My phone buzzed. Subconsciously, I placed my hand on my chest. It was time for my pills. I tucked Eeyore into bed, then went to the medicine cabinet, shook out two tablets from the plastic vial, and swallowed them.
The next buzz on my phone heralded no better news. It was a message on my friends’ group chat cancelling our dinner plans. After making sure the apartment was sparkling clean, I jumped into the shower, then settled on the couch for an uneventful night reading my current book,Shantaram, and binge-watchingGame of Throneson Netflix.
That was the plan, at least, but after dozing off for an hour, I was jolted awake by a strange sound. Instantly alert, I grabbed the baseball bat I kept beside the couch and leapt to my feet, head cocked and listening intently.
Sweat trickled down my forehead.
Creeping slowly, I scanned my apartment room by room.
Nobody.
I checked the front door.
All four bolts were locked.
I breathed a sigh of relief.I’m safe. He hasn’t found me.Those words had become a mantra. Eight years on, my past life still haunted me. The impossibility of escaping my foster father for good was always on my mind. The repercussions of being found still terrified me.
After splashing my face with cold water, I went to my bedroom and rummaged through the closet to find a pair of pyjamas when I came across a shoebox in the far corner. I sat down on my bed and opened it.
Light bounced off the cold black pistol inside the shoebox, catching my eye even in the dimness. I traced its outline with my fingers, the metal unyielding beneath my touch. I had enrolled shortly after arriving in Vancouver at a shooting range and perfected my aim under a tutor. A well-planned exit strategy was theonly way to stay alive, and I had begun building mine the second I set foot in the city. I needed to be ready, not just for myself, but for the day fear came looking for me again.
“No, no,” the tutor, a balding man in his late sixties, had yelled. “Feet, shoulder-width apart.” He had bent down and spread my feet to the right distance. “Left foot slightly forward and right foot slightly backwards.”
His words had lodged themselves in my memory.
Three weeks later, on the black market, I had bought a gun.
It was a precaution—albeit a drastic one—taken only to assure my safety. And Lucas’, of course. I checked the safety and confirmed the magazine was separate from the chamber.
My fingers trembled as I pulled it out.
A similar piece was once held to my temple. Shaking my head vigorously, I placed it back into the shoebox and returned it to the closet.
With the baseball bat close to my bed, I drifted off to sleep, ready to take on the following week.
Summer mornings werethe city’s best-kept secret, and I arrived at work on Monday to a particularly fine example. In mid-July, no less. I still missed Lucas, but I’d put the lonely weekend behind me and looked forward to a productive week ahead.
My assistant, Amy, had once again beaten me to the office and greeted me at the door with a coffee and an air hug. “Morning, babe. You look gorgeous, as usual.”
I sipped the coffee. French Vanilla—a guilty pleasure. “No thanks to you. I can feel this going straight past my stomach onto my butt.”
Amy laughed. “When you stop drinking them, I’ll stop getting them.”
I’d tried coming in earlier to return the favour, but Amy retaliated by coming in earlier still. The inevitable conclusion of that war would be both of us arriving before the barista, and then everybody would lose. I took the high road and opened an account with the coffee shop.Amy, to her credit, used it—but only for one coffee. I accepted the defeat with honour.
Amy walked me through to my office, whispering, “Mr. Evans is in.”
I noted the closed door to the normally vacant VP’s office next to mine.
Randall, the owner, had hand-picked me out of a waitressing job like one of thoseMovie Producer Discovers Starletstories. I’d chased him down the street after discovering he’d been overcharged a hundred dollars for lunch. He’d followed me back to the restaurant, smiling with what looked like fatherly pride as I apologized and reversed the charge on his credit card. When I was done, he’d placed a hundred dollars cash in the shared tip jar and, after seeking my permission, dropped another hundred into the pocket of my apron along with a business card. “My dear,” he’d told me, “I don’t know what you’re destined for, but I know it is more than waitressing. Come work for me, and I guarantee I will get you there.”
I’d risen through the hotel from the front desk to shift supervisor, then a management position in Guest Services, and finally to my current role as GM. Randall was fond of telling me I still wasn’t there yet—wherevertherewas.
Settling in behind my desk, I looked up at Amy. “Do you know what he wants?” I asked, lowering my voice in case it carried through the thin office walls.
“I think he’s just in for a meeting,” Amy said, copying my tone. “There’s a fella in there with him. He’s a little easy on the eye if you know what I’m saying.”
I stifled a laugh. “Not that you were looking, right?”
