Page 30 of A Secret Escape

Lila

E xhaustion wraps around me like a chain, each step a battle against the weight pulling me down.

Dropping my coat and bag down on the floor and pulling off my boots, I walk straight to my bedroom and collapse on the bed. The images from earlier have won the battle, burning themselves permanently into my brain.

A man is dead. Killed.

And those eyes.

I curl into a ball, pulling Marcus’s hoodie up to my nose and inhaling his scent. The subtle aroma swirls around me, calming my nerves just enough to allow some of the tension from my shoulders to ease.

I glance at my phone as I consider texting him good night, but my eyelids droop and my fingers loosen, dropping my phone face down on the bed beside me.

A moment later, a loud knock on the door startles me awake. An excited flutter rises in my chest and I jump up, my nerves managing to temporarily push back the exhaustion. Thank God he came back!

I run to the door and throw it open, ready to pull him in with an ecstatic hug .

In the span of a millisecond, excitement and gratefulness turn to horror as my heart stops cold.

A man stands in front of my door, wearing a black coat with a hood that covers most of his face. I go to slam the door, but he thrusts his hand out forcefully, stopping it.

“Lila, wait.”

Fear paralyses every muscle in my body.

How the fuck does he know my name?

The man lowers his hood and my heart rate skyrockets, my stomach tightening painfully as I see his eyes. The eyes that had locked on mine in front of the car.

My jaw falls open, unable to do anything other than stare at the person in front of me.

He has shaggy blonde hair, pale skin, and those haunting eyes, which up close look more dead themselves than terrifying.

The longer I stare at him, the fear that had paralysed me mere moments ago begins to shift.

“Chris?” His name is a hoarse whisper from my throat.

What the fuck? Why is he here? How did he find me? Did he just kill someone? Does he know I saw him? Is he going to kill me too?

Panic consumes me, every muscle in my body frozen with fear.

Before I can react, he storms past me, slamming the door shut, and starts pacing the room. I inch backwards, keeping as much distance as I can, my heart pounding in terror. I don’t take my eyes off him for a second, not even daring to blink.

His hands are in his coat pockets and I’m all too aware that he could pull a knife out at any moment. I wouldn’t stand a chance .

Tears prick my eyes and I send a prayer up to God, to Jesus, Mary, to my parents, to any higher spirit looking out for me, begging them not to let me die tonight.

I need to call the police. Maybe if I just dial, they can hear what’s going on and trace the address. Or Marcus. If I don’t say anything, he’ll know something’s wrong and he’ll come back.

My hand clenches into a fist, the space where I usually hold my phone empty as I suddenly remember it’s on the bed.

I consider dashing to the bedroom, but terror keeps my feet glued to their spot.

Please come back, Marcus . Please.

He collapses onto my couch, dropping his face in his hands.

“Tell me you didn’t call the cops,” he says, his voice a shaky whisper.

What do I do? Do I lie? Will he kill me if I say yes?

“I… I…”

He stands up and walks toward me, my entire body curling inward in anticipation of an attack, but instead, he stops a foot in front of me.

I look at his face, and I’m suddenly taken aback.

His eyes are brimming with tears and his face is screwed up in almost as much terror as I assume mine is.

“Did you tell them my name, Lila?” he shouts, his voice sharp and sudden - like a crack of thunder that slams into me. Every muscle in my body coils tight.

But then… I look in his eyes. And there’s vulnerability, and fear. And the eyes that had just looked threatening, now just look… scared.

And suddenly, I don’t see a murderer, or even a stranger.

Instead, I’m sixteen again, standing in that grimy flat his cousin used to stay in – the reek of stale smoke and stained carpets manifesting themselves in my mind, and the memory that flashed earlier comes back full-force - my heart pounding from what I thought was intimacy.

Thinking I’d just done something good. And then him, pulling away, like I’d done something wrong.

“ Go wash your mouth out before you kiss me again.”

The memory of it burns fresh like acid on my skin.

I blink, and I see him. Now. In my flat. My flat. The flat I pay for, with my own damn money.

He’s older. Harder. And far more of a wreck than I ever imagined he’d become.

But beneath the hard exterior, he’s still the same boy – broken in the same awful ways.

I shake my head slowly, my voice barely a whisper. “No.”

He lets out a huge breath, rubbing his face with both hands, dragging his fingers down like he’s trying to scrape off the panic. He stumbles back to the couch and collapses, and for the first time since opening the door, I allow myself to take a breath.

“I fucked up,” he mutters. “I fucked up real bad.”

I simply stare at him, not knowing what to say.

He lets out a sob that seems to start in his gut and rip its way out, his face twisting with emotion before he pushes himself up again.

He’s shaking. Pacing. His eyes darting between the floor, the window, the door, and back to me.

“Swear down, you ain’t told ‘em my name?”

“No,” I say, an unexpected strength rising from somewhere within me. “I didn’t… I didn’t know it was you.”

He stops dead and turns to me.

“ You fucking saw me !” he yells, the words cracking with desperation more than fury.

A shiver ripples down my spine as his voice shakes the air .

“It was dark. I didn’t know what I saw.”

I stay rooted to my spot as he resumes pacing nervously.

“What about your boyfriend?” he spits out.

It takes an insurmountable feat of strength to stop a smile from taking over my face at the sound of Marcus being referred to as my boyfriend.

“He didn’t see anything,” I say, keeping my voice steady, trying to sound as convincing as I can.

