“Yeah, I’ll be okay. I’m just scared is all,” I said, lowering my gaze to my fidgeting fingers.
He put a gentle hand on my shoulder and I lifted my gaze until I was looking him in the face again. “I know you’re scared, but you won’t be alone. I promise. You may not see me, but I’ll be there. Do you understand? Dusk, and not a moment sooner.”
I nodded, and he patted me on my back. “Now go to class and try not to worry. Everything will work out fine, you’ll see.”
I didn’t know what his plan was or even if he had one. But my gut told me I could trust Mr. Masson. The rest of the school day went by at an achingly slow pace, and my anxiety was sky high by the time Volleyball Practice was over. It seemed ludicrous to go about such normal daily activities when I knew both my and Drew’s life was hanging in the balance.
As I walked to the waiting car, I thought I would be able to keep my anxious mood from my dad, but I was sorely mistaken. So when he started grilling me like Sunday chicken, I did something I hadn’t done in a while. I told a bald-faced lie and didn’t feel the slightest shred of remorse. Why would I when I knew that Drew’s life might very well depend on it.
“Eden, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I’m just a little tired,” I mumbled.
He looked at me sideways, and my resolve faltered, but only a little. “Why are you tired?”
“Practice was brutal today, Mr. Masson is not nearly as nice as Mrs. Camden was, and definitely not as lenient.”
On the outside, I knew I was holding my own, but on the inside—my emotional sanity was nearing the breaking point. All I could think about was Drew and how I didn’t know what I’d do if something happened to him. I’d been so stupid to not just tell him that I loved him instead of being childish and just saying, ‘Me too.’ What the hell was I thinking? If he died, I’d never get the chance to say those words to him. If he died, I wasn’t sure I’d want to live. I knew I loved him, and I was fairly certain he was in love with me too, yet I couldn’t bring myself to be with him in the physical sense. The memory of Echo’s account of how painful it’d been when she’d lost her virginity had haunted me every time we’d gotten close. Even though I hadn’t witnessed it in a memory or dream, the emotional imprint the pain of her first time had left rang through loud and clear. It was always there just under the surface of undeniable desire.
The silence in the car was a probing one as Dad spared a worried glance at me every once in a while. The bump of Dad hitting the curb before we pulled into our garage jarred me out of the deep thoughts I had tried to lose myself in so I could avoid his penetrating glances.
“Eden seriously, what’s wrong?”
“I’m just tired, Dad.” I paused for effect and then looked at him. “I also don’t feel good. I think all my being paranoid is taking a toll. I’m just gonna go up and lay down. I haven’t slept soundly in the last few nights. I keep waking up thinking there is someone or something there with me.”
“Okay, Honey Bear, but you need to let yourself relax, the updates to the security system will keep us safe. It’s on when we are gone and again when we go to sleep for the night. Do you want me to get you up when dinner is ready?”
“No, if I do, by some freak of nature, fall asleep, please just let me sleep—I can use it. I’ll grab something when I wake up on my own—if that’s okay?”
“Of course, it’s okay, Eden. Let me just make sure the house is clear first.”
Although he refused to show it, Dad was just as paranoid as me. If he really believed the new system was break-in proof, he wouldn’t feel the need to search the house before letting me go in. I really couldn’t blame him; it wasn’t every day that a psychopath was trying to kill your daughter. After he’d deemed the house was safe, I barricaded myself in my room to figure out how I was going to slip out without Dad noticing. I stuffed a bunch of my clothes under the covers and made it look as realistic as possible. My heart raced, and my head ached as I contemplated the best way to leave the house undetected. I only had one shot at getting this right because if Dad caught me, Drew would be as good as dead.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Expecting the Unexpected
When I finally gathered the nerve to sneak out—through my second-story bedroom window—I realized there were a couple of things I hadn’t exactly thought through. The first of which was my unreal fear of heights.
“Thank you so much, Dad, for scaring the shit out of me as a toddler,” I mumbled to myself.
I managed to scale down the corner of the house but not without almost alerting my dad with my terrified shrieks. When my feet finally hit the ground, I took off running, and after an hour, I realized I hadn’t gaged the distance to Porter’s Field very well.
