When you’re a kid, you think by the time you’re an adult, you’ll have it all figured out. Life, that is. As though you’ll turn eighteen and, with the simple flip of a calendar page, be somehow better equipped to handle everything that the world throws at you.
Of course, when you actually turn eighteen, you realize pretty quickly that you’re just as much of an idiot kid as you were at eight — albeit with slightly better sense of style and slightly worse taste in men. But surely, you tell yourself, you’ll have it figured out by twenty-one. Old enough to legally drink. A whole year outside of your teenage wasteland.
And yet, twenty-one feels just as overwhelming as ever. Twenty-two is even worse. Twenty-three offers no further enlightenment. As you slowly begin the march toward twenty-five — halfway through the defining decade of your life — you begin to accept the truth. There is no age at which you’ll ever have it figured out; no magic number where every missing piece falls abruptly into place. You will get older, there’s no stopping that, but there’s no guarantee you’ll ever get wiser. If anything, you merely get better at pretending. Acting like you have all the answers, holding all the loose threads of your life together in one fist, so they resemble a rope strong enough to guide you along until your time on earth expires.
I wasn’t that little girl anymore, lost and alone and so, so afraid of everything that went bump in the night. And yet, in many ways, I’d always be her. I carried her deep inside me, an inner shadow locked away within my soul. I shared her same worries, felt her same fears.
Never take anything you’re not able to pay back.
Never let in anyone who might do real damage.
Never drop your guard, even if you think it’s safe.
It’s never safe.
Tonight, as I fell back into old insomniac patterns, painting myself into a rich mental image of the lush, tropical landscape of Hawaii, feeling the salt air kiss my cheeks, the hot sand between my toes, watching the sway of the palm trees and the crash of the waves, that inner shadow of mine felt perilously close to the surface. She was with me as my overtaxed mind eventually succumbed to the illusory relaxation I’d conjured, and she was with me as I tumbled over the edge of consciousness, into the obliterating dark.
Chapter Seventeen
Relationships are basically algebra. Haven’t you ever looked at your X and wondered Y?
- Gwen Goode, thinking back on old flames
The stairs creaked beneath the weight of someone’s shoe.
I sat bolt upright in my bed, heart in my throat, instantly awake. It was still full dark outside my windows — I hadn’t been asleep for long. I strained my ears for a long moment, half-convinced I’d imagined the sound that woke me, when it came again. The unmistakable creak of the old wood steps. This time, closer to the top.
Someone was coming up my stairs.
Mickey O’Banion’s face, contorted with rage, flashed through my head. I was out of bed in a flash, moving in utter silence as I ducked down beneath my bed and grabbed the baseball bat I kept there for just such an occasion. Creeping behind my bedroom door, I pressed myself close to the wall and took up a batter’s stance. My pulse was a steady thud, pounding like a battle drum. My grip was so tight on the bat, my knuckles turned white. I didn’t dare breathe as the doorknob began to twist under the grip of the intruder.
The door cracked open slowly, and a dark figure stepped through. He took two soundless strides toward the bed — impressively stealth for such a large man. As soon as he cleared the door frame, I swung for his head. I swear I didn’t make a sound, but he somehow sensed the blow coming. He managed to spin around and grab my bat just before I made contact, halting me mid-swing.
Hellfire.
Normally, this would’ve spelled disaster — he was definitely stronger than me, fully capable of wrenching my weapon away with one tug. But this wasn’t the first time I’d had to defend myself in the middle of the night, and I wasn’t going down that easily.
The first rule of survival?
Always,always, have a backup plan. Mine came in the form of a tube sock, which I’d layered over the bat — a trailer park trick I’d learned from my mother, who was well-practiced in the art of driving off unwanted male attention. When the intruder yanked at my bat, he came away with nothing but fabric in his grip.
“What the—”
Grinning in the dark at the intruder’s confusion, I cocked back the now-bare bat and swung a second time. He dodged, swift on his feet, but I managed to clip him on the shoulder hard enough to elicit a low grunt of pain. I was preparing to swing again — this time, for his cranium — when he did something unexpected. He dropped low and lunged at me, planting his shoulder in my stomach and lifting me clear off my feet.
The bat clattered out of my grip as I went airborne. I tried to scream, but he’d knocked the wind from my lungs. I kicked violently at the air as he began to march me across the room, pounding the planes of his back with my fists. He didn’t even seem to notice. His stride was unhurried as he carried me toward the bed.
“Let go of me, you bastard!” I screeched when I finally regained my breath. “I’ll kill you if you touch me!”
He was silent as he flung me none-too-gently off his shoulder onto the mattress. I landed hard, bouncing several inches into the air, then felt myself flattened against the duvet as a heavy male body settled on top of me. Before I could even attempt to push him off, my arms were jerked up over my head, held within the iron-like grip of one massive hand against the pillows. I bucked and thrashed in pure, undiluted terror and tried, unsuccessfully, to headbutt him.
“Get off me!”
“No.”
I stilled at the voice. My eyes, which had clouded over with a film of fear, finally cleared enough to take a proper look at my attacker. The face hovering inches above mine came into focus and I felt all my fright crystalize into cold, hard, untempered fury. BecauseGraham Motherfucking Graveswas lying on top of me, pinning me to my bed with his not-inconsiderable weight, his green eyes narrowed to slits, his breathing labored.
“What the hell are you doing?” I cried, outraged.