AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Even Dad can’t take that away.
Unless…
I shiver even harder, but I tell myself it’s just the damp chill clinging to me, trying to drag me down like the cold dirt of a grave, the place where I buried all the old memories like a tea set in the back yard, nestled in a bed of satin fury, enclosed within the walls of raw, rigid pain.
I’m so cold I can’t feel half my body by the time I turn onto my street almost an hour later. I see a car idling in the driveway of our house, the lights on, and for one terrible fragment of a split second, my heart careens sideways and flips upside down.
But as I creep closer on trembling legs, my faint breath clouding the air in front of my mouth, I see it’s just Chase’s car.
He jumps out of the car when I approach.
“Where the hell did you go?” he demands. “I’ve been driving up and down looking for you for an hour!”
I’m secretly pleased by his annoyance. I’m glad he was worried. I’m glad I inconvenienced his neat little life. He deserves it.
Now that I think of it, I did notice an inordinate amount of traffic for this time of night. It must have been Chase driving up and down the streets between my house and Lindsey’s.
I hid every time a car passed, since I’m paranoid after Preston’s comment and the story of the Willow Heights kid being kidnapped less than two months ago. Sure, he came home, but knowing my luck, they’d find my body buried under someone’s rose bushes.
“Get in the car for a minute,” Chase says. “I want to talk to you, and I doubt you’re going to invite me in.”
“Leave me alone,” I snap.
My teeth are chattering and my arms ache from the cold. The wind cut right through my thin sweater all the way home.
At least I’ve stopped crying.
“Sky,” Chase protests, like he can’t believe I’m not giving him what he wants like everyone else does.
I stomp up the steps, walk inside, and slam the door behind me. Ignoring my mom’s call from the living room, I barrel up the stairs and dive into my bed.
Shivering under the comforter so hard I can barely get my headphones on, I put on my Green Apple Quickstep playlist and turn it up until my eardrums hurt, drowning out every sound and every thought until there’s only music.
*
A while later, Lily climbs in bed next to me and wraps her arms around me. I take off my headphones and snuggle her little body into the curve of mine, grateful for her warmth. I can’t stop shivering.
“You shouldn’t listen to your music so loud,” she says. “Mommy says loud music hurts your ears.”
“I know,” I say. “But sometimes I don’t care.”
She presses her ear to the back of the headphone, listening.
“Is Daddy dead?” she asks.
“What?” I ask, drawing back. “Of course not. Why would you say that?”
“My friend said when your mom tells you somebody went away, that really means they’re dead.”
I snuggle her tight in my arms, feeling how small her kid body is, too small to withstand such words.
“Do you even know what that means?”
“It means you’ll never see them again,” she says. “Until heaven.”
“He’s not dead,” I say. “I promise.”
I draw the X over my chest that kids understand, the one Chase reminded me of. Lily nods solemnly, understanding that kind of promise. But I can’t lie to her, not when she trusts me so much.
