Page 86

“What is it?”

He’s still not turning around.

“Carter?”

Are the O’Neills outside, about to break into my house and burst the perfect bubble I was just starting to get used to living in?

No.

I fear it’s something much worse.

Carter turns around, his eyes a scary shade of blue. “He’s not there.”

“Who’s not there?” I shout, even though I already know what he’s talking about.

Whohe’s talking about.

I swing through the double doors and take a look at Otis’s cot.

It’s empty.

“He has to be around somewhere,” I say, exiting the living room to search high and low for my boy.

That I might never get back.

I open the pantry door and search each of the shelves. No. What about between the general waste and recycling trash cans? Otis hid there during a game of hide and seek once.

Nope.

My hopes are crushed each time I check another location and leave it empty-handed.

“Otis!” I shout, running upstairs to check the bathroom.

Nope.

“Otis?” The second call sounds more like a cry.

I trash my own house in search for him.

Oh my god. This isn’t happening.

I always told myself that unicorns were more likely to fall out of the sky than Otis was to disappear. My biggest fear was losing him. To soothe myself at night, I told myself the above. He was never gonna leave my side, because I was simply never gonna allow that.

But I just have.

When I was upstairs having sex with Carter.

My heart enters my stomach. I already feel it being passed on into my intestines, where I’ll later shit it out and flush it down the toilet.

I might as well flush myself down there too. Nothing good happens when I’m around.

My breath catches in my dry throat. I heave and cough, walking my hands all over various walls as I guide myself back to the staircase. The panic has obscured my vision. I no longer know my left from my right, or how to walk normally.

In walking down the stairs, I bang against the two walls and use the painful whacks as guidance to keep myself in a straight line.

I collapse into a heap on the floor, tripping over the last step.

The embarrassment of welcoming the bikers into my home is nothing compared to the embarrassment I should be feeling now as Carter Trescott watches me crumble hopelessly to the carpet.