Page 95 of Did They Break You

It’s still mild outside, but I think this will work. I’m in a dark blue, plaid skirt, black combat boots, and an off-the-shoulder gray, knit sweater. Light, cute, and showing off the studs in my black bra.

I think about wearing it next weekend to Grim, too, and maybe even joining Van in his partying.

I kneel down, retie one of my laces on my combat boots that came undone, and just as I finish, ready to take photos before I head to my British Lit class, my phone buzzes on my lofted bed, made up nice and tidy. Old habits die hard, and if I didn’t make my bed back at home, it just gave my stepdad another excuse to belittle me.

Thinking the call must be Van or Sloane because they’re the only people that call me, I snatch the phone up and answer it without looking at the screen.

“Hiiii,” I say, drawing out the word, smiling as I do. It’s like seeing Cortland again, facing the monster, it made me stronger. He already did his worst, anyway. All the other shit he throws in my face, nothing could be as bad as that night. The days afterward.

“Remi.”

My stepdad’s voice erases my confidence, and my throat feels tight. My posture stiffens, hand fisting at my side as I glance at my dorm room door, making sure the lock is flipped. Like he’d ever bother to come here.

That basement lock on my memories is getting weaker. It always does at the sound of his voice.

“Y-yes?” I whisper, trying to breathe.

There’s silence on the other end of the line and I think back to how I answered the phone. Like an idiot.Can’t you do anything right?

I stare at the poster taped up over my desk; my gift from Van. A reminder. A way to put into perspective all the other monsters in human skin. It’s the same reason I like reading and writing.

Getting all the big, bad wolves out on paper makes them seem… a little less powerful.

“I need you to look at a calendar,” Silas says, and I try to breathe. Try to remember he’s only human as I stare at Dawson’s Beach over my desk. Silas can’thookme over the phone.

But at his words, I frown, surprise breaking through my fear. He never calls. Ever. But he also never asks me to look at a calendar because he doesn’t care what I’m doing today. Tomorrow. Next year. The rest of my natural life.Not anymore.

“Why?” I ask, regretting the word as soon as it spills from my mouth.

He sighs, and I tense again, every muscle in my body locked tight. “Do you own a calendar? That isn’t in the device attached to your head?” Condescension drips from every word.

I glance at my black backpack on the floor and squat down, unzipping it, holding the phone between my shoulder and my cheek as I work the zipper with both hands. I pull out my matte black planner.

“Yes,” I whisper, plucking a pen from my desk drawer beside me, the planner poised over my knee.

“Open it.”

I do as he asks, going to today’s date.

“Go to the thirteenth day of October. Octoberthirteenth,” he adds, speaking slowly, as if I can’t understand him otherwise. “Are you there?”

I grit my teeth, my face heating. A little before that, I’ll be twenty, on the first day of fall. He knows that, but of course he doesn’t mentionthatdate. Tears sting behind my eyes, but I’m not going to cry. He’s not even here. “Yes,” I answer through clenched teeth.

“Do you have a pen in your hand?”

“Yes.”

“Make a note in your calendar,” he talks down to me, “on the thirteenth day of October,this year,”that pressure behind my eyes grows stronger, “and write, however your brain willremember it, that you are to have dinner with me and Crystal, at seven. 45thStreet Diner, in Raleigh.”

Crystal?I rack my brain, then I remember something vague. About him dating someone. He told me over the summer, through an email.

As if I care. Why does he even want me there?

Silas’s responsibilities to me ended the day my mother died. I used to think it was guilt that kept him financially providing for me.

But then that glass shatters in my head.

His steps on the wooden floors in the foyer echo in my mind.

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