Page 68 of Wicked Dreams

I take a second to pray that no one lives here, and then I’m pushing inside.

Into the house I spent half of my childhood.

It’s just as I remember it, plus a thick layer of dust. The kitchen is pale yellow with one of those retro green refrigerators at the end of the counter. A worn and scratched round table with four chairs set by a window. Magnetic block letters are on the fridge, all jumbled. A drawing—one of mine—clipped to it, too.

There’s a cup by the sink.

Mesmerized, I pick it up. It sticks a bit, leaving a ring on the vinyl.

I can’t remember who left it here. Whose cup it was. The liquid—water if I had to guess—had long since evaporated.

It’s been seven years, after all.

“Put that down,” Caleb hisses from the doorway. He marches across the room, kicking up dust, and wrenches the plastic cup from my grip.

My fingers are frozen.

He slams the cup back down in its spot and grabs my arm just above my elbow. When he drags me out of the room, something wild fractures in my chest. I shove him and manage to get loose.

He can’t tear me out of here.

This was?—

I used to?—

You said it wasn’t your home. Just a house, nothing more. But that was a lie. My family was happy here, weren’t we?

I race down the hallway and open a door. I stop dead in the doorway, my brain glitching.

My things.

My bed and toys and clothes and drawings on the wall.

Oh my God.

It’s a time capsule. The whole place is. It’s stuck in the past, probably the exact moment we were all dragged out of here. The social worker didn’t let me come back. One of my drawers is open, and a flashing image of some stranger rooting through my clothes blindsides me.

I can’t breathe. Everything inside me is twisting, shredding.

Why is it all the same? Why hasn’t this place been cleared out or burned to the fucking ground? For the hate he’s shown me, the loathing he so clearly feels, he should’ve destroyed it.

My palm flattens to my chest. My heart races, and I take another step forward. Toward the bed. We made it that morning, my dad and me. We painstakingly organized all the stuffed animals in a row along the wall side of it, my favorites in the middle.

Caleb grabs me from behind. He picks me up off my feet and carries me out.

I scream and thrash, but it doesn’t matter. Not when my heel connects with his shin, or when I throw my head back and barely miss his face. My voice is shrill, the sound endless. It’s disconnected from me, though. Not my high-pitched noise.

Once we’re outside, he pushes me against the house. He claps his hand over my mouth, his fingers digging into my cheeks.

I scratch at his arms and kick out. It just makes him pin me down harder. His hips pressed to mine, our torsos aligned.

His breathing is out of control, even his hair is messier than before, but his eyes suck me in.

“Stop,” he says. “Just stop.”

The noise ringing in my ears slowly fades. I suck in gulps of air through my nose. Slowly, he releases my face.

“Breathe, baby.”

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