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No one would understand. Not her parents, or Noah’s, not even the cops. No one would understand what they had gone through.
“You don’t want to talk about it. I’m going to go and make us some food. I’ll make spaghetti with meatballs, your favorite.” Her mother patted her knee.
That small action made her tense up. She ignored it though and stared through the window, wondering how Noah was coping.
Did he sleep? Was he able to do anything?
Did he remember their time in the cell? Did he lie awake in the morning, and it took hearing the rest of the house wake up before he even realized they were no longer locked in a room? She loved her shower more than anything, that and the bathtub. She could spend hours in both at a time.
Her parents had taken some time off work. Apparently, they had a lot of vacation time to spend with her. This didn’t make life easy; far from it.
They were around all the time, and neither of them would listen to her. She wanted to talk to Noah, but they were more intent on making her see a shrink, a friend of theirs. There was no way in hell she’d talk to a shrink that was their friend.
She believed in patient-shrink confidentiality, to a point. She also knew her parents shared details of their own work, so nothing was private, nor confidential.
What happened with Noah would stay between her and Noah. It was their secret to keep.
“Your mother means well,” her father said, entering her room.
Since getting back from the hospital, he always kept his distance, as if he knew she was afraid of him. She wasn’t.
Men didn’t scare her.
“I know. What do you guys have against Noah?”
“He was there with you, and we want to focus on you, not on him.”
“He’s a good guy.”
“Skye, we know he’s a strong guy, but we have to wonder why he didn’t get you out sooner.”
“Seriously?” she asked. “You blame him for my stay at a fucking nuthouse?”
“Skye!”
“No, you can’t do that. You can’t hold that against him. Noah is a good guy, and you don’t even know the half of what we went through together. I can’t even believe you’d think that. He did everything in his power to save me, to keep me safe.”
“Then tell me. Let me understand so I can help you.”
“I don’t need your help, Dad. What you need to stop doing is blaming Noah for something he couldn’t control. We were both there. I couldn’t get him out either. We only had each other, and I failed him. They were after me, not Noah. He got picked up because of me, and you can’t blame him for anything.” She shook her head, staring at her room. It was plain with cream walls and a few photographs of their time away when they could afford to go on vacation, which wasn’t a whole lot. They were talking about her going back to school.
She hated the thought of returning to school, but it was also on the tip of her tongue to be homeschooled, only being at home was driving her crazy.
Getting to her feet, she grabbed her coat.
“Skye, where are you going?”
“Out.”
“No, you’re not, young lady.”
She rushed out of the room, pulling her coat around her.
“You’re not going to him,” Lilly said, coming to the front door.
“I know I’m not going to him. I’m going out for some air. I need to be able to breathe, and right now you’re both strangling me, and believe me, I know what that feels like.”
Her words had the desired effect. They were both pale, and as she brushed past her mother, she broke out into the night, running down the short driveway, heading down the street. She had nowhere else to go, so she went to the twenty-four-hour grocery store. It was the only place to get gas late at night.
