I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my contacts to a name I hadn’t pressed in weeks.Typing out a quick message, my fingers quickly went numb in the chilly air.
Do you remember when we were kids, and you told me the story of Princess Andromeda? How her parents sacrificed her to the sea monster to save their country?
His response was instantaneous, as if he’d been waiting by his phone.
Of course I do.
I typed back quickly, afraid if I didn’t say this now, I’d neverfind the courage again.
I never understood how Andromeda could forgive her parents so easily for that, after Perseus saved her. All my life I’ve thought about that myth, thinking it didn’t make any sense and wondering what I was missing. But I think I finally get it now.
Get what, princess?he asked.
Holding my breath, I hit send.
When you love someone,trulylove them – more than your pride, more than yourself, even – you can forgive them anything, no matter how much they’ve hurt you. And maybe I’m an idiot, but I still love you. I’ve loved you since I was six years old.
My phone rang.
“Hi,” I laughed into the receiver.
“I’m coming over,” Finn saidwithout hesitation, his voice demanding. I could hear noises in the background, as if he were pulling on his boots and jacket.
“Don’t,” I told him. “Not right now anyway. I’m not home.”
“Well, where are you? I’ll meet you somewhere. Anywhere.” Hearing his voice was a balm to my desperate soul; I let the sound wash over me, reveling in it like some kind of addict who’d been denied her fix for far too long.
“I’ll be home tonight. Come over later – let’s say eight? We can talk then,” I said. I could hear the smile in my own voice.
“But it’s only three, now,” he grumbled.
“It’s been two weeks,” I shrugged, though he couldn’t see it. “Are a few more hours going to kill you?”
“Yes,” he said immediately. “I’ll be pacing my living room for the nextfour hours and forty seven minutes.”
“Not that you’re counting,” Ilaughed. “And don’t pace – you’ve got nice carpeting. It would be a shame to ruin it.”
“I’ll see you soon, princess. Don’t makeany other plans. Tonight, you’re mine.” His voice held a dark promise that sent a thrill rushing through me.
“Counting the minutes,” Ibreathed, before hanging up.
I raced back to the Victorian, eager to shower and clean theapartment a bit before Finn’s arrival. I stopped on the way home to grab some groceries for dinner, feeling light and happy for the first time in weeks.
I couldn’t wait to see him. Sure, there were things we still needed to discuss. But now that I’d decided to forgive him, everything seemedeasier – like a giant weight had fallen from my shoulders and clattered to the ground at my feet.
I walked through the front door, whistling under my breath with my arms loaded full of groceries. The apartment was quiet – Lexi and Ty were spending the weekend skiing with another couple at a mountain range three hours away.Conveniently, Finn and I would have the apartment to ourselves to get reacquainted. I blushed in anticipation, hoping all the stories I’d heard about the wonders of make-up sex were true.
I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. I didn’t have a sense of foreboding, or a gut feeling that something was deeply wrong. I was happy,with a goofy smile pasted on my face, when I walked into my bedroom.
I took two blissfully unaware steps into the room, before the imagesin front of my eyes registered and I came to an abrupt stop.
Horror – that’s the only word I can use to describe what I felt as Istood frozen in place, scanning the walls of my bedroom.
There were photos covering every surface of the room. They plastered the walls, a morbid collage of images; they hung from strings on the ceiling; they littered the floor and the surface of the bed.
And every single one was a photo of me.
There were snapshots taken from far away, as I made my way to class or ate at the campus student center. Here, an image of me laughing with a classmate as we entered our Criminal Justice lecture hall. There, a photo of me sitting under a tree on the quad, munching an apple as I studied for Media Law.