Page 131 of Secondhand Smoke
No one said anything, and finally Barrett looked back.
Both of them stared at him, but neither of them looked angry or hateful. They both looked surprised. Ashamed. Worried.
“W-we only want the best for her,” Pastor Duncan said, clearing his throat.
Nell’s mother dropped her head and wiped a tear.
Barrett nodded, acknowledging the single similarity between them all.
“I know. That’s all I want too.”
51 - Nell
Mumbling voices overlapped with the fussiness of a nightmare, and Nell opened her eyes to the streaming sunlight highlighting dust through Barrett’s window.
But rather than waking from a nightmare to relief, she woke to the same sinking in her gut when she realized things were not better awake.
Reality was just as bad as the horror her mind stewed up. And Barrett was not beside her; he was not even on the ground where he’d slept the night before.
But she heard him speaking on the other side of the door, his voice low and muffled down the hallway in the living room.
Was it better to find him and make excuses for herself? Or to pretend she’d never woken up in the first place?
There was no hiding, not awake and not asleep. There never was.
She rose, still in the same clothes as the day before, she realized, and walked to the door.
Another voice spoke. This time, not Barrett. Not even a man. It was a woman.
Nell froze because, for a moment, she thought she was still asleep and in a nightmare. A strange one, with an overlap of worlds.
But then when another, deeper voice spoke, she realized she was very much fully awake, and those were very much her parents’ voices.
Nell swung the door open and followed their mumbling into the living room.
Nell took in the scene as she emerged into the area: her parents, sitting on the sofa she’d spent so much time with Barrett on, with Barrett standing next to them. Her single bag was packed full and on her mother’s lap.
“What’s going on?” Nell’s voice was raspy from sleep and lack of water. It grated against her taut nerves.
They all stared at her, their mouths searching for words that never came. Even Barrett looked guilty.
Why did he look guilty?
Nausea ran through her. “Why are they here? How did they get my stuff?”
Barrett shifted, looking at the bag in question. Unlike her, he didn’t seem surprised to see it there.
Nell couldn’t explain the betrayal that stung her spine, making her legs weak.
How else would her parents have her bag? Who else knew what to gather and would let them into the house, and hand it all over to them?
Who else but him?
“It’s time to come home, sweetheart.” Nell’s mother rose from the couch, her voice soft and a hand stretched out like she was approaching a wild animal and not her daughter.
Nell flinched away. “No. I’m not going anywhere,” she snapped. “Tell them, Scott. They need to leave. I’m staying here.”
She looked at Barrett, pleading.
