Reese Chapter
Reese
The next night, I wake up. I open my eyes to find Daniel standing outside again, a murky figure watching me sleep. I don’t
move. I hold perfectly still. My breaths are shallow, not enough oxygen filling my lungs, so they’re on fire. I try not to
blink, wondering if he can see that my eyes are open, if they glow.
But then I realize something is wrong.
He knows I’m awake. He comes closer, and as he does, the floorboards creak, the soles of his shoes putting weight on the wood.
Because he’s inside.
He’s on the screened-in porch with me.
I scream, pulling back to the far side of the bed as Daniel sprints across the room, putting a knee on the edge of the bed
so that it sinks with his weight. In a breath, he leans over me, clamping down on my mouth with one hand.
In the other hand, a knife.
The blade, in the moonlight, is long and sharp. I become motionless.
I can’t think.
I can’t breathe.
I squeeze my eyes shut tight, as Daniel leans over me and says, “I don’t want to have to hurt you.
” I struggle to breathe under the weight of his hand.
“Look at me, Reese,” he says. “Look at me.” I open my eyes, see him suspended above me, his face close, his eyes hollow and black.
“Are you going to be quiet now?” he asks, and I nod, gasping as he moves his hand.
In the darkness, he sits down on the edge of the bed, his breaths quick and shallow like mine, visible through his shirt.
He touches my hair. He runs his tacky fingers the length of it so that it tugs at the scalp. I sob and he asks, “What’s wrong,
Reese? Why are you crying?”
“You’re hurting me,” I moan.
He lets go of my hair. He lies down, stretching out beside me in bed, pressing in so close I feel his heartbeat on my arm.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
He searches for the edge of the sheet with one hand. He finds it and slips his warm, sweaty hand under the covers, the knife
in the other hand, above his head, in my peripheral vision. “Is that better?” he asks.
I hold still. I don’t move. His hand finds the hem of my shirt, slipping under, touching me like he has before, but this time
it’s unwanted. This time is makes me want to scream.
Tears burn my eyes. I breathe out, “I want you to go.”
“No, you don’t, Reese,” he says, running his fingers up the side of my ribs. “You like me, remember? A lot. You told me so.”
“I don’t like you. I want you to go.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes. I do.”
He takes his hand out from under my shirt. He props himself on the other arm, moving the knife to his right hand. “It doesn’t
have to be this way,” he says, pressing the flat part of the blade to my neck, and I lift my chin, arching my back. I cry
out from the cold, softly moaning as he drags the knife across my throat, wondering what would happen if it wasn’t the flat
part of the blade but the edge. How deep it would cut, how much it would bleed, if I would die.
“Take your pants off, Reese.”
“No. I don’t want to.”
“I don’t want to have to ask you again. Just do it, Reese. This doesn’t have to be so hard.”
“You’re scaring me,” I whimper, my hands shaking as I push my pajama pants beneath my hips, and he moves himself on top of
me.
“You know I don’t want to do that,” he says again, pressing himself between my legs, trying to convince me, to win me over,
as if I have some say. His voice is soft, smarmy. He says, “You told me you want to be with me. I know you still want that,
Reese. I want that too.”
I brace myself for it to hurt. But before anything can happen, from somewhere deep inside the cottage, a noise comes through
the open door. Daniel looks up. His eyes go to the knife, and then something flashes on his face. Something dark. He slides
off, puts his finger to his lips. Shhhh.
He starts to stand up, his eyes on the open door. As he does, I don’t hesitate. I react, catching him off guard. I smack his
hand, and as I do, he loses his grip on the knife. It falls onto the bed. Surprise crosses his face. We both reach for the
knife at the same time, scrambling, though somehow, I’m the one who manages to come up with it.
I brandish it in front of me, my hands shaking. “Get back. Get away from me.”
He rises from the bed, standing at the edge of it.
He laughs, mocking me. He swings his own imaginary knife out in front of him. “Get back. Get away from me.” And then, all of a sudden, he stops laughing. His face gets serious. His tone is patronizing as he asks, “What are you doing,
Reese? You know you wouldn’t use that. You wouldn’t hurt me.”
He comes closer. “Why don’t you just give it to me so no one gets hurt.” He raises an open hand for the knife as if to take it. Instinctively I thrust it forward, a short, straight jab that connects.
Daniel flinches as the blade razes his skin. He looks down at his hand. When he looks up again, his eyes are cold. “You bitch,”
he says, and though it’s dark in the room, I can see the blood on his hand. “You stupid bitch.”
He comes at me again, but this time, when I raise the knife, he stops. Because he knows I would use it. I would hurt him.
For a long time, he stares at the knife, and then my face, and then the knife again.
“You’re nothing,” he says, reaching down to the floor for my pink sweatshirt, which he wraps around his bloody hand. “You’re
not even worth it.”
I watch him cross the cottage. He walks out the front door, leaving it open.
My heart pounds. My legs give. I sink to the edge of the bed, sliding to the floor, crying.
I hope it’s the last time I ever see him.