Johnnie
THEN
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
The sound slips into my dreams first, soft and distant. My heavy eyes flutter open, lashes sticking together as I squint into the dim room, trying to piece together where I am.
The world slowly swims back into focus.
My bedroom. My bed. Home.
Earlier tonight, Collins and I sat on the tailgate of his truck passing beers back and forth, talking about the long day he’d had at work. One beer turned into two, then three…I lost count. My head still feels foggy.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
The quiet glow of my dolphin lamp spills soft blue light across the room, painting the walls in something calm and familiar. The gentle hum of it steadies the frantic rhythm in my chest.
I’m home. I’m safe.
The noise that woke me must have slipped in from whatever dream I was tangled in.
I exhale slowly and flip my pillow to the cool side, pressing my cheek against the fresh fabric. The chill seeps into my warm skin, easing the tension.
Just a dream. My eyelids grow heavy again, sleep beginning to drag me back under.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
My eyes snap open. I bolt upright in bed, the sudden movement sending the room spinning for a second. My gaze locks onto the window across the room—the unmistakable source of the sound.
That wasn’t a dream.
A shaky breath escapes me as my pulse begins to settle. Collins has done this countless times over the summer.
So why do I feel like something is wrong? I rub a hand over my face and let out a quiet, embarrassed laugh at myself.
My gosh, get a grip.
Dragging the blanket off my legs, I shuffle across the room toward the window.
I raise the blinds, the outside darkness staring back at me.
I unlock the window. I’m still half asleep, my body heavy and sluggish, so instead of pushing the window up, I turn away and stumble back to bed.
I fall onto it again, pulling the covers over myself while I wait to hear Collins climb inside like he always does.
The soft scrape of the window sliding open follows.
Then the dull thud of boots hitting the floor.
“I have to tell you something.”
My. Heart. Stops.
The voice is wrong.
Every muscle in my body locks as if someone has poured ice through my veins. My lungs refuse to work, trapped somewhere between inhale and exhale. Slowly, I turn in the bed toward the window.
Because that voice…
It is not Collins’.
The figure standing in the dim blue glow makes my stomach drop.
Dark hair. Too dark.
Pale skin. Too pale.
Baggy clothes. Too baggy.
And then the smell hits me. Stale cigarettes.
The bitter, sour scent floods the room, curling into my lungs and turning my stomach violently.
Whoever climbed through my window…is not the boy I was expecting.
“What the hell?” My words are sharp and breathless in the suffocating quiet of my bedroom.
He doesn’t move. He just stands there.
“Lee?”
Confusion tangles with the knot forming in my chest. I haven’t seen him in months, not since that night at the party. The night he pissed off Collins enough for us to leave early.
The last time I remember looking at Lee, I was wrapped in Collins’ arms as he walked us out of the house.
So why is he standing in my bedroom?
“In the flesh.” His voice is low, amused.
A crooked smirk slowly spreads across his face, just visible in the dim light, and the sight of it makes nausea crawl up my throat. There’s something wrong with the way he looks at me.
“Why are you here?” My voice comes out smaller than I want it to. Weak.
He doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he starts walking toward the bed.
Slow.
Unhurried.
One step at a time.
The sound of his heavy footsteps echo far too loudly in the small room, each one sending a new spike of panic through me.
My hands tighten around the blanket tangled in my lap.
Suddenly, I want to scream.
I know it’s dramatic. I know it’s irrational. But something about Lee has always made my skin crawl.
Ever since the first time I saw him at the summer festival, something unnerved me about him. Like something about him is off. Like danger follows him.
“I told you,” he says calmly, voice dripping with quiet satisfaction. “I have to tell you something.”
“What—what the hell is it?” My pulse pounds so hard I can feel it in my throat.
The room suddenly feels too small. The air too thick.
I blink rapidly, fighting the burning behind my eyes as dread begins curling through my stomach.
Something isn’t right.
Something is very wrong.
Lee takes another step closer.
Then another.
Until he’s close enough that the smell of alcohol mingles with cigarettes and clings to the air around him.
“Your boyfriend,” he says slowly, tilting his head as he watches my face, “isn’t who you think he is.”
The words hit the room like shattered glass.
The air thickens even more, pressing against my chest until it feels impossible to breathe.
“What are you talking about?” My voice barely makes it out.
“Collins,” Lee continues, almost lazily, like he’s savoring every second of this. “He’s been hooking up with my sister all summer.”
The world stops.
Everything inside me freezes.
My brain struggles to catch up with the words, to piece them together into something that makes sense.
But nothing does.
“They’ve been together on and off since we were kids,” Lee adds with a shrug, his lips curling farther. “Did you really think you could compete with first love?”
“Your…sister?” The words fall out of me in a pathetic whisper.
“Yeah,” he says softly, almost mockingly. “My sister.”
He leans closer, studying my reaction.
“You’ve met her.”
A pause.
“Remember?” His smile widens. “Steph.”
My blood runs cold. The name cracks through my mind like lightning, dragging me violently back to that night.
The party.
The loud music.
The smell of alcohol in the air.
Steph.
The girl who couldn’t keep her eyes off Collins.
The girl who stumbled around drunk, clinging to him like she had some kind of claim over him.
The same girl Collins told me all about.
