But he shoulders the door to follow me in.
Voice steady, Tom reaches out a hand to me in a “calm down” motion. “Yes, I’m very sure. Now, Ada, sweetie, I need you to go into your room, get dressed, and pack a bag. There was no sign of forced entry outside, so whoever is stalking you has a way into your house. You aren’tsafe. Do you understand?”
I shake my head, but somewhere in my lizard brain, I understand alright. Suddenly, my house, the one place in the entire universe that felt safe,isn’t. My thoughts are sluggish in my head, probably from lack of sleep, but either way, I feellike Tom is part of what is making me feel unsafe. But that’s silly, right?
He put up all those cameras, did all that work, rushed over here in the middle of the night to protect me. He’s here tokeepme safe. He’s part of the safety.
Except… it’s not safe here anymore.
I shake my head, trying to remember my dream, and immediately, pain lances through my head.
That was a mistake.
Still, some part of this feels… wrong. I’m missing something, or something isn’t clicking.
But someone was in myhouse.
After squeezing my eyes shut, nothing is any clearer, except now Tom has his gun out, looking out my front window like he’s on some fucking spy show.
What happened in my dream?
Did I go outside?
Sleepwalking?
Surely Henry would have made noise if someone had been in the house. He’s certainly raised a ruckus about Tom being here…
“Ada,” Tom chides. “Clothes, now. We don’t know when they’ll be back, and I don’t want to kill anyone today, okay?”
Jesus.
I feel hot all over, and my chest clenches. I nod, shuffling to my room.
What is even happening right now? My head still hurts, and a ridiculous part of my mind is telling me that Ididn’tdream my nightmare in my kitchen. That he was here. That he was real. That he didn’t hurt me.
Prodding at my head, I find a bump, but it’s oddly cold, and I hiss at the shock of pain. That might explain things, like why my brain won’t tell me what is real and what I dreamed. Maybe I’m not safe to stayhere alone. If I had my guess, I probably have a concussion, and shouldn’t people with concussions be watched?
As I enter my room, my eye catches on my bedside table. There, nestled atop my latest read, is a small plate with some gingerbread men and a cup of cocoa. Steam still rises from the mug, and the icing on the cookies still bears a slight sheen that tells me that it's not yet fully dry.
I cock my head because, like everything else tonight, it doesn’t make any sense.
On my pillow, a bag of frozen broccoli lies propped with another pillow.
Huh?
God, I feel so dumb. None of this makes sense. It’s like I’m the red string guy, but instead I’m just holding a ball of yarn with a million pins and no way to connect them.
Heavy footsteps tell me Tom is tromping through my house, and I can hear him opening and closing doors.
Perhaps if I just stand here, for just a minute. I can pool all my little pins together and make some sense of things. I glance around the room, cataloging everything.
Throw blanket.
Cocoa.
Cookies.
Broccoli.
