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I have a fire escape ladder sitting on the floor next to my window. I have to get out of here. I tiptoe quickly over and unlock it. When I try to slide it up, it doesn’t move. It’s stuck. How? Why? It slid open like a dream yesterday. The footsteps are thudding back and forth downstairs, someone pacing loudly, deliberately. The person wants me to hear them. They want me terrified, panicked.
The sick bastard.
Silent tears of terror slide down my cheeks, but I force myself to focus.
Stop being the stupid girl in the horror movie.I’ve made a million mistakes already. Ignored my instincts, didn’t have a home phone or any kind of weapon in my bedroom, didn’t bring my cell phone with me as I walked around, didn’t get a good lock put on my bedroom door after the break-in… no more dumb mistakes. I need to think logically.
I look for something to break the window.
There’s a big geode on my bookshelf. But smashing the window will make noise, so I’ll have to move fast after shattering the window.
I tiptoe toward my desk, grab the chair, and wedge it under the doorknob.
Then I grab a sweater from my closet. I wrap it around my arm and smash the window pane. The footsteps head my way, and I am hysterical with terror, smashing and smashing. Pieces of glass are flying, my arm and my face sting, and the steps are coming up the stairs. Oh God, I’m going to die…
The doorknob rattles, and I’m nearly crazed with fear now. I’ve smashed through two panes, made a huge hole, and knocked all the dangling panes of glass out. I throw the ladder out with shaking hands, hooking it on the sill. I’m bleeding. Someone’s banging on my bedroom door so hard that it shakes.
I scream, “No, no, no!” I don’t even remember climbing out the window, but then I’m on the street, running for my life, blood streaming down my arms. I wave down a passing car, and the driver rolls down the window just a crack, looking at me warily.
“There’s a burglar in my house! Please call the police, please!” I shriek. The man nods, and to my incredible relief, I see him pull out his phone and make a call—but he never rolls the window down, and after he makes the call, he drives away.
Cars are driving by. It’s evening in the suburbs, and people are staring at me. I hate that. I’m incredibly self-conscious by nature. I was always a little shy, but after what happened with Bastien, and then what happened in school, people pointing and staring and laughing, drawing obscene cartoons on my locker, chanting “slut” when the teachers left the room, and then my parents dragging me to that doctor… I fight panic attacks every time I think people are looking at me. I’ve spent the past ten years feeling gross and freakish and ashamed.
I start running again, and a police car pulls up. I wave them down and an officer gets out. I cry with relief.
Oh, thank God, thank God, I’m not going to die today.
I stammer out what happened, and an ambulance is there within minutes. I’m taken to the hospital, where I receive five stitches on my forehead, and eight on my left arm. I’m so freaked out that I call Landon, and he rushes to the emergency room to be with me. I’m not so glad that he’s there when the police show up, though, because just when I think things can’t get worse—they do.
The police officer tells me that there was nobody in the house, and the smashed glass downstairs came from a vase falling off a shelf.
Landon gets angry on my behalf and suggests we use his laptop to log into my security system and review the video footage from outside the house. And we do.
And there was nobody there.
I was the only one who entered or left my house in the past twenty-four hours. The house was empty when the police arrived, and they searched every single room. Every closet. There was no intruder fleeing the scene.
That is not possible. I know what I heard.
“There were footsteps,” I protest. “Somebody banged on my bedroom door.” The officer looks at me in a way I don’t like. A “let’s not upset the crazy lady” way. Landon shifts his weight from one foot to another, flushed with embarrassment and avoiding my eyes.
“Sometimes older houses make weird noises,” the officer says, but my house was built five years ago. He shrugs and tells me I can contact the station to get a copy of the incident report, and then he leaves.
Landon insists on going back to my house with me. When I try to argue and say I want to spend the night in a hotel alone, he gets a worried look on his face and says, “Maybe I should call your mother after all.”
As if the night couldn’t get any worse. Once again, he wants to turn to her.
I can’t stand her sharp words right now, not when I’m terrified and angry and confused. So I give in and let him bring me home. It’s midnight, and I’m exhausted. My blouse is splattered with blood, and my heart squeezes in my chest when we walk through the door.
Landon shuts and locks it behind us as he checks the whole house for me. He even searches the garage. I’m grateful for that. He’s doing the “man protecting his woman” thing. It flashes through my mind that he wouldn’t be able to physically defend himself or me if he did find a burglar. He’s toned and fit, but only from racquetball and yoga.
I instantly feel bad for doubting him, but it’s the truth.
The only thing that looks amiss is the shattered vase on the floor, which I quickly sweep up, wanting the events of the night to disappear with the evidence.
“Did you take my phone charger, the one I keep on my nightstand?” I ask him.
“No, but I have one in my briefcase you can use. It’s an extra.” He gives it to me, and I plug my phone in as he turns the alarm on.
