Page 116 of Pretty Nightmare

“What?” I call back.

“Breakfast is ready. Are you coming down or what?”

I get up, leave my room, and stand at the top of the stairs. Indie is looking up at me, smiling. “I made waffles.”

“Frozen?” I ask, letting the uneasiness fall away.

“Fuck you. Come on. They’re getting cold.”

“Oh… Indie?”

“Hmm?” She turns back to me.

“Did we… fall asleep?”

“Yeah. I guess so.” She chuckles out her words. “We’re not very good at this, are we? But anyway. I don’t want to think about that stuff right now. Maggie’s excited about our adventure day. And McKay called.”

“When?”

“Just a few minutes ago. Checking up on us.”

“What’d you tell him?”

She shrugs. “We’re fine, right? So that’s what I told him.”

“When are they coming home?”

“He said this afternoon. So let’s hurry. I have a great idea for an adventure and if they get home before we leave, they’ll spoil it.”

A shiver runs up my spine for some unknown reason.

“Are you coming?”

I nod, then start down the stairs. Indie turns and goes back into the kitchen.

The house is unusually quiet when McKay and Adam leave.

But I like this quiet. I actually need it.

Ever since Carter’s card showed up on Maggie’s birthday my mind has been anything but quiet.

Adam took it all in stride. He handled that revelation so well, I get the feeling he knew. Like he’d been waiting for this card and so when it finally showed up, he was more relieved than surprised.

Adam knows more than he’s saying, that’s all I know.

McKay immediately went to over-protective mode. He didn’t take his eyes off Maggie and Indie for three days. Finally, Indie told him to back off and stop hovering.

He was hovering. He knew he was hovering. But that’s just how McKay is.

His offer to leave Old Home and go with Adam on this trip was a surprise. Not an altogether unpleasant one, either. I find McKay’s hovering borders on suffocating most of the time.

The idea of being here alone with Indie and Maggie is a little bit exciting and a little bit terrifying.

Exciting because I can’t help it, I covet Indie. We have always been close. She’s closer to me, in some ways, than she is McKay. I know I wasn’t there most of the time during her formative years, but I was her sounding board. She told me all her secrets. Willingly. I didn’t need to listen to tapes or sneak peeks into her journal. Not that I ever caught McKay reading her journal when she was younger, but I have always suspected he did.

But it is also slightly terrifying to be here with the girls by myself too. I am not usually home alone with Indie. And I don’t think it’s because they didn’t trust me. I was just never that reliable. Always going here and there. Back and forth. My visits were sporadic. Sometimes short, sometimes long. Never any pattern to them.

Have I ever been home alone with Indie and Maggie?