“Lila, these people I’m in with, they’re no fucking joke.” His voice is shaky and his eyes dart around the room, as though he’s on the verge of breaking down.

And something cracks open inside me – sudden and sharp – like a floodgate bursting open, and in an instant, memories hit me like a punch in the gut.

The way he’d been there for me when no one else was after Dad died, the countless evenings spent getting high in that dingy flat, numbing the pain, the grief, the sheer fucked-up-ness of it all.

Fumbling with a condom in the back seat of his cousin’s car, losing my virginity in a blur of awkwardness and regret.

And the awful people he hung out with - God, he always had a talent for choosing the worst crowd.

And I remember falling in love with him. Or at least thinking I had. Looking back now, it was nothing more than a desperate, clinging attachment born out of trauma and my father’s betrayal.

A vision flares in my mind of the night he made me try a line of coke, the sick discomfort twisting in my stomach, the hideous burn in my nose.

And I remember the way he looked at me - after I did what he asked. The disgust in his eyes .

And now, standing in front of me, it’s clear that nothing’s changed for him.

He’s pale. Gaunt. Probably riding a cocktail of God-knows-what.

And he’s absolutely terrified.

“I won’t tell,” I say quietly.

He nods as he continues pacing the room. “Good.”

He walks to the door and yanks it open. “I knew I could count on you, Lai,” he says, using the single syllable of my name like he used to, the sound of it that once felt like a comfort now scraping at my ears like sandpaper.

He steps out the door, flipping his hood back up.

He stops, turning back. “And if you do, I know where you live. And I will come back.”

He storms off down the corridor.

I slam the door closed, locking and bolting it before crumbling onto the floor with a loud sob. Tears flow heavily from my eyes and my chest constricts, my lungs gasping for breath.

I muster the strength to force myself off the floor and run to my bedroom, grabbing the phone off the bed. My hands are shaking so much that I can barely open my contacts.

I’m about to dial Marcus, but I stop myself, my finger hovering over his name.

Calling Marcus means I have to tell him about my past. He’ll want nothing to do with me. It’s too much. I can’t… I can’t risk it.

Wiping a tear from my cheek, I scroll back to the top and see Angela’s name. I glance at the time. 1:25 AM.

Please be awake , I pray as I tap my best friend’s name.

The phone rings twice, then the sound of a click on the other end .

“Lila?” Angela’s voice is sleepy, but she’s there. Thank God. “Everything okay, babe?”

Tears fall freely from my eyes as I drop down to sit on the bed. “No,” I sputter between sobs. “Can you… come over?” I gasp for air, my lungs threatening to close in on me.

“Yea, yea, of course,” she says, suddenly sounding a lot more awake. “Are you home?”

I nod for a moment before finding the strength to whisper, “Yes.”

“I’m on my way!”

I keep nodding, the full force of every emotion of the past several days pouring out of me, large teardrops landing on the soft fabric of Marcus’s sweatpants.

“Thank you,” I whimper before dropping the phone in my lap and collapsing down onto the mattress.

***

Several minutes later, I’ve managed to pull back my torrent of tears and make my way back to the living room, where I’m pacing anxiously by the door, biting my nails. One nail is already bleeding, and another is chipped threateningly close to the nailbed.

A sudden urgent knock on the door makes me nearly jump out of my skin.

“Lila! It’s Angela! Open up!”

I throw the bolt open and unlock the door, throwing my arms around her as I break down all over again.

Angela strokes my hair and leads me over to the couch, a warm comforting arm wrapped around my shoulder .

Once I’ve calmed down enough to be able to speak, I tell her everything. About bumping into Marcus at lunch on Monday, about the date tonight, what we had witnessed, and then the visit from Chris.

Angela’s face is stunned in a frozen expression of horror.

She hasn’t said a word the entire time I’ve been talking.

“Holy. Fucking. Shit,” she says slowly.

“I know.”

We sit in silence for a long moment.

“What are you going to do?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know. I should tell him, right?”

“Yea. But… what if he tells the cops?”

I drop my head in my hands. “I don’t know, Ange. I’m so fucking scared.”

She stands up and walks over to the small kitchen area, separated from the living room space by a waist-high countertop. She fills the kettle and prepares two mugs of tea, the bubbling of the water and the clink of the spoon against the porcelain the only sounds that fill the silence.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about Marcus all fucking week!” she finally says, carrying two mugs of tea back into the living room and setting them down in front of us.

I laugh, thankful for the way it helps me let go of my fear, if only for a moment.

“I didn’t fully believe it myself!” I tell her. “I was worried if I said something, it wouldn’t happen.”

“I’ll let you off the hook this time,” she warns, “but you best tell me every tiny fucking detail from now on.”

“Absolutely,” I smile, holding my pinky out for a promise .

As I sip my tea, with the immediate danger subsided, my mind wanders to Marcus as I glance at my phone.

Is he asleep? Is he thinking about me?

A smile creeps across my mouth as I imagine him in bed, possibly even touching himself as he thinks of me.

I quickly push the thought out of my mind as Angela sets her mug down on the wooden coffee table with a thud.

“You need to get some sleep babe,” she says. “You go to bed, and I’ll crash here on the couch. We can go out for brekky in the morning and think what to do ‘bout all this with a fresh head tomorrow, alright?”

“Thank you,” I nod, standing up and giving her a tight hug. “You’re the best.”

“Yea, I am,” Angela says with her cackling laugh as she pushes me off towards my room.

Back under the comfort of my duvet, I snuggle my face into Marcus’s hoodie and close my eyes, sleep finally taking over.