Page 73 of Teach Me to Laugh

No, not rocks. Boulders.

For a long moment, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe, or blink, or scream.

I was frozen—paralyzed in fear.

I hadn’t seen him since I was seventeen years old. The warden of my nightmares and the killer of my dreams—Jayden.

Adrenaline shot through my body and I was suddenly moving. I was running, fast and hard, for Beckett. He caught me before I even realized I was there, his arms coming around my waist.

His voice was frantic, “Mar, baby, what’s wrong?”

“He—he—it’s him, Beck. It’s him.”

“Who?” His hands were on my cheeks now. His eyes bored into mine. “Who, Amara?”

“Jayden.” I whispered the name I loathed on a breath that was weak and nearly inaudible. “He’s here.”

“Where?” He demanded, but when I looked back to where I saw the face from my past, he was gone. There was nothing but people walking on the busy sidewalk and cars driving by.

I shook my head, trying to dispel the piercing ringing in my ears for the sound of car engines, people talking, and snow crunching. I failed.

Beckett’s hands on my shoulders shook me gently, “Baby, where did you see him?”

“He’s gone.” I whispered. The sound was an achingly desperate sound that, as it made its way into my consciousness, I hated.

The fear I’d finally freed myself from had returned after only a month of sweet reprieve.

“Amara?”

“Take me home, Beckett.”

“Baby,”

“I said take me home.” The words were a harsh lash that had guilt flooding my heart. I pleaded, “Please.”

There were no thoughts of lovemaking, laughter, and weddings when I fell into bed that night. I didn’t fight the safe circle of Beckett’s arms when he pulled me in close, but I couldn’t say that I found sleep easy. I didn’t. I was awake late and long into the night as I watched the bedroom door, wide-eyed and afraid.

I knew better than most how monsters operated. They roamed free and unobstructed in the day, no one suspecting athing. But they came out to play at night where the darkness obscured the horrors they craved. I knew—and I hated the night. I hated the darkness that toyed with my fear.

I hated my weakness.

But no matter how acutely I loathed it—I couldn’t fight it. I just couldn’t.

“Take one more step and I’ll scream.” My voice rattled with fear-filled desperation that I knew he heard, but still, something in it made him pause.

I’d gotten through Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and most of Thursday before Jayden’s return in my life was confirmed. I’d been beginning to think that maybe I’d beenseeing things on Saturday when I thought I’d seen him. Jayden wasn’t one to slip into the shadows and disappear, so by Thursday morning, I’d been certain I’d been seeing things.

I hadn’t.

He’d been real that Saturday morning, even though I so desperately wanted him to be an apparition. I could accept that—I really could. I’d even told myself my seeing him in the park had been me slipping into my ways of self-sabotage. I’d begun to convince myself all was well and that I was safe.

But now I knew I wasn’t. Because my monster had returned and he wasn’t an apparition. He was real as real could be. And he’d come for me.

That’s why I was standing in the science fiction section of the Library between eight-thirty and nine, with a cart of books between my little body, and the man who had haunted my nightmares for years.

I’d always suspected this day would come—eventually. He’d want his revenge for all I’d taken from him when I confessed to the horror of his crime. Unlike me, Jayden was of the age to pay, as an adult, for his sins. And he had paid. He’d paid in prison.

“I’m not here to hurt you, Amara.” He said gently, his hands lifting in surrender. “I just—I shouldn’t be here.”

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