Page 21 of Cruel Abandon (Fallen Royals 5)
Right?
She continues, ignoring my surprise, “I’d be waiting inside, trying to tempt you back with hot cocoa. It rarely worked.”
Huh.
“Well, I don’t think I like it now.” The cold seeps through my jacket. “But it’s still pretty.”
She pauses. “Honey, I was really calling to check in with you about that girl.”
That girl.
The dead one, she means.
“Amber Huck?”
“Yes.” Another pause. “So? How are you doing?”
I kick at the snow again. It’ll be gone by this afternoon, once the sun breaks through the clouds. “I’m fine. Liam acted weird for all of two seconds, but it isn’t like I knew her. The news said it was her ex-boyfriend. He had a history of assault.”
I’ve never been in an abusive relationship. I can’t say I’ve ever been in a serious relationship at all, normal or otherwise. There hasn’t been anyone worth taking that leap for. My senior year, Jake went to the school dances with me. He was the perfect date: he held the doors, then later held my hair when I puked after drinking too much. He never tried to kiss me.
Sure, I’ve been kissed, among other things. But—
“I just worry.” She’s picking at a scabbed-over wound.
I shake myself away from that line of thought. Sometimes I run toward the dangerous zones in my mind, the ones holding the sealed-up boxes. I made the mistake of trying to dig them up once, metaphorically speaking, and missed school for a week.
“Skylar.”
“I’m fine,” I say. “Everything has been normal.”
“If you need to see Dr. Penn again…”
I snort. “She’s in Rose Hill. That’s a bit of a far commute for a biweekly therapy appointment, don’t you think?”
Trauma messes with the brain, and my brain has carried the broken label for a while. I began seeing Dr. Penn, a clinical psychologist, when I was thirteen. At first, I saw her every other day. That lasted a year, and we gradually cut back. Right before I left for college, I was seeing her twice a month.
But as for the reason that landed me in her office in the first place?
I don’t know.
My mind created the boxes where the scary things reside, and I haven’t tried to open them. Not fully, anyway—remember when I said I missed a week of school? That was just from considering the boxes. I wouldn’t even try in her office, curled on the couch with one of her fuzzy pillows in my lap.
The definition of a safe space.
“The memories may come back,” Mom says, and she sounds a bit defensive about it. “We’ve been working so hard—”
“Yeah, it’s been a hardship for you,” I mutter.
“Watch your tone,” Mom snaps.
Guilt flutters through me. She’s right—she has done a lot for me. She even put up with my insufferable father for far more years than she deserved, just so I would be secure. But now he’s gone, and all of our relationships are healing.
“Sorry.” I stuff my free hand in my pocket.
Up ahead, Mitchel stops at an intersection and glances around. When he spots me, he waves.
I wave back.