I tried to convince myself it was nothing—that no one’s been following me—but I’ve seen it now. Keeping close to the wall, I slink into the living room to the front windows and push the blinds to the side.
No car. Just a dark, empty street.
Was this related to the last time I walked home from Lucie’s? I ignored my instincts that night, but even Stevie was acting like she heard something near the windows.
A wave of nausea hits my stomach and I check out the windows again.
Nothing.
Mom and Ron will be home in five days. Just five more days and I won’t be alone.
I might have been overreacting before, about the shadow on the walk home. But this time, the person in that car was following me—might have followed me from Taylor’s somehow—and they don’t care that I know it.
I bend down and rub Stevie’s ears. She rubs her face against the sides of her dog bed. She needs to go outside.
I blocked the gate off, right? The gate. Add it to the list of things that seem off.
Clutching my phone, I tap the flashlight app, turn on the backyard light, and step outside with Stevie. I won’t let her be out here alone. I shine it across the back yard, walking across the patio, to the side of the house, toward the gate. Everything closed, just how I left it, yard empty.
Stevie does her business, and I wait by the door, every second seeming like a minute as I grip the knob, ready to dash inside with her.
“Come on, girl,” I coax her to finish up and open the door preemptively. She trots over and inside, and I’m so close behind her I send her skittering to her water dish. “I’m sorry,” I hiss, locking the door behind us as she laps at her water. “I’m getting myself worked up, Stevie. I don’t know if I’m losing it or if someone was following me out there. Maybe they were just lost, checking house numbers. Maybe they were debating asking me for directions…”
But that’s not what my gut says. Some creeper, getting kicks out of scaring women on their walks at night maybe? Deep down, I know why I’m scared. Thinking about it—comparing it to what happened to my dad—seems so trivial. Do I really believe something like that would happen to me?
My father’s stalker, the prosecution discovered during the investigation, had been following him for months. Frequenting the same bars my dad played at—including Winburn—even talking to my dad from time to time. Some of our old neighbours had even seen him around the street in the weeks leading up to the murder. The detective seemed to think Byron had been planning the whole thing for a while and might have even chosen the time when I would be away at school to do it—not out of mercy, he said—but for less potential witnesses. The detective didn’t seem to believe he wanted to kill my mom, but she’d have been collateral damage if I hadn’t walked in and interrupted, and I’d convinced the judge of that.
Mom admitted she wasn’t supposed to be home that night, but her last appointment was a no-show. She took the opportunity to get home in time for dinner with Dad.
Byron had set his sights on my dad, he said, because he didn’t appreciate the life he had. Because he wasn’t a very good man after all, and everyone would know that if they knew him better. Hearing him make that statement traumatized me all over again.
Still, Byron apologized to my mom on the stand, over and over, until the defence stopped him. He seemed to have real remorse. And a part of me understood then, how and why he ran when I came in as no real threat to him.
He’s a coward. I told him as much when I was on the stand.
I told the judge what he took from me has changed me forever—what I witnessed that night will remain with me—and that I truly believe if I hadn’t come home, he’d have killed my mom, too.
To even think someone would be following me, especially with Byron dead and gone now, is so unlikely, I shouldn’t even consider the possibility.
I shake my head and double-check the locks, flicking off the lights before grabbing my bag and jogging upstairs with Stevie right behind me. My cell phone trills in my hand again, breaking up the creaking of the stairs, and I jump as a text appears on the screen.
I was hoping to see Taylor’s name, but I forgot he doesn’t have my number.
Stokes says, Meet us at The Party Place tom. 4pm. Geting our codtumes for the next 2 shows.
His text calms me to a degree, despite his drunken misspellings, and I can’t explain why. He’s not here if anything were to happen, but he’d get my message or call if it did, and he’d come to help. I really think he would.
I set my phone down on my nightstand and undress as Stevie jumps onto my bed. I grab a towel, bringing it to the bathroom with me. I need a shower, I need to feel clean and relax, but will I be able to hear if anything is going on once I’m in there and the water’s running? I could leave the door open to hear better, but that’s just an invitation for someone to come on in. How does one defend themselves when attacked in the shower anyway?
I lock the door behind me, something my mother told me never to do in case I slip and fall, and the paramedics need to reach me. I set my towel on the stand beside the tub, and as I turn toward it, I picture Mom in there, fully clothed, crying. I blink the eerie image away and step into the tub, pulling the curtain closed behind me.
Just a
