“Phantom,” I plead, wiping snot and tears from my face. “Please, just let me go. Let me go and I won’t tell a soul, I swear it. All your secrets will be safe with me. Please.”
They pull me back enough to look at my face, and theirs crumples at what they find. “You really don’t trust me anymore.” They let go of me and I instinctively look toward the door.
“Fuck!”
I jump, glancing back at Phantom. Their hands are woven in their hair, a tortured expression on their face.
“This is all your fault!” they rage, grabbing a stapler off Iris’s desk and throwing it at the wall. It breaks into pieces before it hits the floor.
I dash for the door again, but Phantom is quicker, cutting me off from escape. “No, Maeve. You can’t. You can’t leave. Without you I won’t have enough left.”
The only way out of this room is through that door.
I charge at them, pounding my fists as hard and fast as I can against their chest.
“Let me go,” I scream.
“Maeve,” Phantom cries, taking my blows like they’re as soft as the beats of a butterfly’s wing. “I’m so sorry. I don’t want to, but I can’t lose you. I don’t know how to love yet, but I will, I promise. I’ll learn to love you the way you deserve.”
Before I can land another blow, they push me away from them and I stumble over my feet, catching myself on Iris’s desk. By the time I’m steady, Phantom is shutting the dorm door. The lock clicks into place before a loud bang shakes the door. Something hits the floor with aclunkon the other side.
Their voice drifts in through the gap beneath the door. “I’m sorry, Maeve.”
I shake the door handle with trembling hands. It’s locked.
“You locked me in,” I whisper.
I whirl around, searching the room for the key and my phone. But they’re both gone. Not that it even matters, anyway. Phantom broke off the other side of the doorknob. There’s no way I’m getting out of this room. Not without help—Phantom’s help.
I’m trapped.
The sound of Phantom’s sobs doesn’t reach my ears over the sound of my screams.
29Promise
We both overreacted. I realize that as I open my eyes, the memories of last night tumbling forth like a rockslide, burying me beneath heaps of scattered dreams. If I had just stayed calm and listened, instead of bolting, we wouldn’t have gotten in that fight. But still, that doesn’t excuse Phantom’s actions.
They warned me they would hurt me. Not physically, but emotionally, and now they have.
I scramble out of bed, scanning the room frantically. It’s empty. I’m still alone.
A wave of relief sends me sinking to the cold linoleum floor. The sunrise is just starting to peak over the horizon, tossing long, clawing shadows across the room. They reach for me hungrily as the fear from last night rises anew.
Phantom isn’t who I thought they were. They’re manipulative, and terrifying. I’m not sure I can forgive them for what they’ve done, for how they’ve scared me. But logic wars against my emotions. They have an illness. An illness can be treated.
Worry and dread sweep through me like a rising tide. I crawl to my bed, pulling myself back up and grabbing my phone from the nightstand. It’s on the charger. But then I think back to lastnight. Phantom took my phone when they locked me in. I didn’t put it here.
Phantom did.
And they returned my key. I grab it and run to the door. It opens immediately, unlocked. Phantom repaired the doorknob while I slept. I’d cried myself to sleep last night, so I must have been out cold.
While I squint at my phone screen, pulling up Dad’s number, I close the door.
I have to call my family and tell them what happened. They’ll know what to do. They’ll know what the right decision is.
But as my thumb hovers over the call button, a notification banner pops up.
One new post from Phantom.
