Page 90 of What Happened on Roslyn Street?
“Just not hungry.” I push the plate away. My appetite is gone after only a few bites—and that’s more than I managed to eat the previous nights.
“And why not?”
“Oh, I don’t know!” I laugh, and the sound holds no joy. “Maybe because I almost died three nights ago. Maybe because I found my boyfriend covered in blood.”
Her lips part in surprise. “Were you two official?”
“Well… no… actually, kind of… but!” I throw my hands in the air. “That’s not the point. You’re focusing on the wrong things. How much longer do we have to stay here? I feel like a caged animal.”
She frowns, leaning closer. “But you’re not. We’re here because it’s safe. We have excellent security?—”
“There was security at school.” Venom coats my words. “That didn’t do any good. You know what kept me safe?Me.I keep myself safe, and I do it better than anyone else can. I want to go home.”
I don’t want to go back to Strode. What I’m longing for is my parent’s home. I crave a time before my life was one haunting after the next. I want to forget about this stupid world and bathe myself in garlic perfume—the way my oddball mother does.
More than anything, I want to pretend I don’t know about this world. If I can find a moment of peace in my mother’s fake remedies, I can relax.
“No, you don’t.” She scoffs, leaning away.
“I do!”
“You want to go looking for your so-calledboyfriend.We both know if you left right now, you wouldn’t crawl off to bed. You wouldn’t eat a proper meal. You would go looking for trouble. That’s why I asked permission to keep you here with me.”
“Andyou feel safe here?”
“Yes! There is nowhere safer. I’ve lived here my entire life, and harm has never come to me within these walls.”
“That’s because you weren’t with me,” I say. “I’m cursed.”
I’ve always felt it. My parents were perfectly happy before I was born. My mother abandoned her career to take care of me and became so paranoid about my safety that she lost herself. My father was so stressed by my existence that he started living in casinos.
The curse has been following me, ruining my life, for as long as I can remember. But now? I’m more certain than ever that I’m the problem. I bring wretchedness wherever I go.
What level of hell have I fallen into to find myself in this situation?
“You are not cursed,” she says. “You arenosy.Any terrible thing that happened to you was because you couldn’t sit still and keep to yourself. You go looking for trouble, and you call it a curse.”
I rub my temples, heaving out a slow sigh. “I can’t keep arguing with you.”
“Fine,” she says. “Then?—”
She’s cut off by a doorbell ringing—a melodic tune, nothing like the modern doorbells. It’s the first time I’ve heard the sound.
“—eat,” she finishes, her eyes wide. “Please, just eat.”
“But there’s someone at the door.”
“Oh, we arenotanswering that door! You have no clue who could be out there.”
The look Margaux gives me is enough to make me feel insane—but I already feel that way. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t even matter that she’s right about me; curiosity itches at me, begging me to stand and make my way to the door.
I want to know who’s behind it, and it’s purenosinessthat drives me. But I’m right about her, too. Margaux will always stick her head in the sand when she’s given the option.
She continues ranting. “It could be Mormons—though, at this hour, I doubt it’s them.”
“It’s not."
“It could be a neighbor asking for sugar, and you know what? I don’t think we have any. How embarrassing.”
