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But then, a second later, I don’t have the time to be sad.
Everything inside me comes to a screeching halt when I notice something else in my peripheral vision.
It comes and goes so quickly. Quicker even than a shooting star, that I could’ve imagined it.
But no. I saw it.
I saw the corner of a shoulder. A flash of an elbow. A long, muscular thigh encased in dark jeans.
Someone walking down the dirt path that cuts through the woods.
The feeling of being watched that I’ve been experiencing all night comes back in full force. In fact, it brings on other things.
Things that I’d forgotten about.
Mad rush of my heart. The tightness in my chest like my lungs are starving for air. And those… butterflies in my stomach, with sharp, blade-like wings.
“Oh my God,” I whisper.
It’s not possible, right? He’s not here. He went away three years ago.
I mean, I know that shoulder. I’m familiar with that elbow and that thigh. I’ve seen them almost every day ever since I was ten. I’ve watched them grow up and get bigger and stronger with age.
I could pick them out from a line-up, even if I were sleepwalking.
I could pick them out even though I haven’t seen them, seen him, in three years.
Then, I’m jumping out of my bed and dashing to the front door of the cottage. I throw it open and run outside in my bare feet.
The ground is hot and hard even through the grass that surrounds our front yard. But I don’t care about any of those things.
I care about what I saw.
But again, there’s no one as far as the eye can see. The night’s just the same as it was half an hour ago when I walked back to my cottage.
I look around, up and down, side to side.
Did I imagine him?
But why would I imagine him? Why would I imagine the guy I’ve hated for almost a decade?
Is this what it feels like when you lose your mind?
Maybe my parents’ death is affecting me in all the wrong ways.
A few seconds later, I’m back inside, in my bed, under the covers.
I close my eyes to go to sleep but all I can see is that shoulder and that elbow and him.
