Chapter 5
Annie
“You’re lucky, Ms. Mitchell. I know a break-in can be scary, but it was good that you weren’t here, and that we were able to catch the kid,” the police officer in charge explains as if I’m incapable of understanding how the situation could’ve been much worse.
“I’m lucky?” I question the man, handing him the list he had me write of all the things I saw were taken: my laptop, my headphones, my TV, and some jewelry I kept on my nightstand.
Looking around the disaster of an apartment just reminded me how little I can afford; how little I have of what others could perceive as valuable.
The cop is old enough to be my grandfather with an annoying sense of superiority as if he just solved the world’s biggest cold case, even though all he did was catch some 19-year-old who took advantage of a faulty window.
The kid was able to get in through my locked bedroom window, run off with my shit to just get caught, and leave me to deal with it.
And I’m lucky?
I asked my friends to wait in the hallway, so it’s just me and Officer Grandpa—or Collins, as he introduced himself. Mr. Dominic and a few other officers are looking at the window near my bed.
I’m mad and frustrated and tired, and my patience is on the floor with the way this man is acting like I won the lottery with this break-in.
“That’s for sure,” he answers with a smile that does nothing to make me comfortable, his hands tucking into the pockets of his uniform as he looks around my place.
It’s a studio, so everything, from my unmade bed to my destroyed desk to my disheveled kitchen, can be seen from where he is standing.
It might not be much, but it’s mine.
And someone broke in.
I can’t even feel scared about all of this because of how furious I am that someone could be so violating.
This apartment is the one place I feel like I can relax and not have to worry about a million and one things.
I glance at my desk and see a mess, but it isn’t my mess. My mess was made up of my vet school textbooks opened to specific pages I was reading, my lecture notes, my planner, and my laptop with all my tabs open.
This mess is all my papers scattered on the floor, textbooks pushed off, and my laptop gone and in some evidence bag.
My eyes sting, and I blink away the tears of frustration as I turn to face my kitchen. The cabinets and drawers are opened as if the stupid kid was looking for what else he could take. The small appliances that were on my counter are now broken on the ground as if he had a tantrum when he couldn’t find anything else.
My toaster, my blender, and my well-loved stand mixer, all no better than broken parts.
Just like me.
How fitting .
Officer Collins and Mr. Dominic are now chatting in hushed tones in my living room, and my thoughts are interrupted as the door opens. My friends file in to see the damage, lingering near the opened door, their patience no better than mine apparently.
I see their shocked faces and anxious features, and my stomach knots. I don’t want them to worry about me.
“Did they catch the guy?” Mia asks, her arms latching around Eddie’s.
“Yeah, and he didn’t take much. The officer said I’ll be able to get my stuff back in a few days after they process everything.”
“Are you okay?” The concern on her face makes me feel guilty that they had to come here on their wedding night of all nights.
Before I can tell her I’m fine—leaving out how pissed I am at the kid who thought it was okay and the complex for their shitty windows, and how much of a pain in the ass it’s going to be to deal with—Officer Collins and Mr. Dominic walk over to where we’re all standing.
“Do you have somewhere else you can stay?”
I whip around to face the two of them, confused by the officer’s question. “What? Why would I need another place to stay?” I look to the manager of the complex standing next to him, but his head is down, his face hardened. He doesn’t look at me as he moves through the group of us and leaves my apartment. I turn back to Officer Collins.
“You said you already caught the kid,” I argue.
The police officer lets out an exhale. “We will be opening up an investigation with the complex, seeing as the assailant was able to get into the locked windows from the outside. ”
My mind begins to race with how I’m going to start vet school rotations in a few weeks, and this man is telling me I’m about to be homeless. It’s the middle of July, and rotations start the first week of September.
“How long will that take?” I ask, trying to keep my voice neutral.
“A month or so, give or take,” Officer Collins answers, and my stomach drops. “Possibly more, depending on our findings,” he adds. A month? Maybe more? “You should pack for what you need tonight, and then you can stop by tomorrow to grab the rest.”
The ground is ripped from under me, and I feel like I’m free-falling with no end in sight. This night just keeps getting worse.
I know my friends would offer to let me stay with them, but I can’t agree to that. Not when Eddie and Mia just got married and Drew and Emmett will have a whole-ass baby to stress about in a few days.
I can feel everyone’s eyes on me from the doorway behind me, can almost hear them telling me I have a place to stay with them, but I can’t do that to them.
I can’t make my problems their problems, not when they have their own lives to live.
A moment passes, and I feel a familiar presence appear behind me, my body instinctively relaxes before my mind can register it. “She can stay with me.”
Officer Collins gives us a nod and heads over to the other officers. Luke turns to face me, our friends’ eyes burning into the back of my head.