“You’re lying.” The words rush out of me, desperate and shaky.
Because this can’t be true.
It just—
It can’t.
Collins wouldn’t do this to me.
He wouldn’t.
“Am I, though?” Lee’s voice drops lower, more dangerous. “You sure about that, baby?” His smile is sickening. Twisted. Satisfied.
He reaches the bed and places one knee on the mattress beside me, the springs dipping under his weight.
Too close. Way too close.
My heart shatters.
Not slowly.
Not gently.
It shatters into a million tiny shards at my feet.
How can this be happening? How can any of this be real?
I love Collins. God, I love him so much.
And he—
He loves me. Doesn’t he?
I know he does. I thought he did.
I believed him. He lied to me?
My vision blurs as tears spill over my lashes, sliding hot and unstoppable down my cheeks.
The room dissolves into a hazy smear of blue light and shadows.
My heart aches.
My lungs burn.
Nothing makes sense.
Nothing feels real.
And all I can feel is nothing at all—the crushing numbness spreading through me.
I didn’t know it was possible to feel this much pain, yet nothing at all.
It’s like my body has been hollowed out.
Like whatever part of me that knows how to react—how to fight, how to scream, how to run—has simply shut down.
Something brushes my face.
At first, I barely register it through the haze clouding my mind. But slowly, sensation seeps back in.
A hand. Rough. Not the kind of rough that comes from honest work, from long days under the sun and calluses earned with effort.
No. This roughness is different. It feels like it belongs to someone who has never held anything gentle in their life.
The hand moves through the dampness on my cheeks, smearing the tears that won’t stop falling. My breathing shudders, but my body doesn’t respond the way it should.
It drifts into my hair, fingers sliding through the strands.
Then there’s another hand.
Somewhere in the fog of my mind, I realize I’m no longer sitting upright.
I’m lying down.
Flat on my back.
The ceiling swims above me in blurry shades of blue as those hands move across me—exploring, claiming, taking.
My tears keep falling, silent and endless, soaking into the pillow beneath my head.
There’s a weight on top of me now. Heavy…crushing.
My T-shirt and underwear offer almost no protection. They’re thin barriers, easily pushed aside by hands that don’t hesitate.
Words are being spoken above me, but they don’t sound like language anymore.
They’re distant. Warped. Like something underwater.
“That’s it, baby.” The voice feels wrong.
“I’ll take care of you.” Wrong.
“He didn’t deserve you.” Each word drips with something twisted.
Something that makes my stomach lurch.
Pain sparks through me, sharp and biting.
My lips. My chest.
Not gentle.
Nothing about this is gentle.
Inside my mind, something is screaming.
Move.
Get up.
Fight.
But my body refuses to listen. My arms lie useless at my sides. My legs feel like they belong to someone else.
Even my voice betrays me.
I try to speak. To scream…
To say no.
But nothing comes out. Air trapped in my throat.
Then something touches me.
Somewhere sacred.
Somewhere that has only ever belonged to Collins.
And I break.
I snap.
The numbness that had swallowed me whole suddenly fractures.
Feeling comes rushing back all at once—violent and overwhelming.
Every muscle in my body locks tight.
My fingers twitch.
Then they move.
My arms, once limp beside me, surge upward with a desperate burst of strength.
My hands collide with the face above me.
My nails dig in, scratching, clawing, tearing at whatever skin I can reach.
There’s a sudden jerk.
A violent shift.
Then—
Pain explodes across my face.
A sharp crack.
My head snaps to the side as heat floods my cheek, my ears instantly ringing—so loud.
“You bitch,” his voice snarls somewhere above me. “You scratched me.”
The ringing grows louder.
I try to fully open my eyes, but everything is blurry, spinning.
The world tilts.
And then—
Pain.
Deep.
Violent.
Centered in the most intimate part of me.
The weight on my chest grows heavier, pressing down so hard it feels like my ribs might collapse under it.
The ringing in my ears slowly fades, and shapes begin to form again in my vision.
Movement. Above me…sounds I wish I couldn’t hear.
I gather what little strength I have left and try to move the only part of my body that still feels like it might obey me. My legs.
But the second I shift, the weight crushing my chest lifts just enough to move somewhere else.
My mouth. My neck. Blocking air. Cutting it off completely.
I. Can’t. Breathe.
More pain tears through me, ripping across my body in tortured waves.
My vision darkens at the edges.
My body trembles. And slowly, quietly—
I give up.
I squeeze my eyes shut and let myself drift somewhere else.
I’m five years old again.
Bare feet pounding across warm grass, as I run beneath the wide arms of the old maple tree.
Its leaves curl softly inward, whispering against one another as the wind stirs them.
A Blue Jay flies from the branches above me, a flash of bright wings against the sky, and I tilt my face upward, watching it disappear into the sun.
Grandad is here.
“Come on, sweet pea,” he calls gently, his voice warm and steady. “Time to head inside. There’s a storm coming.”
He scoops me up. Wind whips around us, carrying a swirl of white dogwood petals that dance through the air like tiny snowflakes as he carries me toward the house.
I bury my face against his shoulder, inhaling his comforting scent.
I’m not scared.
I’m okay.
Grandad is here.
I’m safe.
He always protects me.