Finally, I feel a little bit more human. I dry off and slip back into the shirt, then go into my room.
I stop dead.
Someone stands in the middle of my room.
Tall. Black outfit. Hood. Mask.
Good guys don’t wear masks.
I open my mouth to scream, and the guy rushes past me. He’s around the corner and down the hall before I can so much as let out a peep, and my fucking instinct is to chase after him. I make it two steps before I realize what a dumb idea that is, and I skid to a stop.
But I do make sure he’s gone, and then I lock the door. I contemplate sliding a chair under it for good measure, but I don’t want to lock Willow out. My heart pounds, and I press my palm to my chest.
I turn on every light in the apartment and check the windows. Even in Willow’s room. Everything is locked. He must’ve come in behind me… I shiver and go back to my room. I should call Willow. Tell her to be on guard in case she comes home drunk and unaware.
Our safe neighborhood is deteriorating.
Back in my room, I hit the switch for the overhead light and scour my space. It feels colder, but maybe that’s just my imagination. I check my window, and it’s cracked.
A more violent shiver racks through me.
He came throughmywindow.
I slam it closed and lock it, then look at the space again. It still seems untouched, but I can’t be certain. Not at a glance. My desk has always been a mess. It’s just part of my chaotic organization—papers everywhere, a splayed textbook, the chair pulled out and half-covered in almost dirty clothes.
Part of me, the part that reads thrillers and romantic suspense novels, suspects it could be Greyson trying to mess with me further. Drive me into a tailspin or closer to insanity. It would benefit him—probably for no other reason than to feel satisfaction.
I grunt and sweep everything off my desk. The books crash to the floor. My computer bounces once, the charging cable snagging. The papers are slower to float to the carpet, and they go farther. They scatter.
I go to my dresser and touch everything on it. Taking mental inventory. Baubles, trinkets, a sticky note from Willow. A lamp for when I’m feeling like the world is too bright to deal with the overhead light.
My fingers land on a little glass globe, and it reminds me of my mother. And the text she sent out of the blue.
She always left pieces of herself behind for others to find.
A scarf, an earring, a belt. Her engagement ring, once. A trail of personal breadcrumbs that always led back to her.
As a child, I would go around behind her and keep track. I’d harbor them to return to her. Like I was trying to keep her together. She would take the item after a moment of silence, staring at it like she’d never seen it before.
“Easy come, easy go,” she’d say, smiling. “Thank you, sweetheart.”
Then she’d set it down, and I’d find something else the next day.
Lipstick. A hair clip. Her phone.
I should’ve realized that easy come, easy go was a motto imprinted on her heart. She accepted things into and out of her life with the sort of grace I never understood. Friends. Men. They took up space in our apartment and in our lives until one day she’d lose them.
It was only a matter of time before she shook me loose, too.
When I became the one who felt untethered from her in a way I never had before, I began to collect the things she left. I kept them close, stored them in a box or on my nightstand. I didn’t give them back. I willed her to come in and recognize the pieces of herself that I’d saved. I wanted her to see herself in me.
The globe is one of those things. The paint has worn off, so much so that flecks of blue ocean come off on the pad of my finger. I spin it and watch chips of paint flutter down, collecting on the top of the dresser.
For the first time, I start to resent her. I want to call her and tell her that there was someone in my room, that I’m afraid to stay here. But my call would undoubtedly go to voicemail. When she doesn’t need me to rely on her, she isn’t there.
My leg was the exception.
My career would’ve been the exception.