Someone sits next to me on the bed and pulls back the covers. Aunt Mayleen.
“Honey, what you went through is hard. You will need a lot of time to heal. But hiding from life will only make things worse. Let us help you through this.”
Maybe she’s right. Maybe what I need is for someone to pull me out of the darkness, to step in and make decisions for me since I’m unable to make them for myself.
“You’re going to be all right,” my mother says. She has said the same words to me every day since I came back home.
When the tears come, both my mother and Aunt Mayleen sit on the bed and hold me, the three of us locked in an embrace.
I used to think the only person I had in the world was Alex. I was wrong.
Even when I thought he was a part of my life, he wasn’t. He had a whole other life that he was living on the dark side of the law.
My mom pulls away to look me in the eyes. “If you give up your life, Alex and his mother will win. I don’t think you want that.”
I shake my head. They have taken enough lives. I can’t let them take mine as well.
My mother and Aunt Mayleen exchange a look of triumph. They have broken through the wall of my depression.
Before I retreat again, they jump into action. My mother goes to the kitchen to make me something to eat. Aunt Mayleen offers to run me a bath.
“No,” I say when she’s about to leave the room. “No bath.”
I’m never sitting inside a bathtub again, not after seeing what happened to Lavinia. The images from that day will haunt me forever.
“How about a shower?” Aunt Mayleen asks. “A nice warm one. It will do you a world of good.”
“Thank you,” I say and pull my knees up to my chest, hugging them with my eyes closed.
When I’m left alone, I sense the cloud of doom hovering over my head again. I’m tempted to get back under the covers, to crawl back into my hiding place. But I don’t.
When Aunt Mayleen comes to take me to the shower, I don’t resist.
To make sure I don’t change my mind, she waits until I’m under the jet of water before she smiles and leaves the bathroom.
I don’t shower for long. I don’t even scrub the dirt from my skin. I only allow the water to wash over me. After less than five minutes, I step out.
It will take time for me to learn to live again, but until I can stand on my own two feet, I’ll draw strength from my mom and aunt.
Instead of climbing back into bed, I shrug on a bathrobe and head to the living room. After a moment’s hesitation, I switch on the TV.
Chapter 39
Ididn’t crawl back under the covers, but I’ve gone from one extreme to the next.I’m obsessed with following every piece of news about Alex and his mother.
A week ago, I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing his face on the news. Now a part of me wants to. It’s not because I miss him, not because I still love him, but because I’m looking for evidence that he’s suffering.
I’ve been sleeping in the living room with the TV on every single day. The space is littered with newspapers, which my mother clears away every couple of hours. I don’t go out to buy them because she brings them to me.
It hurts so much to hear and read about all the things Alex did.
I knew facing the truth would be torture, but I did not know that truth would be so horrific. The girl from the last photo I saw was Nicole Davis. She attended Sweet Lane High School in Denver, where Alex also worked as a janitor. She went missing only a few days after we left town to settle in Aston. Alex undoubtedly wanted us to be gone before the news surfaced.
Thinking back, I remember a mention of her disappearance, but I didn’t think much of it. Like most people, I changed the channel in search of less depressing news.
I reach for one of the crumpled newspapers and read the latest news about Alex.
Alex Watson worked as a janitor at various high schools, where he had the opportunity to prey on female students. In addition to the three girls he is alleged to have killed, four more have come forward to reveal that they are also victims. One girl, whose identity has not been released, claims she’s only alive because she was too terrified to put up a fight.
