Page 53 of Stay Away from Him

I turned and saw both girls, Kendall too, looking at me with mouths agape.

“There was a dead animal,” I said. “On the trail. Someone had taken its eyes out and left it for me to find.”

At first, both girls looked scared, but then Rhiannon’s mouth cracked into a smirk. “Yeah, Mom, like someone would kill an animal and leave it just for you? There’s a coyote in those woods, isn’t there?”

Kendall watched her big sister, her own look of fear replaced by a smile of relief. “Yeah,” she said. “The coyote probably got it.”

“It hadn’t been eaten,” I said quietly, almost to myself—they’d already walked away and couldn’t hear me. I turned back to the sink and looked out the window. It hadn’t been eaten. Only cut open, and the eyes taken out. Would a coyote have done that?

Something similar happened even more recently, on a Saturday, when I was certain that a white car parked up the street was the same car I’d seen at the grocery store, and the same car that I’d spotted in my rearview on the way home. Someone inside, a dark shadow behind the windshield, watching.

When I mentioned it, Thomas only laughed, and the girls echoed him.

“There goes Mom again,” he said, not even speaking to me—instead addressing them as though I wasn’t even there. “She thinks everybody’s watching her. Obsessed with her.”He turned to me, his eyes sharp, his grin cruel. “It’s all about you, right hon?”

I felt a stab of hurt—not only was he minimizing my fear, he was turning it into a taunt. Mocking me in front of my own daughters.

“Yeah, Mom,” Kendall said. “Get over yourself.”

***

I can’t help but think of this as a form of gaslighting. I might be paranoid—but aren’t my feelings valid? Couldn’t Thomas just say that he’s sorry for what I’m going through, that he knows that I feel scared, that he’s listening, and that he’s here for me? If he did, I know the girls would do the same. They look up to him so much. His opinions become their opinions, and his way of treating me becomes their way of treating me.

If there are teams—me versus them, three against one—it’s his fault. That’s a dynamic he cultivated, that he created from the ground up from the moment they were born.

Well, would you look at that. I tried to start with gratitude. But I found my way back to negative thoughts eventually.

I wonder, am I the problem? Or is it my life that is making me this way? Am I mad? Or am I being driven mad?

Chapter 13

The week passed strangely for Melissa, a feeling of nervous anticipation hovering over every moment.

She and Thomas set the date of their dinner for Friday evening. Bradley received the news that they’d be eating with Thomas and his girls with barely a shrug, but her kindergartner’s nonresponse only made Melissa wonder how the news was going over at Thomas’s house. Whether Kendall or Rhiannon (it was Rhiannon she worried about, mostly) were giving him attitude, reacting with sullen silence or outright resistance. When she prodded him, Thomas only said that they were excited to have Melissa and Bradley over, which sounded like a lie to her. Teenage girls were like icebergs, everything sharp and dangerous about them submerged beneath the waterline. Melissa wouldn’t know what she was facing with them until she walked into their house on Friday.

Lawrence and Toby promptly said yes to Melissa’s invitation when she texted it upstairs on Tuesday evening—but Lawrence, insatiable gossip that he was, almost immediately came down to ask more about what this evening was, and why it was happening.

“Thomas and I have been seeing each other for a few weeks now,” Melissa said. “It’s getting a little serious.”

Lawrence shot her a withering glance. “Honey,” he said, “I know. These ceilings aren’t exactly soundproof.”

Melissa’s face flushed hot, and her hands shot up to cover her eyes. Lawrence was a corporate lawyer, part of the in-house counsel team at a medical device company; sometimes he worked at the office, sometimes at home. She supposed she could have been more careful about only bringing Thomas back to the basement apartment on days when she knew Lawrence was gone, but there were times when they wanted each other so badly that they didn’t care. They’d been about as discreet as a pair of horny teenagers, stealing moments alone and thinking they were being sneaky while everyone around them rolled their eyes and shared knowing glances.

“OhGod, Lawrence,” Melissa said. “Please tell me you haven’t been listening in on us these past six weeks.”

“Melissa, don’t be embarrassed. This is why noise canceling headphones were invented. Besides, I’m happy for you. You know that getting you laid was one of my main goals when you got away from that asshole husband and came to live here?”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Itwas. The only thing I don’t understand is, why do you need me and Toby there on Friday?”

Melissa hesitated before explaining. It all made sense when she and Thomas had made the plan—they were going public, making their relationship official and serious in the eyes of their families and friends. It felt good at the time, hopeful and beautiful. But in the days since then, Melissa’s insecurity had reared its head again. Did Thomas really want to declare his love for Melissa to the world? Or did he want Lawrence, Toby, and—worst of all—Amelia there to make the relationship seemlessthan it was? Was he hedging his bets with a bigger crowd at dinner, giving himself an escape route in case his girls didn’t take to Melissa as well as he’d hoped?

“You’re overthinking,” Lawrence told her when she admittedher misgivings. “Thomas is obviously crazy about you. Who wouldn’t be?”

“You’re sweet. I think I’m just getting in my head about…” She trailed off, too embarrassed to say it.

“What?”

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