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She frowns. ‘What isn’t?’
‘When Em goes out, you’re not, like, jealous or anything?’
She makes a face that conveys it all, but she says, ‘Why would I be? I trust her. I can’t account for other people and their intentions, but if you can’t trust your partner, then what else do you have?’
‘I just can’t get enough of your sweet puseyyyyyy,’ Em says, and Jess blushes and dips her head to hide her smile.
Trust.
Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe it’s not Archer at all; maybe I just don’t trust that he won’t cheat. But where did trust get my dad? You can trust someone, but it won’t stop them from breaking your heart. But that doesn’t mean you have to put yourself through the heartbreak twice; it doesn’t mean they’re deserving of your worry.
I think, perhaps, that you can love someone too much. That if you hold on too tight, they’ll try and break free of you.
And I don’t want that to happen to me and Archer.
That night, curled around one of Archer’s shirts, I tell myself over and over and over again:I trust him.I trust him I trust him I trust him.I fall into a soundless sleep—until I jolt awake at the sound of rain pelting the window from the thunderstorm that rolled in earlier.
I pad to the kitchen to grab a drink, trying to keep my eyes half-closed to maintain my drowsiness, and I realise the rain didn’t wake me at all.
I cry out and fall, my hands going out to catch me. Glass shards grind into my palms, my feet, my knees. The water spilled from the vase doesn’t help, either.
I brace a hand against the doorframe and haul myself to my feet—to find a knife pointed at me.
I take in the balaclava, the two men lifting my TV from its wall mount—
‘Don’t look at them,’ says the person before me, and I school my face into a neutral expression.
That voice, its feminine edges roughened from forty fags a day... I know that voice. And all I can think is how relieved I am Archer isn’t here. How he’d retaliate and probably get himself stabbed.
I lower my gaze. Raise my hands. Bite down on my cry as I tread through the glass, back towards my room. She trails me, watches as I sit on my bed, her eyes darting over her shoulder. Little does she know each time she takes her attention off me to shout at her companions to ‘hurry the fuck up,’ my hand moves closer to my phone beneath my pillow. I keep the other raised, my eyes fixed on her, and my fingers slide beneath the pillow and graze the rubber of my phone case, and I fumble for the button, the emergency shortcut—
‘Keep your hands where I can see them!’ she yells at me, and I oblige.
‘You can put down the knife, you know,’ I say, surprised by my own calm. ‘I’m not going to run.’
She completely ignores me, but I never cared for her answer. I’ve said all I need to say, enough to alert the police. They’re probably tracking my number right now.
I hear shuffling, cutlery and ceramic banging together as they rummage through every cupboard, every drawer. Suddenly Jodie walks over to me and jabs the knife dangerously close to my face.
‘Your bank card, your money, your phone, or I’ll cut your throat,’ she says.
I move against my own volition. Slowly and calmly. I keep my eyes trained away from her face; I can’t risk her seeing she’s been made. God knows what she’d do to make sure her identity remains hidden.
She pockets everything, glances around, and slams the hilt of the knife into the side of my head.
???
The police heard everything.
They sent officers to my apartment and a patrol to Jodie’s. Unfortunately for her, when she took my phone, the police were still tracking my number, leading them right to her door. They informed me they’d made an arrest, along with two other males, and recovered what they’d taken—which would be handed to evidence. They reassured me it all would be returned to me after the investigation.
I sat on the sofa as they took a statement, but a fog cast over me. The clarity of what happened eddied. All I could see was that knife and the pressure in my temple as the hilt hit my head, knocking me clean out.
I can’t seem to wet my mouth, even now. Can’t steady my heart or stop every part of my body from shaking. Or maybe I have some detrimental brain injury after the blow.
The police insisted I go to the hospital in the case of a concussion, and although I saw it as an opportunity to get my broken finger looked at and use the visit as an excuse to tend to the cuts in my feet from the shattered plate last week—use the burglary as my story—I refused. I knew I’d be waiting hours, and something tells me Archer wouldn’t be pleased if he discovered I went to the hospital—
The key clicks in the lock. I jump up, race to the kitchen to grab a knife, and sink behind the counter. I peer around it as the door opens and a dark, humped figure steps in—no, not humped at all. That attachment falls to the floor with a mighty thud. A backpack. The wheels of a suitcase scrape across the wood, and the light flicks on—
