Page 67 of I Never Stopped Loving You

I can see her slightly through the busted window. A curtain is blowing back and forth from the winter wind, but I can see her. Her eyes are glossy, probably from crying. Her nose and cheeks are red, contrasting against her beautifully pale skin. Her hair is disheveled, and she still has the smudges of last night’s eyeliner lining her eyes. She’s fucking breathtaking.

She looks scared as she flattens herself against the wall. The sounds of me climbing up here caught her attention, and she must have thought someone was in the house with her. I’ll have to wait until she’s in her car before I climb down so that she won’t hear me again.

After a few moments, she finally peels her body away from the wall. I watch silently as she looks around the room again and wipes away a tear. How much do you remember, Little Rabbit? I can see photographs in a pile on the ground. After a moment, she walks over to the bed and picks up three leather books and clutches them to her chest. I think those are the ones that hold her flower collection. I contributed to it by bringing her flowers from my vacations. I think I even signed a couple in that little book of hers. I wonder if she noticed the name.

“You’re just being paranoid, Willow. It was just the wind.”

I can barely hear her, but it’s enough to know she’s scolding herself for being so worried about the noises. Good girl, keep your guard up. It’s not paranoia. It’s your awareness of the monsters lurking in the shadows. I need my little rabbit to get better at trusting her instincts. If I were a killer, well, if I intended to kill her, she’d already be dead.

I watch her leave the room and slowly make my way along the wrap-around porch's roof that juts out from the house. I follow her through the hall windows down toward her parents’ room at the end.

“Can you handle more, Little Rabbit? You already look so weighed down by the pain you’ve put yourself through tonight,” I whisper to myself.

My voice is so quiet that it drifts away on the breeze. But, as if she hears me, she stops. Her hand is hovering around the doorknob, not quite touching it yet.

“Just turn around, Willow. You don’t need to do this today,” I whisper again.

I know she can’t hear me. These windows aren’t shattered open like the others, and the wind is blowing so fast it’s creating a high-pitched wail as it runs along the house.

She’s shivering from the cold. Even though she dressed a bit warmer I can see her body trembling. I think the car said twenty degrees when I got up here, and I don’t think the heat's been on in this damn house in fifteen years.

I hate this house because I know the pain it’s causing my little rabbit. I’ve been tempted so many times just to burn it to the fucking ground. That way, if she ever did return, she would see it crumbled into ash, never being able to hurt her again. But I didn’t. A twisted part of me wanted her to see the ghosts of her past that most of the world had forgotten. But not me, Little Rabbit. I’d never forget.

I was there with you. I desperately tried to hold onto your hand as you dangled above the pits of hell, just trying to pull you up to safety. But your mother was always there below you, holding onto your ankle and pulling you further into the pits of hell with that monster. I remember asking you to run away. Sure, we were just kids, but I knew I loved you even back then.

It killed me every time I saw you come to school with another bruise or cut. The way you started to pull away from me. You became quiet and distant. You stopped coming outside for walks along the creek. You stopped picking flowers along the road with me. Even your favorite ditch lilies couldn’t convince you to come out and play. I was slowly losing you day by day until one day you just disappeared.

My fists clench at my sides as my whole body shakes from the cold, or maybe from the rage. Who knows? She still hasn’t moved an inch. She’s just staring at the door as if it’s going to magically open. Is she secretly hoping to open that door and find the image of her mom sleeping soundly in her bed just like she’d do when she was a kid? It’s what I did for weeks after my mom died. Every time I went to her sitting room, I prayed to God that I’d open the door to find her sitting in her big, overstuffed chair with a book in her hands. That was when I stopped praying or believing in God.

There couldn’t be a God that would let my best friend get taken from me and then my mother shortly after.

Because God was good, right?

Well…If God is good even though he lets the innocent ones suffer and die, then I must be a fucking saint.

“Hello?”

Willow’s voice catches me off guard, and I almost fall off the roof. She isn’t talking to me, though. She’s on her phone.

“Sorry, Jenna. The service up here sucks. I’m up near Lexington.”

She waits a moment, and I can see her rubbing her temples.

“I know I told you we’d go to the burger bar. I’m about to head home, and we can go. I just need to change…And maybe shower first.”

They’re going to the burger bar tonight. Perfect. I’ll grab Jeremy, and we can just run into them.

“No. I’m sorry for making you worry. I’ll be home soon. Love ya.”

She pockets her phone before looking back at her parents’ door. She places her palm flat against the old wood and hangs her head.

“One day, I’ll come back and destroy this place. It should have been done a long time ago,” she says as if she’s talking to someone…Maybe her mother?

I have to duck down as she turns to start heading toward the steps, then back down to the main floor. I need to time it perfectly from when she starts her car. I have to hop down and hide along the side of the house until she pulls away, then I can run back to my car. I need to get home, shower, change, and grab Jeremy.

I hear her car starting up and can see the headlights illuminating the backyard. It sounds like her car has seen better days. That’ll be the first thing I fix for her because, judging by how she acts, she won’t allow me to buy her a new car. She’d probably hit me with it.

*Ding*