Chapter 18

I kept assuming something bad would happen. It had been a few days since Peter talked to me, or since I heard anything from Tammy. I’d made it all the way to Friday, and no one had tried to kill me. I’d even gotten home okay.

My siblings screamed and played out in the living room, making me want to stay in my own room until the sweet, sweet gift of death came to me. Mom had to work, so Dad stayed home and at the moment, he might have been cooking something for the kids. It was hard to tell without going and checking, but I’d heard someone screaming about chicken nuggets.

As usual when I had nowhere to go, I sat on my bed. I didn’t stare at the ceiling or walls this time, but my eyes stayed on the wooden figures I kept on my shelf. They felt so wrong now. More than they had before, when I couldn’t bear to take them down. I had done that out of pain. This felt like pure stubbornness, me leaving them there. The carvings had been around for so long. What if my room didn’t feel like mine anymore, if I tossed them in the trash? And how horrible would it have been to throw gifts away like that? Was that allowed? I didn’t know the rules for breakups.

I probably had to start getting rid of things sooner or later. I pulled the phone from my pocket and hesitated on opening the pictures folder.

I didn’t like being in pictures, but Peter wanted to take them. We’d each had about a hundred on our phones at the end of our relationship. Or at least I did. He might have deleted them when he decided to cut me loose. I held onto everything, so of course I had a hundred little reminders of less painful days.

My eyes closed when my thumb hit the app, because I didn’t want to see the pictures right away. Right then, I was okay. For all I knew, seeing the pictures would give me a break down. Remembering a time where I felt okay most days, and seeing Peter smiling, because I had been there.

Gathering the courage to do what needed to be done, I opened my eyes. And saw Tammy. I didn’t believe it at first, but I stared at the picture that popped up. Of Tammy, sitting somewhere, staring at my camera. Her eyes had no light in them, and her face looked as blank as it did the day she sat on my lap. What was that picture doing on my phone?

I hit delete, and then the next picture popped up. Another one of Tammy. She smiled in that one, her eyebrow lifted up as she smirked. I deleted that as well. When another picture came up, I hit the back button. I saw the rows that all matched each other. Dozens and dozens of rows, all with different pictures of Tammy on them, replacing all of the pictures that had been on there before. She’d taken one where she winked, one with her doing a finger gun, blowing the smoke. Over a hundred random poses, all on my phone. When did she get a hold of it? How did she find the time? I kept my phone on me at all times, other than in gym. She would have had to steal it from me then, and somehow take the pictures before I got it back.

I wanted to know when it happened, but I couldn’t find the timestamp on any of the pictures. No location tracking either. I didn’t even know how the hell you could have gotten rid of that. The pictures could have been on my phone for a week for all I knew. A week of that girl on my phone, while I wandered around like nothing was wrong. If she got to my phone, what else of mine did she, or could she, have gotten to?

In a blink, I realized I’d gotten to my feet. I had no game plan, so I didn’t know what I thought I would do. My gaze moved in panic as I searched the room for any sign things had been moved. The kids came in here sometimes, so I couldn’t have known what they did, and what Tammy would have done. But in all reality, I doubt she’d been in there. It would have been hard to find a time where the whole house was empty, and that seemed like a big step from taking some pictures and deleting my old ones. Being paranoid wouldn’t have done anything for me.

I debated telling my parents what I’d found, because what would they have done? The school outright ignored me when I asked for help, and I had no reason to think my parents would have been much better. This wouldn’t be considered a threat. At most, it was something weird that a girl did to spook me. Mission accomplished. Even knowing she couldn’t have been in my room, I didn’t want to be there. My hands shook, and my breaths came in pants. I might have been having a panic attack.

My eyes still searched, but I had nothing to hold onto as I thought about all the things to come. What if Tammy did want to destroy me? Step one: make me afraid. Then, once I was in a weakened state, she could come in, and do what she wanted. Making me paranoid seemed like a damn good start. If I went off telling people about this, and they didn’t believe me, that would have left me all alone.

But I wasn’t all alone. I had two whole friends, one of which lived down the street.

I appeared outside before I knew I’d rushed out the door without telling anyone. At least my dad wouldn’t have noticed me vanishing. I hurried down the street, not wanting to linger for too long. I didn’t want to give Tammy what she wanted, but I was still afraid to be alone. She knew a lot of people, and I had no doubt that she could have gotten someone to hurt me if she wanted to.

