...don't forget the light is always there. (see topic description)
Philosophy of the Dark
Chapter 41
-Nightmares
Mary hovered around the house all day, moving things, dusting,
vacuuming. Making everything as clean as possible. Jamie stayed up in her
room and stared at the light walls, willing them to darken with her mood.
At one in the afternoon there was a knock on the door.
“I’m leaving now,” Mary said through the door.
“Tammy said Amber should come over,” Jamie called back. The Tammy
thing was a lie, but it was the only way her mom would listen.
“If Tammy said so…”
“She did,” Jamie reassured.
“Okay, have fun.”
“Bye.”
Jamie heard the footsteps as Mary walked down the stairs, the door
slammed and then there was silence. Jamie left her room and went
downstairs in search of the phone. She found it in the kitchen and called
Amber.
She picked up on the third ring, “Hello?”
Jamie lowered the volume on the phone, “He’s coming back.”
“Who? Richard?”
“Yeah, my mom just went to get him.” Jamie started walking back to her
room, holding the phone an inch away from her ear.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Jamie said, “but do you think you could come over today.”
“Sure, I’ll see you soon.”
Amber hung up, some things never changed.
“Goodbye,” Jamie said with a small smile.
Jamie was reading from her notebook when Amber walked in the room.
“Wow,” she said, looking around, “This place has changed.”
“Unfortunately,” Jamie said, glancing at the wall and closing her notebook.
“When will they get here?” Amber asked after a short silence.
“Soon,” Jamie said. She tossed her notebook onto the desk.
“Okay, but I think we should have a plan.” Amber sat down on the rug
facing Jamie.
“Plan for what?”
“For when Richard gets here.” Amber pulled a notebook out of her purse
along with a pen.
“Do you really think it’s going to be that bad?” Jamie asked, peering over
as Amber searched for a fresh page.
Amber shrugged, “Maybe, but I don’t want you to get hurt again.”
“Neither do I,” Jamie said, “but what’s wrong with just thinking it up as I go
along?”
“Look where it’s gotten you,” Amber waved her arms around the
room, “Court, further family dysfunction. I don’t want to watch my best
friend taken to jail. Ever.”
Jamie looked down at her fingers and picked a hangnail. She could feel Ambers piercing gaze without looking, a gaze too heavy for her to meet.
“Please, just let me help this time.”
Jamie nodded, still without looking up from her intertwined fingers in her
lap.
“Okay, so worst case scenario, your father comes home, still mad at you.
Of course he’s not going to show it right away, he has to wait for the right
moment.” Amber wrote some stuff under the title, worst case
scenario . “When the right moment comes, you need to do everything not
to make him angry so he wont be provoked further, okay?” Amber looked
up at Jamie with prying eyes.
“You say it like it’s my fault,” Jamie accused.
“I didn’t mean it like that…I meant, he’s going to be mad, that’s who he is,
and the smallest thing could send him overboard.”
“I know how he is, Amber,” Jamie said, finally looking up. Thinking about
Richard was making her shake, her palms were sweaty and her stomach
was churning with butterflies. “I’ve lived with him for seventeen years, and
you haven’t. You don’t know the he doesn’t need to be provoked, that he
does what the hell he want’s whenever. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate
your thoughts, I really do, but this…” Jamie waved at the notebook, and
everything listed in it, “this is just too much.”
“I’m sorry, Jamie.” Now it was Amber looking down, refusing to meet
Jamie’s eyes. “I know that you’ve lived with him, and that you’ve known
him longer, but he scares me. The thought that he could do something like
that, to my best friend, or anyone for that matter, keeps me up at night. I
don’t know how you keep living here with that fear, because I know it’s
worse than mine. I just want to help.”
“You are helping. All you have to do is be here,” Jamie said, scooting closer
to Amber.
“I will.”
“I know.”
The front door opened downstairs, Jamie and Amber both looked toward
the bedroom door.
The rattling of keys, things being dropped on the ground, all said one thing.
“He’s back.”
Explain this bit some more for those who don't remember references to earlier chapters.
Maybe, OK, I didn't but I can see now!!