“I really just want to sleep,” she said.
“You’re safe now,” I said to her.
“Can you just sit on the edge of the bed and wait?”
“Of course.”
Amelia shut the small light off next to her bed and we were in darkness. There was a tiny bit of light coming in from the moon outside. That was it.
“Thank you, Josh,” she whispered as she took her hand from mine.
I heard the sound of the bed squeaking as she climbed into it.
When she stopped moving, I sat down on the edge.
A few silent seconds went by and I felt her touch my back.
“I’m here,” I whispered.
“Okay.”
“Tell me about those stuffed animals,” I said.
“What?”
“In the corner. I saw them.”
“Oh, jeez. I feel stupid. I’m too old…”
“Nah. You’re not too old. They mean something to you.”
“All I have left are Mr. Monkey, Mary, and Jeffrey. There are a few others, but they’re not important.”
I smiled. “I get it. I used to have that stuff too.”
“Used to? You got rid of them?”
“No. I gave them away.”
“Because you got too old?”
“No,” I said. “Gave them to someone else who needed them more.”
“I hope whoever got them is happy,” Amelia said.
I didn’t respond.
The ‘whoever’ that got them… was dead.
Amelia fell asleep.
I stood and pulled the covers up to her shoulder.
I quietly shut the door and stood in the hallway.
It was crazy.
I was in Amelia’s house.
I looked to my right and saw a door down the hallway was open.
My lip curled.
That’s where he was sleeping.
Amelia’s father.
I knew exactly what Amelia was going through and what she must have felt.
Before I could finish my thought, I was already walking down the hallway.
As I crept through the open door, I had no idea what I planned on doing. Drag her father out of the bed and beat him up?
When I looked at the bed, there was only one person in it.
Sleeping.
It looked like a woman.
It was Amelia’s mother.
My high had all but been washed away. Reality struck me hard and I knew I had to get out of the house.
I moved through the house with speed and went out the door I came through.
Halfway across Amelia’s yard, I stopped and looked down at my hand. I had been holding her hand. It had been nice. I looked over my shoulder and nodded at the house.
I wasn’t sure if she was going to sleep well or not.
I knew I wasn’t going to sleep at all.
I called Murph so I could catch another high and try to forget about Amelia.
Chapter 14
Fancy to Filthy
NOW
(Amelia)
There was a box tucked away under my bed that contained the only remaining evidence that I had once been a kid. I never opened the box. I didn’t even want the box. But anytime I thought about getting rid of it, it just felt wrong. The emotions that came with that box were just too much to handle. Which was why a year ago I took all those dumb stories I used to write out of it. I had the chance of a lifetime, when I wrote a book on a whim and ended up getting agent representation for it. That agent fought hard to get a deal. And the deal that ended up on the table was washed away in the blink of an eye.
Same for that agent. Here, then gone.
In my mind, I thought this is it. Opening that box of memories was worth it at the time. To get those old stories out. The stories my mother would read and laugh at. The stories where she would say aww at the sad parts. The stories where she’d always gently put the story down, tilt her head to the side, and smile. She’d tell me how amazing the story was and then somehow, in the span of ten seconds, she would have every character memorized. And she’d talk to me about the story and the characters as though she had authored them.
I missed her. I missed her a lot.
But I didn’t miss the life that came with her.
Which made everything else - including that box under my bed - really complicated.
It didn’t help matters that I had met up with Josh again. He wasn’t in that box under the bed. Nobody knew about Josh. Josh had been my dirty little secret of sorts for a long time. I had this thing built up in my mind about him. But it never happened. So, going through that box of memories wouldn’t do a thing. Because Josh resided somewhere else. Somewhere really dangerous.
Josh had been stuck in my heart. For years.
My phone buzzed on my bed as I stared down at the stupid clipart covers of my first few stories.
Printing those covers was a dangerous task.
Wasting colored ink was a capital crime in my house.
And if my father…
I turned my head and swallowed hard.
I didn’t recognize the number and normally would have just ignored it.
But my heart and mind synced together.
It’s Josh!
The voice in my head squealed like the young girl standing in her bedroom window watching the older, cute boy running through her yard, unsure of the feelings she felt and the places she felt those feelings.
I answered the call, expecting his flirty wit and bad boy attitude.
Except it wasn’t Josh.
“Do you have my story yet?” a woman’s voice said.
“Hello?”
“Amelia?”
“This is Amelia… who is…”
“Bel.”
“Oh. Right. Bel. Hey. Hi. Hello.”
Stop saying variations of hello, Amelia.
“Is this a bad time?” Bel asked.
I looked down at the old printed stories. I looked over to my dresser and saw my laptop resting there. Unused.
“No,” I said.
“So, how did everything go? I haven’t heard from you. It was a few days ago.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Did you go?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see him?”
“Yes.”
“That’s great,” she said. “I’m amazed by his work. Getting a story out of him is like-”
“There really is no story, Bel.”
“I thought you said you saw him.”
“I did,” I said. “I tried to talk to him. He was standoffish, and then left.”
“He left?”
“Out the back door and was gone for the rest of the night.”
“Wait a second,” Bel said. “Josh walked out on his own night?”
“I guess. I mean, yeah. I went back the next day and-”
“You did? That’s great. So, what’s the story then?”
I swallowed hard.
The story was in my nightstand drawer. The letter to Delilah. That was the story. I wanted to write about Delilah. Who she was. Where she came from. Why someone had written her such a beautiful letter. The person who wrote it was so heartbroken… and yet Delilah was so beautiful and perfect, how did she not know how much she was loved?