Page 19 of Hide and Keep

“It’s dirty.”

It’s lived in.

“It’s cold.”

It’s warm and inviting.

“It’s ancient.”

It’s the coziest house I’ve ever seen up close and all I want to do is curl up with a soft blanket inside it and just…breathe.

Instead of arguing a single point, Crue bends at the waist and picks me up, carrying me over both thresholds into the living room.

They don’t have a foyer?

“Help! Help! I’m being kidnapped by your son!”

Crue closes the door, then sets me on the carpeted floor, not just hardwood with a carpet rug but actual wall-to-wall carpet.

“Yell all you want. No one’s here.” After doing something on his phone, there’s a series of beeps somewhere in the house. “The alarm is set, so if you open a door or window, I’ll catch you before you can step foot outside.”

“You have an alarm on this place?”

“Yeah. We don’t use it anymore really, but it’s there…just in case.”

“In case of what?”

With a shrug, he says, “People.”

Before I can ask what kind of people, he leaves. Literally. He just leaves me here, all by myself in the middle of his parents’ home.

As much as I’d love to follow him and see his bedroom, I plant my feet and call to his back, “Where are your parents?”

“It’s the middle of the day. Where do you think?”

“The food bank?” With him gone, I cringe at myself, my shoulders shuddering from my own insensitivity. My high school team had a tradition of volunteering at the food bank at least once every December. Luckily, they scheduled the visits at the same time as our practices, so I got to go, too. It was a very humbling experience. Obviously, my father’s never done it.

“Work,” Crue replies. “Not like you know what that is.”

Despite the last part being muttered, I still pick up on it, mostly because I’m used to that insult.

People assume—correctly—that I don’thaveto work, but what they fail to realize is I’m notallowedto work. My future is set. My purpose predetermined. My father barely let me cheer at the collegiate level. And even that is being taken from me.

Tears blur my vision.

One quick glance around the room and I bring my hands to my face, covering my eyes with my fingers and plugging my nosewith the edges of my palms, forcing myself to breathe through my mouth. I don’t want to commit a single thing in here to memory.

As soon as my eyes are closed though, every detail I just glimpsed is shown in vivid clarity, like my brain already did.

Damn it.

“What’s the matter?” I hear sometime later.

Dropping my hands, I grit, “It. Stinks.” The tears hopefully helping my case.

Brows furrowed, Crue looks around from his spot on the other side of the sectional. “Like what?”

He’s wearing another black, non-descript hat. I got rid of the other one for a reason.

---