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“I don’t know,” I murmured. “There’s no guarantee.”
“When has there ever been?”
Brian was right about that, for sure, yet I couldn’t help but to think that there must be another way to go about this. I liked the anonymity, but there had to be something else I could do.
Slowly, an idea formed in my mind. I got up and went to the balcony railing, gripping it in my hands. The wood was damp from the ocean winds, and a little splintery. The prickles against my palms helped to center me. “What if we threw our own party?”
“Come again?”
“I’ll wear something to help disguise me. A mask, maybe.” I turned back to Brian, getting more excited the longer I thought about it. “And we’ll get lookalikes. Impersonators. No one will know who the real me is. But the whole point of the party will be to help me find my future wife. But I’ll be incognito, mingling with everyone else.”
“Holy shit,” Brian said. “That sounds like it’s just crazy enough to work.”
“We’ll have to plan fast. Halloween isn’t that far off.”
Brian grinned. “Leave that to me. I already have an idea.”
He left before I could ask him to elaborate. I shrugged and turned back to the ocean, clutching the railing and bracing all my weight against it, struggling with logic, but struggling more with hope.
CHAPTER2
MEGYN
Ilay on my back and looked up at the ceiling over my tiny bedroom, certain I could make out some new brown water spots staining the corners. I closed my eyes. Moisture dripped. Not rainwater or condensation. Cold tears, sliding down my cheeks and plopping off onto the pillow. A terrible aching loneliness yawned open in my chest, wide enough to swallow me whole. All that held me back from the edge was an exhaustion that went straight to my bones, preventing me from making a move in any direction, whether good or bad.
I wished that someone, anyone would come by and talk to me, even if it was my dad, or my evil-stepmother, that wretched fairytale figure who had slipped right out of the pages of a book and into my life. Unfortunately, my parents, if they could be called parents, lived in California. The most I could do was pick up my phone and call one of them, but that also took effort and I didn’t have it in me.
So I lay there.
Aching.
Wishing things were different.
Knowing they never would be, that I was trapped in this situation, yet not floundering enough to eventually wander into true failure. I made just enough to get by. I could keep going, moving on in a straight path through this world that hadn’t the patience for people like me, people with dreams and no means by which to act upon them.
My phone buzzed on the thin mattress beside me. I groaned and flopped my heavy arm over my face. My situation being what it was, there were only a few people who could be texting me: my boss, letting me know whether she had any extra hours I could pick up; my best friend Maggie; or the spam number who wanted me to sign up for car insurance from a company I had never heard of.
And my phone buzzed again. I sighed and fumbled for it, following the vibrations until I reached it. I picked it up and held it in the air over my face, scanning the messages.
Both had come from Maggie.
“Are you doing anything? Can I come over?”
I frowned a bit. Maggie usually wasn’t so needy. That was my niche. I started to sit up so I could text an answer, wondering if something had happened to upset her.
A pounding echoed throughout the little house. I jumped and lost my grip on my phone and dropped it right on my nose. Pain shot through my face, red like the blood I was certain had to be oozing from my abused nostrils right about now. I sat up and put my hand to my nose and checked my fingers for moisture. Nothing yet.
The pounding continued. My heartbeat picked up as I recognized the sound as coming from my front door. The last time someone had beat on my door like that, it turned out to be a criminal running from the law after having “accidentally” run over his wife in her own car. That I’d chosen then to call the cops over answering the door had probably saved my life.
I wasn’t going to answer it this time either, even though it certainly would have been an easy way to ensure all my problems were taken care of.
The pounding abruptly cut off in a hollow slam, unlike anything I had ever heard before. I grabbed up my phone and turned it on, my thumb sliding shakily over to the emergency call button. Where could I go? Where could I hide? The closet wasn’t big enough. Maybe the intruder wouldn’t see me if I went under the bed.
“Oops,” came a murmur. It must have only been a split second since the slam, though it felt like an eternity.
I recognize that voice.
Still gripping my phone, fear and hope twined together in my heart, I stepped out into the hallway and gasped at the person standing there a short distance away in the foyer.