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Based on the fact that my phone had no messages, I’d say he wasn’t going to come tonight. But, you know, after everything with Rick, that was fine. I could only juggle so many guys. It wasn’t easy. No, it was the farthest thing from easy, hating Gareth while being drawn to him while also pretending nothing was going on with me and Alistair… and now I had to throw Rick into the equation, somehow.
Ugh, what was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I focus on Neo? He was a regular guy, normal, not a serial killer, not a murderer, just a typical high school guy who seemed to like me, who was much more age appropriate than two of the dicks I’d tripped and fallen over for.
Seriously. Alistair was like thirty-five and Rick was, what? Thirty-one? Thirty-two? They had at least ten years-slash-reasons each why I shouldn’t pay them or their dicks any attention.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say I liked it, the thrill of it all. I’d say I liked each and every reason we shouldn’t be together. This complicated web of emotions gave the wordforbiddena new definition.
I walked out of the woods, emerging on the far side of the park’s grassy field. The sky was one of pitch-blackness, and I hurried along, walking fast. I had to walk through the field, then around the playground, and through a few side streets to reach the street fair.
If I thought it was busy before, it was doubly so now. I had no idea where everyone was parking; the parking lot at the park was full. It was body to body to body. So many people crammed in such a relatively small space, people of all ages, from youngsters to other high school students, to their parents and grandparents. These things were a hit with the locals, I guess.
My table had been, unsurprisingly, taken up by a family of six, eating what looked to be a funnel cake drenched in powdered sugar. I looked all around, feeling so out of place here. It wasn’t so different from back home, in the big city, where I was constantly surrounded by people who didn’t know I existed, people who didn’t care to know me, but there was one key difference.
Now, after everything that had happened, everything I’d been through, everything I’d experienced here in Eastcreek, I realized I didn’t want to be alone.
There was something to be said of the saying birds of a feather flock together. I never really paid much mind to it, because I never thought there was anyone out there who was like me. Never thought there were other people who could look at death with an objective view, people who didn’t fear death and what it brought. People who thought death was beautiful.
But there was. There were people out there like me. They’d found me, caught me, trapped me, and made me feel things I never thought I’d feel. They scared me. They made me realize how very different I was, and no matter what happened from here on out, my life would never be the same.
As I stood there, watching the crowds of people gather and disperse, I found myself missing someone I both hated and craved: Gareth. Fucking Gareth. He’d kept himself from me this entire time, ignoring me in the house. Whether he was doing that to hide the truth or because he was simply pissed that I dared to accuse him of hurting Erin was beyond me.
I didn’t know what the truth was anymore. I wasn’t an investigator. I was no detective. So much time had gone by that my hope of finding Erin and her family had dwindled, the flames becoming no more than cold ashes.
I shouldn’t miss that asshole. What he did, killing the chef, hanging her body in the pool house and draining it of its blood… locking me in the room when he got pissed I dared to call the cops on him. Coming into my room in the middle of the night and taking what he wanted from me…
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. I should hate him, and I did. I hated him so much.
But hatred and love, on opposite sides of the spectrum they should be, were much closer together when it came to my feelings for Gareth. Could you hate and love someone at the same time?
“Brianna,” a familiar voice called out to me from the right, and I turned to see Kaity walking over to me, leaving what looked to be her family. They were in front of one of the carnival games, and her little sister, I assumed, was trying to fill up a balloon with water by aiming a toy gun at the mouth of some creepy clown thing.
Kaity’s super curly brown hair was pulled up into a high ponytail, her usual big glasses situated on her nose. She wore a different outfit than what she’d worn to school. “I didn’t think I’d see you here,” she said, glancing down at my sketchbook. “You were drawing?”
“Oh, yeah. Sort of.” I shrugged. “I only came with my mom and Alistair.” I couldn’t call him my stepdad or stepfather out loud, not after what happened between us. It just felt too weird. “I had to get out of the house.” To get away from Gareth’s cold shoulder, but she didn’t need to know that part.
That fucking cold shoulder was starting to bother me more than I wanted to admit. What else was bothering me? All the damned dreams. It seemed my mind couldn’t shut off and think about someone else for longer than five minutes. In the end, the dreams always ended up involving Gareth.
Kaity nodded, and she glanced back at her family. Her sister had failed to blow up the balloon enough for a prize, and she was begging her mom for another try. “Yeah, I didn’t want to come. I always skip these stupid things.” When she looked back at me, I saw the sorrow hidden behind her eyes. “I guess a part of me was hoping I’d be walking along and I’d see Erin.”
“That would be nice,” I whispered, biting the inside of my cheek.
“I don’t understand what’s happening. I mean, she’s been missing for weeks now. Something obviously happened. I don’t know why no one’s looking into it.” Kaity frowned, oozing unhappiness over the subject, something I understood intimately.
“I’m sure there’s an explanation. Maybe someone got sick and she and her family had to go—”
Kaity shook her head. “Then why wouldn’t she have texted us? Why wouldn’t she return our calls?” She looked around, as if making sure no one else was nearby to eavesdrop. Her voice lowered to a whisper, “And I saw both her parents’ cars in the garage. If they went somewhere, why would they take Erin’s car and not theirs? Erin’s car is a piece of shit!”
“I don’t know.” As it turned out, I didn’t know a lot of things.
She pointed to her family. “I guess I should get back. I’ll see you later, okay?”
I couldn’t tell if she wanted me to ask her to hang out or if she was just being nice. In the end, I nodded and said, “Sure. Tell your parents I said hi.” I gave her a smile, watching her go, and the moment she turned her back to me, the smile fell off my face, and I sighed.
Not knowing what I was going to do now, I turned around to walk away—because the last thing I wanted to do was stand there and watch Kaity with her family—but the moment I spun around, I walked into someone’s hard chest, so hard I momentarily blinded myself.
Stepping back, and I shook my head and said, “I’m sorry, I—” And then I opened my eyes and saw who I walked into, and the rest of the words died in the back of my throat. Speak of the devil.
Gareth stood there, his hands shoved in his pockets, a glower on his face behind his glasses. His brown hair was a little messy thanks to the wind. He wore nice, pressed clothes, pants without a single crease in them, looking so out of place in a small-town street fair like this. His green-eyed glare rested firmly on me, like the rest of the world around us didn’t exist.
