No. No. No.
“Eric—"
He gave me a stern look, his jaw ticking back and forth. “You’re not going home.”
“Why?” Why was he being like this? Why did he care so much?
“Because what if he comes back tonight?”
My shoulders dropped. Oh. I didn’t think of that.
“I’ll just watch out the window, and if he happens to come back again, which I don’t think he will, I’ll just jump out my window and shimmy down the drainpipe again.”
“No,” he snapped. “If he comes back, I will rip his fucking arms off his body to teach him that he shouldn’t touch things that don’t belong to him.”
Whoa. My face flamed as desire wrapped herself around my body. Eric didn’t waste any time barking at me to get dressed before he left the room, and for once, I listened.
The second I stepped out of Eric’s room and into the hallway, my muscles grew tight. I felt like a small child getting ready to tell her parents that she’d done something bad. Like I was awaiting some form of punishment.
I remembered Eric’s mom being the nicest adult I’d ever met. My mom wasn’t “mean” by any means, but she was selfish—just like me. Eric’s mom wasn’t. Heather was the type of woman who made homemade cookies for the bake sales at English Prep Middle, and who yelled for Eric in the stands of a football game, wearing war paint on her face to match his. She was genuinely nice. Which was why it made me feel even worse when I’d found out that her own husband was cheating on her. I couldn’t even look her in the eye after I’d found Eric’s father leaving my mom’s bedroom the first time. Even at age twelve, I wasn't naive enough to believe he came over to fix a leaky sink or something. It was right after my father had disappeared for a few months, which was right around the time things became very real in my life.
I stood on the second stair up after taking my sweet time descending the steps, wearing Heather’s clothes: a black pair of comfy joggers and an English Prep shirt that had “Eric’s Mom” on the back. Did she hate me? She probably hated me. I looked just like my mother, too. Both with golden, salon-like hair. Bright-blue eyes. Slender bodies. Would she even be able to look me in the eye? All signs pointed to yes, because of how nice she’d always been, but I was still worried.
No. I tightened my ponytail harshly in the form of discipline. Being worried that she hated me was beyond selfish. She was allowed to hate me. After all, I could have told Eric and put a stop to the entire thing years ago.
But of course, my selfishness got in the way.
Pick a side, Madeline. Mean or nice? What’ll it be?
Sometimes I wished I could just go back to being a selfish bitch who cared about nothing other than herself. But now I was a little jaded. Split in two right down the middle. I was knocked off my high horse, and I was having a hard time climbing back up. Everyone at English Prep thought Christian’s very public break-up with me was the reason I was a recluse now, but they were wrong.
Someone else ruined me.
And it wasn’t him.
“I told you,” Heather sang. “You are protective.”
Eric’s voice was gruff. “What are you talking about?”
“Did you know, when you were little, you used to check under my bed for monsters?” I heard some shuffling around as I took another step down to hear better.
“What?”
Heather’s soft laugh moved up the stairs to where I was eavesdropping. “Yep. Instead of being worried monsters were under your bed to get you in the middle of the night, you would check under my bed. You used to say, ‘Mom, I’m just making sure you’ll be protected from monsters at night.’” She laughed again. “It was so cute. And further proves my point that you are fiercely protective.”
“Whatever,” Eric said nonchalantly, as if he weren’t even paying attention.
“I’m just saying. You’re protective by nature, sweetie. And you just proved my point by what just happened upstairs.”
She was right. Eric was protective, even if he pretended not to be. I felt my heart awaken with his words, “If he comes back, I will rip his fucking arms off his body to teach him that he shouldn’t touch things that don’t belong to him.” I knew I had absolutely no right liking it, but I did.
“Should we go check on her? You gave her the clothes, right?”
I glanced down at the white English Prep shirt. Maybe his mom didn’t hate me? She didn’t sound hateful at all, but again, that wasn’t surprising. Heather was simply nice. She was the type of woman who was still able to smile even after her husband fucked the next-door neighbor.
“She’s fine,” Eric sighed.
I gulped up the last of the oxygen on the stairs and leveled my shoulders, preparing to be swimming in my guilty conscience as I took the final step down.