But she sounded broken.
And I didn’t know what to do.
I got out of bed, my heart pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears. I walked to my doorway and stood there for a second, scared to leave my room. Scared of what I’d find.
But I couldn’t just stay in my room. Not when she sounded like that.
I walked down the hall, my feet quiet on the floor. When I got to the kitchen doorway, I stopped.
Mom was standing at the sink with her back to me. The water had turned off, her hands gripping the edge of the sink as tight as she’d held the steering wheel, and she stared out the window.
She looked so small. So broken.
I’d never seen my mom look like that before.
My stomach dropped when she told me what happened. But then I remembered what Derek had already told me that day on the porch. He admitted he’d done something bad. He was in therapy trying to fix it. He’d been honest about it.
“He told me,” I said quietly.
Mom just stared at me as if I’d said something in another language. Then she pulled me into a hug and whispered that she was sorry. That she wouldn’t let him get close enough to hurt us.
I knew Derek wouldn’t hurt us. I knew it the same way I knew my own name. But Mom didn’t believe me. And I didn’t know how to make her see.
A knock on the door interrupted us. Mom told me to go to my room. I did, but I left the door cracked open, listening to the muffled sounds of voices. Then the front door closed.
A few minutes later, there was a soft knock on my door.
“Frankie?” Cami whispered from the hallway. “Can I come in?”
“Yeah,” I said, and she slipped inside, closing the door quietly behind her.
She sat down on the bed next to me, her face worried.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
I shook my head. I wasn’t okay. Nothing made sense.
“What happened?” Cami asked.
“I don’t know. Mom just grabbed me and we left. She wouldn’t talk to me the whole way home.”
Cami reached over to hold my hand, and I squeezed it tight. Everything felt confusing and scary, and wrong.
Then there was another knock on the door, and Rhoda appeared. “Frankie, pack some things for a few days; you guys are coming to stay at the Orchard.”
Cami smiled at me, excited. I wanted to be excited, too. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the way Derek looked at us when we left the clubhouse.
Like he’d lost us.
We’d been here three days now.
Three days of me checking the driveway every morning. Three days of listening for the sound of Derek’s truck. Three days of hoping he would come looking for us.
But he hadn’t.
Every car sound made me look up, hoping it would be his truck. But it never was. Three days and nothing. No calls. No texts. No showing up at the door. Nothing.
It was like he just... didn’t care that we left. Like we didn’t matter.
