“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, sweetheart.”
She muttered something I couldn’t hear that made him chuckle. He smiled back at her with so much affection, it made my little heart yearn. My grandparents had loved each other, but they hadn’t been too playful. Every once in a while, I’d gotten a glimpse of a sweet, wonderful relationship, but more often than not, things had been quiet, but I’d always thought it was more that they were just tired.
But they’d had a lot hanging in the balance.
I think in a different lifetime, before I’d been born, they had to have been a lot different.
Before me.
Or more like, before my parents had lost their minds.
“Have a nice day!” the man called out.
“You too!” I hollered back, snapping out of it, trying not to feel guilty over things I hadn’t asked for.
I waited until we’d gotten farther down the road before I sighed.
“I thought I told you not to talk?” the man carrying me muttered.
“They were so polite. We couldn’t just ignore them.”
He snickered. “Yes, we could have.”
I swear…. “Do you not have any manners?”
“I have manners.”
“In your dreams maybe,” I muttered.
That got me another murder-glare that wasn’t all that scary.
Neither one of us said anything else as he kept going, until he stopped in front of a mailbox on the road. It was black and heavy-duty just like all the rest we’d gone past. But he peered down the overgrown driveway with two huge, downed trees across it.
Was there a house back there? If there was, it had to be set pretty far back.
Alexander looked down one side of the road, then the other, and started walking again. We’d made it about thirty feet away from the abandoned driveway before he turned right and started trekking his way back toward the house? To hide our trail?
Soon enough, we were going around the back of a small, dark house, and he was going up the steps of a well-maintained deck. Alexander patted my calf, and I slid off before he suddenly bent over. He flipped a rock upside down and plucked a key from what was apparently not a rock but a hide-a-key. Then, easy-peasy, he unlocked the door and took a step back, gesturing me in.
That was… convenient.
Breaking into someone’s home. Again.
I went in, looking around for cameras but not seeing any. The house was cold. I could instantly tell it was bigger than the place we’d been in last night. He stomped in too, flipping on lights and locking the door.
It was really nice, and bigger than I’d first thought.
I toed off my shoes, rubbing my arms as I wobbled into the kitchen.
I yelled, or I tried to. It came out like more of a squeak.
“There’s a phone!” I croaked.
A real house phone!
I picked it up from where it was set beside a black refrigerator and paused as something bitter set up shop in my throat.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t figured it out already. He already knew all the worst, saddest parts of me, didn’t he?
