1. Lilah #2
She gives me the kind of look that tells me that she doesn’t believe me but ultimately lets it go. "See you tomorrow."
The bell above the door chimes as she leaves. Cara finished at five, her usual time, and usually either Louise or I will close up in the evening. I finish the closing tasks alone; sweep the floor, move the buckets into the cool room, and wipe down the counter.
By the time I lock the front door, the street isn’t as bustling as it was earlier and the spot across from the shop is still empty. I stand on the step and look at it for a long moment, empty, no SUV. I adjust my bag on my shoulder and start walking home.
I have a car, one that I purchased not long after moving to Boston.
I walk sometimes because the twenty-two minutes usually helps me reset, and because Omen was right about the fresh air clearing my head.
He was also right about me having to change up my route every day.
Despite the fact that familiar feels safe to me, being unpredictable will save me if needed.
I stop at the grocery store on the corner of my block and pick up enough to get me through the next few days, nothing fancy, just the basics.
I make it as far as the third step of my building before the bottom of one of the paper bags gives way, and my apples spill across the concrete, a tin of tomatoes hits the step with a sharp crack that has me flinching, a carton of stock lands on its side, pasta slides across the step, and a container of yoghurt rolls all the way to the bottom, stopping against the iron railing.
I stare down at the torn bag still hanging from my hand.
"Here,” I hear the deep, rugged voice say.
I look up and see the man from across the hall standing a couple of steps below me.
I was in a world of my own, and I never heard him come up.
He doesn't ask if I need help, he simply crouches and starts gathering the groceries closest to him.
I crouch too, reaching for the tin of tomatoes, and his hand reaches for it at the same time; it comes too close, causing me to freeze.
He stops and sets the tin down on the step between us, close enough that I can reach it without moving toward him, then turns to the pasta as though that was his plan all along.
"Didn't mean to crowd you," he says quietly.
"You didn't." The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.
He doesn't question it; instead, he gathers the rest of the groceries, fitting what he can into the remaining bag before picking up everything else. When he straightens, he's carrying more than I am. I go to protest, but he glances at me and I instantly stop, pressing my lips together.
We climb the stairs in silence, and I love that he doesn't try to fill it, he doesn’t ask if I'm okay or look at me like I'm broken. He simply walks beside me until we reach our floor. At the top of the stairs, he steps aside and lets me get to my door first.
I unlock it, then turn back for the last of the groceries. He holds them out at the full length of his arm, leaving enough space that I have to close the distance myself.
"Thanks," I say softly.
He gives me a nod before turning toward his own apartment.
I'm inside with the door locked before I hear his key slide into the lock across the hall. I stay where I am for a moment, one hand still wrapped around the grocery bag. That was the closest I've been to a man I don't know since I came to Boston.
When I froze, he stepped back, he put the tin down instead of handing it to me, he never asked if I was okay, never asked what happened, and never looked at me like I was something fragile.
I go to lock the door out of habit, then realize it's already locked. I need to busy myself and put the groceries away.
I step inside and close the door behind me. Home, yet it doesn't feel like home anymore; it hasn’t since Lucy was murdered six months ago. Right now, it feels off, like someone’s watching or waiting, but nothing moves and there’s no sounds.
You're imagining it. That's what everyone keeps telling me.
It’s been six months since I climbed out of that cabin and left half of myself behind. I force myself to move. I kick off my shoes and throw the keys onto the table beside the door. I make myself a coffee; tea would have been better, would have helped ease my nerves.
I tell myself I'm getting better, that one day I’ll be able to move on with my life. I’m full of shit. How do you move on when you’ve been through hell?
The doorbell rings. I jump so hard my mug slips from my hand, hot coffee splashing across the floor. My heart pounds as I make my way to the front door, but nobody's there, only a bouquet of fresh flowers sitting on the step, no card, no name.
I look up and down the street and spot a white van turning the corner at the end of the road and disappearing.
I throw the flowers into the bin.
The next afternoon, I find the back gate standing open, but I know I locked it. I always lock it.
The day after that, it's the kitchen window that’s unlocked. I stand there staring at the latch. I locked it, I know I did. I check every window, every door. Every single night and every morning.
Maybe I'm forgetting, maybe grief is doing this, and maybe my therapist is right: trauma makes you see danger where there isn't any.
I repeat it until I almost believe it.
I go to Lucy’s grave; it’s now the only place that I feel close to her. I see that someone else has visited her. They left her flowers, white lilies. Lucy always hated lilies. "They smell like funerals," she would always say.
I smile despite myself as I brush my fingers over the headstone. "I know," I whisper. "I brought sunflowers instead."
I spend the next twenty minutes with her, telling her everything that’s been going on. I know she’ll never think I’m crazy, she’d never believe that.
I stand, brush the grass from my jeans, and turn toward the car.
"Lilah." My entire body locks, I know that voice; I know who it is even before I even turn.
Evan’s leaning against the cemetery gates, his hands shoved into his pockets, like he's been waiting, like he's got nowhere else to be.
He looks exactly the same: no guilt, no regret, no sign that murdering my sister cost him a single night's sleep.
He smiles and my blood turns to ice, but then he turns and walks away.
Panic claws at my gut. God, he’s back, how the hell is he back? The police have been looking for him for the past six months. He vanished when the men who found me went looking for him. The cops haven’t been able to find him and neither has anyone else.
My feet move harder than ever before. I run to my car, locking the doors the moment I’m inside. I don't remember the drive, my mind running a mile a minute. One minute, I'm gripping the steering wheel so tightly my fingers ache, and the next, I'm pulling into the Kings of Anarchy clubhouse.