Page 40 of Under the Bed

This morning it isn’t as ear-piercing. Strange.

I wake up to the sound of it, anyway, as dull as it is. Blink my eyes open, staring into the darkness of my closet. At the small square of light between the sliding door and the wall.

Sun seeps through the crack. The day has arrived, stripping the remnants of sleep from me.

Shame creeps up my neck once I’ve fully woken up. I remember everything from last night. Every small, debauched detail of it.

But I don’t remember my lips being sticky. My cheeks are, too. I keep gripping Kaleb’s mask with one hand as the other rises to my face.

Weird. It’s like touching dried glue.

Oh. Oh.

This stickiness, it’s me. I made a mess while licking the mask clean, so yeah, it has to be my arousal I feel on my face.

The warmth in my neck turns into a scorching, burning wildfire as realization sinks in. I pinch my eyes shut, willing the humiliation away. I’m never doing that again. Ever.

I blame it on yesterday. My emotions were all over the place. That’s why I let it go that far.

No more.

The alarm blares and blares.

“I’m up.” I place Kaleb’s mask in the shoebox. Bury it in the back of the closet, on the upper shelf.

Where it belongs. Away from someone like me. Someone who isn’t worthy of him.

As much as I wish we could be together. As much as the idea has my blood searing in my veins.

He’d be better off without me. The traitor.

By now, he’s either managed to cross the border into another country. Or he got caught.

Either way, he isn’t coming for me.

Not to fuck me. Not to kill me.

I have nothing to worry about or get excited about. No big stepbrother to long for.

With a heavy heart, I slide the closet door open a tiny crack, my head bowed in shame. But as the light filters in, I see it. Oh, shit. Oh, no.

No, no, no.

This isn’t real.

This isn’t. Fucking. Real.

A finger.

He was here. The only man who would’ve left this for me.

“Kaleb.” My fingertips press to my parted lips.

My eyes slam shut, my brain working hard to erase it from my memory.

“I’m imagining it. He couldn’t have gotten in here. No way. I’m being paranoid, which is reasonable, right? I’m still confused. Still riled up after thinking he was going to kill me last night. My mind needs to make sense of this, so yeah. It conjured a finger. A finger that isn’t there. I’m not next. I won’t die today. Won’t get a chance to fall to my knees and”—I whisper that last part—“beg for his forgiveness. Or die, as much as I’ve earned it. He isn’t here. He isn’t here.”

Taking a deep breath, I open my eyes.

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