“It should be illegal to be that hot,” Georgie whispered. “Amy, he’s so into you. I almost asked him if he had a date for the night.”
I swung back. “I would have killed you.”
She grinned. “He likes you.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said tensely, too scared to allow myself the thought and hardly believing I could be so fiercely attracted to a man so soon after Tom. “Just hurry up and find a gown.”
Jane handed me a strapless emerald-green gown with a sweetheart neckline. Its soft fabric was fitted down to below my bottom, then gently cascaded out. It was simple, but elegant, and I didn’t need to try on any others.
Georgie, on the other hand, tried on half the shop before finally deciding on a blue strapless dress with a fitted bodice and fuller skirt. I was beginning to think we’d never get out of there.
On the way home I noticed the sign to Church Heights again. It read:
Church Heights
Population 3561
A place of no return
I frowned. “Why did they change the caption on the sign?”
Georgie squinted at the sign. “It’s always said that. It’s because everyone ends up stuck in this shithole. It’s like a living graveyard; once you come in, you never get out,” she said with a spooky voice and laughed.
“No,” I insisted, “when I came, I’m sure it said ‘A place to start again.’”
She shrugged. “Probably kids playing pranks.”
I turned my head to look out the window. The first caption didn’t look like the work of kids. It looked like it had always been there, as old and faded as the one there now. Then I was thrust back to a time before now.
I woke with a start. Something had torn me from my sleep. I lay on my side, curled into a ball, and stared into the thick black of night. The ghostly pale moonlight drizzled through the window, the layers of darkness peeling themselves back as my eyes adjusted. The curtains on the window were draped to the side, like a gaping mouth. The creak of a floorboard, the third step from the bottom of the stairs.
Someone was in the house.
I jolted up, blinking to clear my vision, and what I saw took the breath from my lungs. A man dressed in black was standing at the end of my bed.
My heart stopped. My throat squeezed shut. I opened my mouth to scream, but all that came out was a pathetic whine.
“Go away, go away,” I begged in my head. I couldn’t make out any detail of his face; there was just his dark shadow. He took a step toward me, and I screamed.
The nightmare could’ve possibly been a trait of delusional disorder, I’d heard the therapist tell my parents. Maybe I’d been so desperate to start again I’d somehow conjured up the caption. I’d imagined the sign just as I’d imagined the man? I swallowed heavily.
“If Karson doesn’t try to taste some mint chocolate on ball night, I’ll run in the streets naked. He’s so hot, you’ll be dripping cream down his cone everywhere.” She giggled hysterically.
I laughed. “You know I’m going to hold you to that.”
We turned up the road toward . . .A place of no return.
Chapter 23
The Ball
It was 7:00 p.m. when I realized I’d forgotten to buy shoes. All the stores would be well and truly closed. And both Jodie and Georgie were taller than me, so their shoes wouldn’t fit. I surveyed the pitiful amount I had to choose from: one pair of ankle boots, two pairs of sneakers—a pair for running and a pair of white casuals—and a pair of tan ballerina flats. How could I forget to buy such an obvious thing?
Karson.
For reasons I didn’t entirely understand, I couldn’t keep my mind off him. At night I dreamed of him in vivid, X-rated detail. By day I found myself off in a fantastical daydream world, where he came to me and swept me off my feet. Always in my dreams I was beautiful. I was neither awkward nor shy. I knew just what to say and when to say it. Always, he adored me.
Truth was, in the harsh light of reality, he’d never be interested in someone like me.
