32
LILAH
I wasglad Nolan didn’t press me for information on the way home. I was still stung by the way Matt had treated me, still unsettled by the way he’d parroted my mom’s religious zealotry.
It had been one of the risks of leaving home, of leaving Matt with my mom. When we’d been together, Matt and I had been able to talk, commiserate on some of our mom’s more militant positions, and after my time at Oak Hill, I had more criticism of those positions than ever.
But Matt had been a kid back then, barely in middle school. He’d looked up to me, had taken seriously my questions about my mom’s brand of faith.
Clearly things had changed.
“I’m here if you want to talk,” Nolan said, pulling into the garage under the mountain house.
“Thanks,” I said.
But I didn’t want to talk because what could I say? That I wasn’t the only freak in my family? That my mom had made Matt a freak too? That I was helpless to help him escape because my own life was in limbo, all the work I’d put into building anescape hatch for Matt gone because of Vic Lombardi and Mr. Suit?
What was the point?
We got out of the car and took the stairs up to the ground floor (I’d recently learned there was also an elevator, which should have surprised me but somehow didn’t).
“You hungry?” Nolan asked when we stepped into the foyer. “I could make you a bacon cheeseburger.”
Nolan and Jude were always trying to soothe me with food, and while I was usually more than happy to take them up on the offer, even one of Nolan’s bacon cheeseburgers couldn’t make me feel better after my conversation with Matt.
“No, thanks,” I said, bending to untie my boots. “I think I’ll just take a nap.”
It was a bad idea — a nap wasn’t going to do anything for my insomnia — but I was mentally and emotionally wiped.
“Sure thing, sweetheart. Let me know if you need anything.” He looked at his watch, some kind of fancy complicated device that looked like it could calculate a moon landing. “And don’t forget your meds.”
“I won’t.” It was weird having someone else so on top of my AVS, but kind of nice too, like there was at least one person in the world who gave a shit if I lived or died.
I climbed the stairs to the second floor and made my way down the hall to my room. I was bone-tired, eager to shut out the world, and even more importantly, my own mind.
I pulled off my hoodie — I was finally getting used to the fact that the house was always warm enough without three layers of clothing — and started for the bathroom, then stopped when I spotted a laptop on the desk in my room.
I didn’t have a laptop.
Not anymore. My secondhand computer had been trashed when Vic — or Mr. Suit and his goons — had trashed my apartment.
Except here was a laptop, brand-new from the looks of it, in rose gold.
I moved closer, like it might secretly be a bomb, then looked around for a note.
“Thought you could use it.”
I turned around to find Rafe standing in the doorway.
“You… you bought this for me?”
He shrugged.
“Wow,” I said. “That’s… Thank you.”
I thought I saw a flush creep up his neck and into his beard. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s something to me. It’s… really nice.”