I frantically knocked on Poe’s front door and looked around me when I had to stand there alone. If I screamed, someone would have come out of their house to save me, right? Surely they wouldn’t have let me get beaten or maybe hit with an arrow. I didn’t know what the hell Tammy had in mind.

A tiny girl answered the door, with Poe right behind her. Trying to sound like a normal person, I smiled and said, “Hello, sweetie,” to Malon.

Poe smirked at me. “Hello to you too.”

I glared at him without heat. “Can I come in please?”

Malon opened the door wider, and I thanked her as I walked inside. She looked up at me, a little wrinkle between her eyes. The scars on her face popped, and it hurt my chest to see. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I lied. “But I need to talk to your brother about something.”

“I’ll go play with Mommy.” Malon waved to me, hugged Poe, and then skipped out of the room.

Despite the Tammy of it all, my brain forced me to think about what Poe had told me the other day. At least it made me feel a little better, seeing how Malon acted now. Not sad, or frightened, or angry. She seemed like a normal, and sweet little girl, who happen to have lived through something traumatizing. It made me glad that at least someone in the world could do that.

Poe nudged me, getting my attention back. “Something happen between my dropping you off a half hour ago and now?”

I nodded and pushed him in the direction of the stairs. We walked up together, and I shut the door when we got to his bedroom. I hesitated, wondering if I should have brought him into this. God forbid Tammy decide she wanted to play with Poe too. She’d already made it clear she didn’t mind fucking with Peter. But I couldn’t handle being alone in this, so I decided to be selfish. I didn’t want to say it out loud, so I handed over my phone. I paced as he went through it.

A couple minutes later, Poe looked up at me with caution. “I take it you didn’t plan this little photo shoot?”

“No,” I said, and then launched into my explanation. I stumbled over myself, trying to talk without letting my voice get all shaky. I did a poor job in hiding my worry. It didn’t help when I started chewing on my nails.

Poe pulled my fingers out of my mouth and set my phone down. “Breathe. You’ll be fine.”

I glared at him. “You sound like the women in the office.”

He glared right back. “Hey, I’m trying to calm you down here. Work with me.”

Sighing, I sat up on his dresser, and rubbed my eyes until I saw spots. “I’m in no position to be dealing with a crazy person right now. I have pouting and eating to do.”

Poe smiled, and patted my thigh. “Atta girl. Don’t let this make you forget your priorities.”

I groaned obnoxiously. “What am I supposed to do here? I’m not going to say I’m sorry I called her out on stealing from Cathy, and she didn’t even accept my apology about the car. I can’t reason with her.”

“You’ve given up so quickly. Maybe she’s trying to make a point. You can try talking to her again. Take me or Cathy with you if you’re worried.”

“I’m not about to drag you into my mess.”

Poe shrugged, and leaned his side against the dresser. “Maybe I don’t mind being in your mess.”

“You should. You might wake up with a dog head on your pillow.”

“I’m not all that worried I’ll have a dog head show up. I’m more concerned with how twitchy you are right now and getting it to stop. We can take this to the police if you want. It’s harassment at the very least, and they might do something about it, since it happened at school.”

Rubbing my eyes again, I said, “I have no proof of where it happened, and these could have been taken by me. It doesn’t even look like she had the phone in her hands.”

Mixing this with my other complaint, wouldn’t have gone my way. If I was an outsider, I would see this as something else. I’d embarrassed her in front of a crowd, twice. Then I accused her of kissing me and threatening me. If I showed up to a police station with a ton of pictures that could have been taken by me, they would have assumed I had something to do with it. They wouldn’t have been on my side, and it could have made Tammy hate me all the more.

“I don’t think I have anything solid enough,” I said. “Nothing that would get anything done.”

“You don’t know that.”

I lifted an eyebrow at him. “What do you think the cops would do with this? It’s her word against mine, and I’m the one that did things with witnesses around. Nothing would happen.”

Poe stared at my phone but didn’t seem to have any more advice for me. “Okay, so we have a couple options. We can hope that this is the end of it, crossing our fingers and praying. We can go to the cops. Or, we can try to talk to Tammy so we can smooth things over.”

