence, with nothing but the sound of rock music to entertain them. What was there to even talk about, really? Noah didn't want to know what she'd been up to for the past two years. She had a normal life now. He wouldn't doubt that she had a boyfriend, or maybe a cat that hid while he was there. Whatever life she had, it was probably hella boring and didn't involve him, therefore he didn't care.
Noah's eyes drifted to look at her for the twentieth time since they started the drive, almost as if he wanted to memorize every single feature of hers. Perhaps the most striking things were her hands. Her nails were short but neat, her habit of picking them apparently broken. Her knuckles though, those were almost as beat up as his. The kind of rough skin that only came from pounding on a hard material such as a punching bag, with random scars scattered across her fingers that he assumed came from getting into fights.
Maybe she wasn't quite as boring as he thought.
When they finally pulled into the driveway of Valerie's house, Noah noticed the tension in Shay's shoulders. Her gaze was fixed on the front door with an intense expression that he guessed came when memories assaulted her brain, memories she probably wanted to stay buried.
"I'm gonna get Val. You stay here." Noah ordered.
Shay nodded at him and didn't move. She seemed too stunned to do anything but stare anyway, so Noah left her there without so much as a second glance. Taking a deep breath, he walked inside the house and over to Val's bedroom on the first floor.
It was past midnight and she was definitely asleep. Valerie had a rule about people knocking on her door in the middle of the night, a rule that said you must be dying if you even thought about it.
Taking a deep breath, Noah hoped he had a good enough excuse and lightly tapped his knuckles against the wood. When there was no answer, he knocked again and called through the door. "Val, I swear this is extremely important."
Finally, he heard movement coming from inside. A moment later, Valerie opened her door, wearing a bathrobe over her blue silk pajamas. "What is it?"
"Shay's here."
Val's expression went from tired and annoyed to complete shock in the matter of one second. "What?"
"Shay. She's been living on her own for the past two years but now she wants to talk to you."
Val blinked a couple of times, the shock still not disappating from her expression. "That's why you've been acting weird lately, isn't it?"
"Yeah." Noah replied. "I wasn't sure if I should tell you."
"Where is she now?"
"Outside in my car."
Val went back into her room and closed the door, leaving Noah to wait outside. A minute later, she emerged in jeans and a sweatshirt along with a new demeanor that couldn't be deciphered. The queen of blank expressions started walking towards the entrance, only stopping once she reached the door. "Stay here. I'll be right back."
*******
Shay fiddled nervously with her necklace as her eyes stayed glued to the door. Though Noah had only been gone for a couple minutes, it felt like a lifetime. A buzzing from her pocket made her distinctly aware of the phone she had there, and after pulling it out, she rejected Alec's call. Instead, she put it on voice recorder and slid it back into her pocket.
When she finally saw Valerie walking out the front door, Shay's heart lept to her throat so she swallowed, trying to keep herself calm. She unbuckled her seatbelt and got out of the passenger's side, standing just outside of the car as her stepmother approached. Val stopped when she was five feet away from her, her expression blank as ever.
"I can't believe you're here." Val breathed.
"Yeah."
Val paused and looked Shay up and down, stopping at her eyes. "You're all grown up now."
"Yep." Shay muttered, unable to say anything more. Two years leading up to this moment and she could barely even utter one word.
Val smiled slightly as she looked at Shay, letting the silence stretch for a while before speaking again. "You know about your parents, don't you?"
This time, Shay couldn't even speak. She just nodded.
"You overheard Noah and I on your birthday. That's why you left."
Shay nodded again, surprised that Val knew already.
Val took a deep breath and looked at her with regret. "I'm sorry. I didn't want you to find out that way."
"It sounded like you didn't want me to find out at all." Shay pointed out, finally breaking out of her silence.
"You're right. I thought you were better off not knowing. I was wrong."
"Why did you do it?"
Val sighed. "Hun, your parents were bad people, I had to-"
"Stop fucking talking to me like I'm eight years old." Shay spat, all of the anger suddenly taking over her body with the force of a freight train that had built up with years of momentum.
"They were going down a dark path and I had to stop it." Val explained. "Your father was talking about murder-suicide, killing you and your mom in the process."
Shay narrowed her eyes in disbelief. She knew her parents had a drug problem, so bad that they would literally do anything to get their next fix, but she didn't think it was ever that bad.
"How do you know that?"
"I make it a habit of keeping an eye on people in Cori." Val said. "I saw you in the park one day with your parents, you were playing on a swing when they left to go buy drugs a couple of blocks away, leaving a ten year-old alone in a bad part of town." She explained. "I started watching after that."
It didn't make sense. Why would Val care so much about a kid she didn't know? Why would she invest so much time on drug addicts when she had her own affairs to take care of? She killed people for a living, sure, but she always got paid. "But why?"
"As much as you think I'm a bad person, I can promise you that I'm not."
"Your promises mean nothing to me anymore." Shay said, her mind still reeling from the sudden information. "Still. I was just a random kid. You must have had some motive."
"I lost a child once and now when I see one that's in trouble, I do whatever I can to help." Val explained. "That's all."
Shay had always wondered why Val saved Summer and Noah, and her. She always knew there had to be a deeper motive and now she had one, albeit vague. Really vague. "Even if all of this is true, why couldn't you just tell me the truth?"
"I kept telling myself that you weren't ready for it, but after all this time, I realized that I just wasn't ready. I wanted you to see me as the good guy and I was worried this would change your opinion of me."
This hadn't been the first time Shay had asked Val about herself. Previous instances, she'd received no more than two-word answers but now, she was practically an open book. Perhaps Shay coming back from the dead had something to do with Val's sudden ability to tell her version of the truth.
"I'm sorry, Shay. I really am." To add icing on the cake, Val apologized. Yet another thing Shay had never heard before, thus causing her to be momentarily speechless again. "Will you ever forgive me?"
If Shay were being honest, she already had. The only anger she had left over was from being lied to, and now that she got an apology and a legit explanation, she was ready to push all of this aside. Was she ready to tell Val that though? Probably not.
"I think so."
Shay's answer caused a wide smile to take over Val's face, lighting her up like never before. Just as suddenly, she wrapped Shay in her arms in the kind of tight hug parents gave to their long lost children, a hug that actually had emotion wrapped up in it. Hesitantly, Shay put her hands on Val's back and squeezed her while swallowing back a lump that had grown in her throat.
When Val pulled away, she had a tear in her eye that she quickly wiped away. "I can't tell you how happy I am to see you."
Then, just like that, Val's expression was back to a stone. Unflinching, emotionless, cold. Shay was still too stunned by the sudden show of emotion that she didn't care, and wasn't sure how to proceed.
"Would you want to come over for dinner sometime? Maybe next weekend?" Val offered in a professional tone.
"Sure."
"Great. I'll see you then." Val flashed another smile, this one not reaching her eyes. "Have a good night, Shay."
Val disappeared back into the house, leaving Shay standing in the driveway alone. After a moment of processing, she slipped her phone out of her pocket and pressed the end recording button on her screen. Then she rewinded it and played it back.
"I'm sorry, Shay." Three words that she would listen to over and over again as if to remind herself that it was real, that it really did happen.
Sliding her phone back into her pocket when she saw Noah in the doorway, she hopped back into the passenger's seat and waited for him. I'm sorry, too.