I’ve made it my goal in life ever since Luke Owens came back into my life to always do the opposite of what he tells me to do. I told myself that I would forget everything that happened between us, even if I knew it was an impossible task.
I spent my childhood wishing I had his light, his confidence, his happiness, and I spent my teenage years hanging on to every word he said about our love, our lives, our future, until all of it turned out to be a lie.
I want to yell and scream in his face and tell him to stop inserting himself into my life, but I can’t find the words.
“You’re staying with me,” Luke says to me this time, as if he still has the right to swoop in and make everything better.
Where was he when Bea and Eliza snuck backstage during opening night of my freshmen year musical and hid my costume? Where was he when Devin and Penelope told everyone in our homeroom that I gave the musical director blowjobs to get the leads?
Where was he when legs would stick out in front of me so I would trip in the middle of the busy hallway or when people I thought were my friends would pretend I wasn’t there when I sat down at the lunch table?
Where the hell was he when Devin showed me a video of the two of them making out the night before Grant’s party when he told me he had plans with the guys from the hockey team?
I shake the thoughts away, embarrassed with myself that I let this high school bullshit still get to me in my twenties. “Like hell I am,” I tell him, before turning to our friends. “It’s late, you guys can go. I’m fine.”
Mia and Drew look at me, and I can feel them looking past the guise I’m trying—and failing—to keep in place. Drew opens her mouth, and I stop her before she can say what I know she is about to say. “No. My future niece or nephew will be here any day now. I know I call you two Mom and Dad,” I say, glancing up at Emmett and back to Drew, “but I am not letting you stress yourselves out by taking me in.”
“Ann, don’t talk about yourself like a stray dog,” Emmett says, his arm hanging over Drew’s shoulder. His huge body takes up most of the door frame, and the place where my heart used to beat comes alive for a moment.
Emmett doesn’t say much, so the things he does say hold a lot of meaning to him.
Even if he’s wrong.
I’m just like the strays that we take in at the animal shelter. The ones that someone wanted when they were a cute puppy but got rid of the second they became too much work.
The kind that are good in theory but not worth all the time and energy in the end.
I clear my throat, shaking my head as I tell him, “I’m not staying with you guys.”
“Yeah, ‘cause she’s staying with us,” Mia says, looking up at Eddie who nods in agreement, making more tears build behind my eyes that I have to blink away. I turn to face them, but before I can say anything, Luke walks out of my bathroom with one of my tote bags over his shoulder.
I didn’t even see him go anywhere when I turned to talk to Drew and Emmett.
“I think I got everything. You ready to go?” Luke says as he approaches us, the usual lightness in his step, his calm demeanor is an evident contrast to my own worry and frustration about this whole situation.
I snatch the bag from him, glancing to see clothes, my phone charger, toiletries, my textbook, notes, and planner from my desk, and my fucking vibrator in the bag he packed.
I look up at him, and I think I’m ready to make use of Mia’s punching lessons and knock that smirk off his stupid face when he winks at me.
Moments like these further convince me that I am capable of killing someone.
Specifically this someone.
I’m too busy thinking of the different ways I’d do it to acknowledge my feelings about how he knew exactly what to pack for me and how now I have one less thing to worry about.
“Where do you get off on telling me what to do?” I ask him, the venom to my voice no stranger to Luke anymore.
“On the contrary, Annie. I get off on you telling me what to do,” he answers, and my fists ball at my sides, one of them ready to swing. “So, please tell me what else I can grab for you before we go.”
“How about you try to keep it in your pants when I tell you to get the fuck out so I can figure out what the hell I’m going to do?” I fume, and I don’t care about our audience—they’re used to it. “I am not staying with you.”
“We’ll leave you two to discuss this,” Eddie says, and there is a hint of a smile in his voice that I want to slap away, but I don’t give him any attention. I hear the amusement in the goodbyes as the four of them file out of my apartment, and I make a mental note to tell them all to be less obvious with it the next time I see them.
I expect Luke to hit me with his lazy smile, the one he gives to remind everyone around him of the golden boy he truly is.
And like clockwork, it comes to fruition, but there’s an edge I’ve never seen before.
One that stops me in my tracks.
“My apologies, Annie girl,” Luke says, leaning in so close his nose almost touches mine. “When I said you were staying with me, it wasn’t a question.”
I’m ready to fire back one of my usual, smart-ass comments, ready to go back-and-forth like we have been ever since he came back into my life, but I can’t.
The words get caught in my throat when I see his baby blues drop to my lips for a fraction of a second, before he says just an inch away from my lips, “Let’s go.”
I’m speechless, my mind racing a hundred miles a minute as he grabs my overnight bag from me and walks out the door, expecting me to follow him.
And for some reason, still unbeknown to me, I do.