I remember when my dad packed his bags to move in with someone he met online, only for her to leave him a month later, and how still, he never came back. I think of how I started getting postcards instead of presents on my birthdays, and how strong my mom tried to be, but the walls in our apartment were thin, and when I was alone, crying in my room, I could hear her crying, too.
Just minutes ago, I was staring up at the sky, thinking this could all be okay—that I was getting a family, and the world would be a little less lonely.
What if I got this instead?
"No," I whisper, blinking and sending tears from my eyes and into my ears. "I don't think people ever get what they deserve."
"Yeah, neither do I." He groans, shifting on top of me and wrapping an arm around one of my legs. "You're pretty," he slurs. "Really fucking pretty. But you're too nice, Saige. You're too trusting. People are always going to use it against you unless you start using the former against them. I could help you hurt them, if you wanted. Of course, I'd want something in return."
"I don't want to hurt them. I just want to stop feeling like this."
"Hurting them would make it better. Especially if they deserve it, and even if they don't. I do it all the time."
"Then you must be very lonely."
He's volatile; I sensed that early on, and I expected a reaction, but I didn't expect this. Pushing aside my zip-up hoodie, he sinks his teeth into my chest, biting the upper part of my right breast through my t-shirt, hard enough to leave a bruise. I squirm beneath him as pain shoots through me, feeling him hard against my leg before I cry out.
"Ahh!"
He chuckles as he unclenches his teeth. "I bite back, Saige. And I'm not lonely. Even without the arm, I've still got the entire town falling at my feet and all the girls falling to their fucking knees, and that includes the teachers, too. I might get bored with how pathetic they all are sometimes, but it never gets lonely. And I'm honest with all of them. I'm not like mydad—I make sure they all know they're nothing to me; I'm not a monster. If they cry about it afterward, it's their own fault."
Jesus. He's everything I hate. I really,reallyhope he's not my stepbrother. "Got it."
"Good," he mutters, his breath warm and heavy against the wet spot on my t-shirt, the flesh beneath still burning from where his teeth sank into me seconds ago. Minutes of silence pass before eventually, that same breath slows, giving way to light snoring. I close my eyes, relieved, and slowly begin wriggling out from beneath over two hundred pounds of dead weight.
It isn't easy, but he's drunk enough that I manage without waking him. My shirt is wet in more than one place, confirming my suspicion—hehadbeen crying.
I tiptoe across creaky floorboards in my Vans, stopping when I realize I'm being followed.
Arcadia pouts as I reach for the doorknob.
"It's okay," I say, patting her and scratching behind her ear. "Stay." I open the door just enough to squeeze out and close it behind me, and then practically run to my car, locking the doors before starting the engine. I back up, flip around, and put it in drive. I don't even stop to put the address back into my GPS until I reach the road.
When I do, I find several missed calls and messages from my mom, who, in the end, decides I must have stayed with a friend in the city as some final act of defiance and demands I call her first thing in the morning. I also find that I'm only a few kilometers away from my destination—just on the other sideof these trees—which doesn't bode well, considering Elias said we were on his property earlier.
Moments later, I pull up to the large craftsman-style home off the beaten path. The key she left for me turns easily in the lock, and I step inside, closing the door behind me.
"Saige?" my mom calls from the living room, her tone both worried and raspy with sleep.
"Yeah, it's me." She crosses the room, dark aside from grey moonlight streaming through several windows lining the back wall, and wraps me in a hug.
Despite how I'd wanted her earlier—how I'd been desperate for her to crawl into bed with me and hold me while I cried—I don't hug her back now. I don't even want to tell her. After what I'd heard from Elias, I just stand there, stiff and uncomfortable in her arms.
Did Elias's mom die in this house?
"Are you okay, sweetheart?"
I swallow hard, forcing back a sob. "Yeah, I just want to go to bed."
"Come on," she says. "I'll show you your room."
I follow her up the stairs and then to a bedroom at the far end of the hall. Once inside, she turns on a small lamp sitting on the desk just inside the doorway. Aside from the desk, there's a daybed against the far wall with a couple of pillows and blankets folded and stacked neatly at its center. To my left is a closet and several boxes labelledS-BEDROOM,and to my right, a large picture window. I take a few steps toward it, looking out at the dark forest and a break in the trees that must be the chasm I almost fell into earlier.
"Do you like it?" my mom asks, smiling when I turn around.
It's a beautiful home in a beautiful place; even in the dark, I can see that much. Is that why she did it?
I shrug. "It's pink."
