Page 34 of Creep

Caden and I were in the car with her when it happened. Caden was nine, and I was eleven. I didn’t remember much of where we had been headed. Only that it had been nighttime, and it was raining. And there had been something… frantic about my mom’s movements as she took Caden and me on that drive. Everything else about that night had felt like a bad dream I couldn’t wake up from.

She was hit from the driver’s side by a black truck.

I remembered a flash of bright headlights coming toward us, then my mom screaming, Caden crying, and then, nothing.

When I woke up, my brother was fighting for his life, and my mom was dead.

I was the one who had made it out of the accident with the least amount of injuries.

Caden had been sitting on the driver’s side, and one of his legs was crushed between the door and the seat.

A lot of surgeries, physical rehabilitation and therapy, and years’ worth of pain, and he was able to walk on his own, but not like before. He could run, but I knew the pain never went away. Painkillers became his closest friends and his savior.

It was also his cause of death.

An overdose none of us were surprised by.

And perhaps that was why I always felt so guilty about his death. I should have known, and I should have been there for him more than I had.

Dad’s booming laughter brought me out of the horrid memory, and I tried not to let the dark thought affect me so much when I walked into the kitchen and found Dad and Leo talking to each other, their heads close.

I didn’t make any noise as I observed them.

Dad never got remarried. A part of me thought it was because he never got over my mom’s death. But another part, one I had never said out loud, always wondered if Leo was also a part of the reason.

Leo noticed me first, his eyes brightening. “There’s our girl,” he said.

I smiled at him and Dad and walked further into the kitchen.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Dad said. “How was work?”

I shrugged, trying hard to push all thoughts of Mael out of my head. “Work is work. I’m glad it’s over.”

“Long shift?” Leo asked, his eyes soft.

“Not too bad,” I answered quickly before Dad could go into one of his long speeches about me working for him. I had heard all sorts of versions of his speech. The last thing I wanted was to hear it again.

“What are we having for dinner?”

Leo moved out of the way so I could take in the tray of lasagna sitting by the kitchen stove to cool a bit. My stomach grumbled at the sight, and Dad laughed, pulling me in close with his arms.

“My girl,” he said. I smiled at him. No matter how old I got, it still brought me warmth to be close to my dad. “Go set the plates. We’ll eat soon.”

I nodded and pulled away, doing as he asked of me.

* * *

Like every timeI approached my door for the past weeks, I hesitated, wondering if this would be the night I opened it to see the man standing there.

And, like every time I realized I was blessedly alone in my apartment, I let out a small sigh of relief.

I looked around the familiar space, taking in all the furniture that I had carefully picked for the place, and felt a wash of anger and hopelessness flow through me.

I was angry that there was a fucking psycho… a creep who watched me while I was showering, stalking me and making me feel unsafe in my own home, and knowing there wasn’t much I could do about it.

I imagined the man dying a painful death before he could get to me. Praying to a God I wasn’t sure I believed in to just do me a favor and drag the fucker to hell and spare me all of this.

But even I knew that wouldn’t happen.

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