None of those sounded like good choices, but there they were for me to choose. I already said no to the cops, and I didn’t know what talking to Tammy would have done. I still decided to try.

“Fine,” I huffed. “Mr. Reasonable. I can try and work things out with Tammy. Maybe if I grovel, she’ll stop it. Even though she deserved what she got for stealing.”

Poe put his hands on my shoulders, kindly trying to rub the stress away. “You’ll be all right. I’ll make sure of it. I’ll curb stomp a bitch if I have to.”

I laughed, snorting and then pretending it didn’t happen. Which only made me laugh harder.

Poe seemed to like my losing it, so he tried to see how far he could push me. “Have you ever heard of a Columbian Neck Tie?”

I shook my head. “Knock it off,” I laughed, swatting at him.

He took my hands so I couldn’t fight, and he had the proudest look on his face as he went on. “I mean, like, I’ll mess her up. Get me a branch from the back yard and go to town on her scrunched up little face. They’ll hail me as a hero.”

“They won’t!” I struggled in his hold, but he didn’t let go.

“Of course they will!” he mock shouted back. “They’ll fear me and understand that I am willing to do anything to protect my person. I can carry around a sledgehammer to make sure that they remember.”

“You’re such a weirdo.”

“You love it.”

I did love it. “Not even.”

“But yeah.” He nodded, and his fingers tightened around my hands.

“You wish.”

“I do.”

We paused for a moment, but it felt like so much longer. It would seem we both lost our damn minds at the same time, because I couldn’t have said for certain which of us moved first. Neither of us stayed still, and that might have said something.

I had my mouth on Poe’s in a blink, and I didn’t hesitate to kiss him like the world was about to end. I gripped his sides tightly, but he held my face so gently that I almost couldn’t feel it. While I moved eagerly, Poe wanted to be slower. I matched his pace, not wanting to ruin it.

My lips parted, and I felt Poe’s tongue softly caress mine. No prodding around or invading anything. I forgot for a moment that kissing could be pleasant. Then I didn’t have the ability to think anymore, which meant I couldn’t overthink anything. I relaxed and enjoyed the moment.

Poe might have left me on the dresser, if I didn’t kind of insinuate I wanted something else. I hooked my leg around him, moaning against his mouth when I grinded myself against him. He took the hint and picked me up off the dresser. In the next couple seconds, we fell onto his bed, and my head landed perfectly on his pillow.

I had a smile on my face when Poe kissed me again, and I shamelessly arched up to meet him. I wanted more of that nervous flutter in my stomach. I wanted the pleasant sensation Poe caused when he pushed himself against me. I wanted a lot of things that I realized then, I wasn’t allowed to want.

Poe and I parted, both needing air. While he panted, he pressed his lips to my neck, over, and over again. He had no right to do something that felt so pleasant, and something I didn’t want to have to stop. If I thought I could live through the guilt, I would have laid there all day long. I would have let myself be happy, because I really wanted it.

But I specialized in ruining things.

I sat up, wordlessly making Poe move off of me. I stayed there for a moment, fretfully checking myself so that nothing looked out of order. I didn’t know what to say, or how to think when my heart pounded so loudly in my ears. My cheeks felt like fire when I touched them, and I couldn’t make myself look at Poe.

“Did I do something wrong?” he panted. “I thought you… I thought you wanted me to do that.”

“I did,” I told him as I got off of the bed.

I couldn’t escape seeing Poe’s face. So cautious and worried that he had done something wrong. “Did I upset you then? What did I mess up?”

Stab me in the heart, why don’t you? “You did nothing wrong,” I said honestly. “I promise, this isn’t anything you did. I just… I can’t do this.” Any of it. Kissing, enjoying the kissing, or wanting more than what I had with Poe.

Bless Poe, because he didn’t try to follow me out of the room. He let me walk out the door, get all the way downstairs, and then leave his house. I made the mistake of stopping when I got to the sidewalk and looking up at the house. Poe stood by the window, watching me leave. I had nothing to say, so I didn’t pull myself together enough to walk back up there.

“I’m sorry,” I said out loud, even though he couldn’t hear me. I would have to answer for my actions, and I knew it. Poe deserved something more than me running out on him, but that had to wait for another day.