Page 93 of Wicked Little Darling

REESE

Ihad one final meeting with Dean Voss before break, and it was entirely pointless—like every other one of our meetings. But I was beyond relieved I wouldn’t have to see him for almost a month.

I could pretend I wasn’t lying to Dakota for a while.

When winter break officially started the following week, the students that hadn’t already left went back home to spend the holidays with their families. Some stayed behind, which struck me as sad. Did they not have families to spend their time with? Were they like me? Or did they despise their families like Dakota did?

I stayed behind. My grandma didn’t celebrate anything and was a cranky woman devoid of love—to give or receive—so I wasn’t rushing back to Boston to go feel like I was a stain on her dress she couldn’t get out. Spending three years with her had been more than enough.

Dakota stayed behind too, just like he said he would.

After I was all better, I haunted the nearby cemetery like a ghost, slipping away whenever Dakota wasn’t paying attention. I found the little iron gate he’d told me about and used that.

I soon realized he was always paying attention, though. He just pretended he wasn’t.

Sometimes he followed me out here. I never knew whether or not he did until he popped up randomly, scaring the living shit out of me.

Kind of like the first day I met him.

It was so strange to think back on that day and remember the initial impression I’d gotten. To now know how wrong I was.

I’d gone the opposite way on the spectrum; now I was just dreaming about him all the time. I tried to keep him out of my mind during the day, but he haunted me at night.

I couldn’t believe I let him do that to me the other day. He’d tricked me into his arms, I was sure of it. And I’d just walked into his trap without a second thought, fallen asleep on top of him, and then…

Fuck, it was so embarrassing. Even worse was the fact that I liked it so much. That I wanted to do that again with him.

It was like every time he put his hands on me, all rational thought flew out the window.

Which was why I’d kind of been avoiding him.

On a cold, Friday afternoon, I went back to that crumbling stone wall in the woods, made my way through weeds and uncut grass, and sat at the base of a giant oak in the center. The restlessness and confused thoughts that had plagued me for days simmered to a faint hum.

I tipped my head back against the uneven bark, closed my eyes, and tried to picture my family, but their images were fuzzy and out of focus.

I only ever got to see them in my dreams now.

When I was little and had nightmares, Mom used to tell me to think of her when I closed my eyes. That she’d visit me and make my dreams sweet as honey. And it worked. Every time, it worked. Now when I closed my eyes and thought of her…parts of her were missing, like someone had burned holes into a photograph. The picture was incomplete, distorted and blurry. I wanted her to murmur in my ear that she’d give me dreams as sweet as honey, but she didn’t have a face anymore.

It was frightening, how fast those memories had faded.

Memories started like mud, thick and heavy and cohesive, slowly drying over time, shrinking, fragmenting, until they were just crumbling dirt, breaking apart into particles of dust that got swept away with the wind. They didn’t last, didn’t ever remain perfectly intact, no matter how hard you tried to hold onto them.

That should’ve been a comforting thought when looking back on the bad times. It wasn’t, though.

There was only one comforting thing in my life right now, and that was Dakota.

He made me want to laugh. To smile. I’d thought any and all good feelings I’d once had were completely dead.

I used to laugh. I used to smile all the time. I was happy once. But it slowly bled away from me, one day at a time, until it was all gone.

I wanted to be happy again; I’d forgotten what that even felt like. I’d spent so many years in the mud, clawing my way through the crumbling ruins of all these dark memories, and I was ready for some sun.

But there was a voice whispering in my ear that I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’tenough, period. Not for my dad, not for playing the violin, not for any kind of decent life. I wasn’t worthy. There was a flaw in my code, a disruption in the chain that denoted how useless I was.

If I’d only been good enough, my dad would’ve had something to hold onto. He would’ve been able to grab onto my worth and keep himself afloat. Instead, he grasped at empty air and sank even further until he was gone forever.

I sighed, wishing I could turn my stupid brain off. Silence all the noise.