“Thank you.” She smiled and sipped her water. I wanted to scream at her. How could she not see how messed up this was? She was so at ease with him, her body turned toward him slightly while Poppy and Violet faced straight ahead, and I was just a statue trying not to be noticed.
“Thank you for your company tonight, girls. I’ll see you in the morning,” he said and rose from his seat. “Have a good evening.”
My body felt like it had been outside in the snow all day. I was stiff and slow to move. He leaned over and placed a kiss on Rose’s cheek and then Poppy’s and Violet’s. I started breathing faster, gripped with fear. Not me. Please not me. I could hear my pulse smashing in my ears, and bile rose in my throat. He bowed his head toward me and turned and walked away.
I let out a big sigh of relief. I couldn’t let him touch me. He stopped on the top of the stairs and unlocked the door. I didn’t take my eyes off him as he left the room and locked the door from the other side. I wanted to make sure he really had left.
Rose and Poppy got up and gathered the plates together to clean up. There was only one of him and four of us. We could overpower him if we worked together. Had they tried that before, or were they always too scared? I wasn’t even sure if Rose would want to.
“Come and watch a movie with us,” Poppy said. I looked up at her and realized they had cleaned everything away and Rose was now sitting in front of the TV.
I joined them on the sofa and stared at the screen, but I didn’t take anything in. Wrapping my arms around my legs, I sunk back into the sofa to try to make myself disappear. Nothing felt real anymore.
Hours must have passed, because Rose switched the TV off and they all stood. “Lily?” Violet said in a soft voice, as if she were talking to a child. “Come on, we need to all get showered and go to bed. I’ll show you the bathroom. You can go first.” She led me to the bathroom and gave me some pajamas. I didn’t even question why I was showering instead of collapsing in bed. Whose pajamas were they anyway?
She left me to it. There was no lock on the door. I wished there was so I could shut myself away from them all. Turning the shower on, I ran my hand under the water until it warmed up. Why was I doing this? Because he could kill you without question or hesitation. Stripping out of my clothes, I stepped into the shower and sunk to the floor. I burst into tears, gasping for breath as my cries turned hysterical. I gripped my hair and closed my eyes as my tears mixed with the hot water.
When my tears had dried up and my head felt like it was going to explode, I forced myself to get out of the shower and get dressed. Crying wasn’t going to get me anywhere, and I didn’t want any more attention than I was already getting. I wrapped the fluffy towel tightly around myself—it smelled fresh, like it was just out of the washer—and opened the bathroom cabinet. I noticed straight away that there were no razors—in their place were two pink boxes of waxing strips. Nothing in the cabinet could cause any damage—to anyone.
Closing the door, I made the mistake of looking at myself in the mirror screwed to the front of the cabinet. My eyes were bloodshot and puffy. I looked like I had been in a scrap with a cage fighter. I spun around, not wanting to see how awful I looked any longer, and pulled on someone else’s pajamas.
“Are you ready for bed?” Rose asked as I walked back into the room. I nodded in response and wrapped my arms around myself. “Okay, I’ll show you where you’ll sleep.” She led me into the room beside the bathroom. The walls were painted light pink and the furniture was all white. There were four single beds with pink quilt covers and pillows. On the bedside tables were identical light pink lamps. It all matched too well, like it was decorated for quadruplets. “This one is yours,” she said and pointed to the bed against the wall on the left. Mine. I had a bed. This was supposed to be home.
I was too exhausted to argue, so I numbly walked over to the bed and climbed under the cover. Closing my eyes, I prayed sleep would come soon and take me away from here, and that when I woke up I would be in my own room.
4
LEWIS
Sunday, 25th July (Present)
Missing. I repeated the word over and over in my head. Lewis, we need to go now. Summer’s missing. That was what Henry said. His face was pale as he explained that his sister—my girlfriend—hadn’t been seen for hours.
It was almost three o’clock in the morning, and we had been driving around and looking by foot for four hours. Summer didn’t go missing. The longest she’s gone without anyone being able to see or hear her was the ten minutes it took for her to shower. I couldn’t think of a single reason why she would take off and not tell anyone.