My eyes narrow despite the gratitude quelling any real anger I should feel toward him. Instead, the only anger I do feel is toward myself, which only frustrates me more. “Oh, are we close enough you can order me around now? Because if that’s the case, pretty sure you can suck up answering my question.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Why’d you follow me?”
He glances away, swipes a thumb across his lower lip. His response is quiet, thoughtful. “It’s dark out. You were alone. You look like ...” He gestures up and down my body. “You. Isn’t it obvious?”
“No, it’s notobvious.” I take a step closer. “I go out alone all the time, and I’ve survived this long. Why tonight?”
He shakes his head like I’m being ridiculous. But his eyes darken as they scan my face, and I can’t stop the shiver that runs through me.
“It’s late, Eva,” he grumbles. “Go to bed.”
He stalks up the stairs without another word.
I don’t know why I’m breathless. Flustered. Or frozen in place. But with each unsettling second, irritation flares beneath my skin and mixes with a painful stab of shame.
I race up the stairs behind him. “I would’ve been fine!”
He doesn’t look back at me. “Yeah, sure looked like it.”
His door slams, and I’m drenched in heavy silence.
I stare at his door for a minute before making my way to my own. My heart is still pounding when I turn the knob and enter my room—a room that feels as foreign now as it did when I first moved in. Everything is white: white walls, white dressers, white bed. Flawless and pristinewhite, white, white. I don’t know why my eyes burn, or why everything feels like a dirty lie. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I walk across the room with one purpose in mind. It’s Sunday, the only night I prop open my window instead of locking it. The same night Easton props open his. My breaths are sharp, my thoughts a mess. Exhaustion cripples me as I lean back against the wall, just beside the window, and slide to the floor.
Then I wait.
My eyes are falling shut by the time I hear the first strum. It’s soft, and my ears strain to hear it. The next is a little louder and immediately followed by another gentler stroke.
My breathing slows, my pulse calming.
I’ll never forget the first time I heard Easton play guitar. It was the night that started it all.
My throat thickens as he shifts the tune to another, one I recognize instantly. It starts out slow, a melody that sinks beneath your soul and slips between your bones. The music curls around me, squeezing so gently a stupid, small sob escapes, and I think of the first night I ever heard him play. A night I was scared, alone, desperate for hope. A few years ago, Easton played every evening, no fail. I’ve never known for sure why it changed to only Sundays, except that it’s the only night his father doesn’t come home.
Whatever the reason, I’ll take what I can get.
Resting my head against the wall, I breathe. And I drift to a faraway land.
A land where bad men meet Karma.
And bad girls get their happily ever afters.
Eva
(Thirteen years old)
I’m never lucky.
I jolt awake to a rough and angry noise. My breath comes out sharp as I listen to the scratchy male voice, and for a second, I think I’m back at Dad’s.No, no. That’s not right.There are no barred windows, and I’m not lying on a lumpy secondhand mattress; a tarp is above my head, and I’m on the hard bed of a truck.
I’m safe.
The truck’s no longer moving, and the rain has stopped. I uncurl my knuckles, relaxing slightly. If no one’s spotted me yet, maybe I’ve found some scrap of luck after all.
My arms wobble when I push myself up to peek through an opening in the tarp. We’re pulled over on the side of a street. My eyes widen at the fancy homes and lawns lit by streetlamps. I’m a long way from Detroit, that’s for sure.
A car door shuts, and the man passes by with his phone pressed to his ear. My muscles seize. All I see is the back of his grey-haired head, his thick neck layered with rolls, and a checkered shirt straining against a pair of wide shoulders. If he turns around and removes the tarp right now, there’s no way he won’t see me.
