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I look at Brad. He looks tired and worried, the brief lines on his forehead showing more than normal. "Can you stay tonight?"
"I'm not going anywhere."
"Thanks."
We make our way inside, and the girls arrive not long after. Brad heads straight for the kitchen and I follow him. "What are you doing?"
He pulls a box of cereal from the cupboard and a bowl and spoon, then goes to the fridge and gets the milk. "You need to eat something, and I know how much you like this stuff, so breakfast for dinner it is."
He pushes the bowl over to me, and I offer him a smile. "Thanks." I take a seat at the breakfast bar and slowly eat my cereal. Luna and Jasmine have already disappeared into their rooms. I think none of us knows how to deal with this. We're all shutting down.
"I'm just going to get ready for bed. I'll see you in there," says Brad.
I nod, not having the mental energy to come up with a reply. I concentrate on eating my food, scooping one mouthful at a time until it's all gone. I feel like a robot on auto pilot. I have no idea how Luna and I are supposed to get up in the morning and play our semi-final, but we'll already be down Darcy, so we have to. And somehow, I guess we will.
I wake earlywith Brad's warm arms curled around me. He likes to sleep like this, and originally, I thought I would hate it, get too hot or something, but it's wonderful. I have never felt so safe and protected as I do in his arms. And right now, this is where I want to stay. I don't want to go out there and deal with the real world. I don't even know how to today.
I close my eyes and try to drift back off to sleep. I hear a small tap at the door. I slip out of his arms and tiptoe over to my door, opening it to see Luna. She's in her pajamas and looks like she hasn't had a wink of sleep. I close my door behind me and walk up the hallway so we can talk.
"Hey, sorry to wake you."
"It's okay, I was awake. Kind of hard to sleep."
"Yeah, I know." She takes my hand. "Andy, I'm so sorry you had to go through that yesterday. It must have been awful."
She's right, it was the worst day of my life. I never want to experience anything like that again. And last night, I was angry with Darcy for it all. But in the light of day, I just feel sorry for her. "It was, but it's worse for Darcy. She's going through a lot. We need to be strong so we can help her."
"Okay. But I think there's something you need to see first. You need to know the whole story."
"Alright."
She leads me by the hand to Darcy's room, and I hesitate a little. I'm not sure if we should go in there without her being here. It feels wrong. "I couldn't sleep, so I came in here. I feel like we should have seen this all coming. We should have known it was happening."
"You couldn't have known, Luna, none of us could."
"No, I mean…" She pushes her door open. "Andy, she's the one who has been stalking you."
Luna walks into Darcy's room and pulls back the sliding door to her wardrobe. I gasp in shock. I don't know why seeing all the evidence surprises me, I had already worked out that she was the one stalking me. But seeing it like this…
All my pictures are pinned up on the wall inside her wardrobe. Brad's face is cut out of the ones where he's with me. Then there's the lingerie that was stolen. It's hanging in among the images nailed to the wall.
"I don't even know what to say." This is so disturbing. Her collection of me right here in our very house.
"There's more."
"What else could there possibly be?" I ask, not really wanting to know the answer.
She opens the bedside table drawer to reveal a collection of knives. "We have to tell them at the hospital. She's worse than we thought. This is really bad, Andy."
I look around the room, trying to take it all in without completely freaking out again. I can feel it, the tightness in my chest, the impending panic attack.I am safe,I say on repeat, the mantra Jasmine taught me, and I am, now that we know this was all Darcy's doing and she is in the hospital under watch. But I still don't feel it. I'm not sure I will ever truly feel safe again. "Yeah, it's bad."
Luna cries, and I pull her into me. "I only came in here this morning because I couldn't believe she could be capable of doing this, but this is all proof she did it. Where do we even go from here?" she asks me.
"We help her because she is our friend and she needs us."
"I don't know if I would feel the same if it was me in your shoes, Andy."
I offer her a sad smile because I don't even know how we help Darcy now. Part of me is so angry with her, the things she did to me. If it was anyone else, I would want them dead, but in the light of day, I don't feel like that. She is obviously very sick, and I just want her to get the help she needs.
