Chapter Forty-Two. Cat
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CAT
I’m sleeping with earbuds again, the sound of the ocean overlapping my dreams. My mother picking seashells from the sand in Galveston.
Dad skipped out on us when I was three, and Mom worked two jobs most of the time.
I hardly ever saw her. I was a latchkey kid, making ramen or microwave nachos for dinner, falling asleep in front of the TV.
Looking back, she was trying her best, but at the time I was angry—angry she couldn’t make it to the play, or the awards ceremony, or anything that felt important to me.
So I acted out. I snuck cigarettes and alcohol.
I got into fights at school. I think I just wanted her to notice.
But the summer I was twelve, we rented a house within walking distance of the beach, and for three days I had all her attention.
In my dream, a wave rolls in, then out, the sand slipping from beneath our bare feet. Mom bends down, scoops a handful of wet sand, holds it out to me. A tiny clam wriggles down, burrowing into hiding in her palm. She smiles at me.
But when her mouth opens, it’s a black hole.
And from that darkness, a scream emerges.
It sounds far away. Then another. The third rips me awake, and I realize it isn’t a dream. It’s cutting through the tranquil ocean in my earbuds.
I slide on my slippers. I race down the stairs, out the door, toward the screaming. It’s coming from The Hollow. My blood is fire. My feet barely touch the ground.
And I run.