Chapter Five

“Honey, what are you thinking about?” Mom asked me. I jumped, looked at her.

“What?”

“What are you thinking about?” she repeated. “You had a… peculiar look on your face.”

We were home alone. She was baking, and I was sitting at the kitchen

table. My mind raced back to the present, and I struggled to put him out of it.

Mom’s question pounded in my ears. What was I thinking about? Did she really want to know? The answer was obvious. No. What mother wanted to know her daughter was thinking about the man that had ruined all of their lives?

“School, I guess” was my intelligent response.

She frowned, looking at me. “Have you made any plans for this weekend?”

I transferred my gaze to the notebook on the table. “Uh… not yet.”

Mom was getting worried again, I could tell; there was that deep little furrow in between her eyebrows. I picked up my pencil, trying to think of something that would make that furrow disappear.

“Mom, I’ve just been really busy with homework and stuff.”

She turned around, putting one fist on her hip in that way she always did when she was thinking. Her lips were pursed. “Maybe I should call Miss Osborne,” she said.

No! No matter how sick and twisted I was, I did not want to see the shrink again. That couch… those minty walls… Ugh, it was like being in an institution.

“No,” I said, too casual. “That… I’m fine. I don’t need to see her again. Really.”

Mom shook her head, and I knew it was a bad sign when she did go back to her baking. My heart sank. “Whenever your father and I ask you about school, you never say anything,” she said. “We’re beginning to think you might be having some trouble with the kids—”

“I really am busy with homework,” I interjected desperately. “But I-I might go over to… Vick’s tomorrow. See? I’m doing just… fine…”

What had I just said?

Mom immediately pounced. “Vick? Who is Vick? Do you like him?” She had a big, happy smile on her face.

What was wrong with me? What had come over me? Vick? “He’s no one, Mom,” I said quickly, not wanting to get myself in deeper.

Damn. Her smile vanished, and the furrow returned. I sighed, hating the sight of it. “His name is Vick Dawson,” I answered honestly. “We, uh, have the same lunch.” I ordered myself to calm down. What were the chances of her actually running into him and finding out who he was and the fact that we had never actually met?

Mom beamed, completely taken in. “That’s wonderful, dear. You haven’t had a boyfriend since Heath. It’s time you met someone else.” She conveniently forgot that I had, in fact, “met” someone after Heath… but he was someone my parents were both trying to forget.

Will…

“Yeah. It is great,” I mumbled. Mom didn’t seem to notice my lack of enthusiasm. She began to chatter about how she wanted to meet Vick and demanded that I tell her more about him.

“He’s… he’s really nice,” I said, thinking about how he had managed to blow off those two girls at lunch without pissing them off. “He’s… pretty popular.”

“What do his parents do?” she asked next. The smile looked like it would stretch right out of the confines of her face.

In truth, I knew next to nothing about Vick other than his name. “He hasn’t told me.”

That didn’t bother her much. She probably figured my new love interest and I had better things to talk about. Still chattering, my mom turned around to get back to her bread. My shoulders sagged in a mixture of relief and resignation. I would have to be more careful about my responses; my parents weren’t as blind as I had thought.

“Oh, would you go get the bread machine out of the hall closet?” Mom asked.

Grateful for the brief escape, I slid out of the chair I was in and headed for the hall. Out of sight, I leaned against the wall beside the front door, closing my eyes. Immediately, I saw him, dark, pale, clear, unfocused, dangerous… safe…

“It should be on the top shelf!” Mom called when I didn’t return right away.

I looked out the window for a second. It was raining, surprisingly. They didn’t get much rain in Colorado. I enjoyed the sight of the gray sky for a moment.

“Becca!” She sounded cross.

Sighing, I opened the folding closet doors, spotted the bread machine on the high shelf. It took me a while to get it down; I had to stand on tiptoe, being so short, and I didn’t want the thing to fall on my head.

Just as I was lowering the box to hold it securely into my arms, there was a knock at the door. I turned my head to see who it was.

A pale, familiar face pressed against the glass.

My heart stopped, I screamed, and the bread machine fell on top of my feet with a crash.

“Becca?” Mom ran into the hall, wildly looking around. In an attempt to run, I fell to the floor. Scrambling backwards, I stared out the small square window of the door, seeing the shadow of a person blocking the weak light.

He’s here.

Mom saw what I saw, and she didn’t utter a sound. She froze. Then, “It can’t be him. It can’t be him,” she started to whisper, eyes round and horror-struck.

Standing, not taking my eyes off the window, I backed up a step, swallowing. I didn’t want to see him now; I didn’t want him to take me. Images of him crashing through the door, taking my arms in a grip that was painful, forcefully kissing me as he once had, sweeps through my head.

“No,” I whispered.

Mom seemed to snap out of it then. “Lock the door!” she cried, diving forward to do it herself. The shadow outside didn’t move, but there was the sound of knocking again.

Mom was trembling as she took hold of my arm and pulled me away. “We need to call Steve.” She shook her head. “What am I saying? We need to call the damn police!”

“Hello?” a timid, nervous voice called.

Mom and me froze again, staring at the door. The face appeared again, but this time it was small, a bit chubby. Not pale, no sign of the dimple in the left cheek. I couldn’t breathe.

“I have a package?” the boy went on, frowning. “Sorry if I… scared you. But I, uh, need you to sign for it?”

Again, Mom was the first to recover. Pressing a hand to her heart, she unlocked the door and opened it to reveal a short, blushing mailman. Or boy, more like.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Mom’s hands fluttered everywhere. “We… I… we thought…”

He held out a pen and paper. “Sign?” He was clearly desperate to escape.

Mom let out a breath. “Of course. I-I’m so sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking.” She signed, but her signature looked more like a child’s scribble than a name.

A fraction a second after she finished, the mailboy snatched back his pen and paper. “Have a good day!” he blurted, and dashed down the porch steps.

There were long moments of pure silence as we watched him hop onto his bike and speed off down the street.

Then Mom turned around to face me. I tensed when I saw the expression on her face.

Oh, shit.

“We’re going to pay another visit to Miss Osborne.”