Page 23 of Until You Found Me

She asked him a dozen questions today already, but he plays along. “Shoot.”

“If you had to pick between black tea, hot chocolate, or coffee, which would you pick?”

“Hot chocolate,” he says quickly. “You got one question left.”

“Will you come over tomorrow after work and have some hot chocolate with me? There are these fancy little cocoa bombs Arthur left that explode in the milk. We can drink them while testing my baking theory?”

“That’s your question?” he replies carefully.

“That’s my question.”

“I’ll be there.”

“See you then. Good night, Logan.”

“Night.”

A few seconds pass before the radio crackles again.“Over.”

He snorts. “You don’t have to say over every time.”

“Noted. Over.”

He shakes his head in amusement, putting the walkie-talkie back on the table, watching it in case she says anything else.

It stays silent.

He’s never been so excited about a cup of hot chocolate and a plate of cookies in his whole life.

Chapter 6

There’s a little girl spinning circles in a lush green park. Her sundress flutters in time with musical laughter that warms Tessa’s heart.

‘Five more minutes, momma. I don’t wanna go home yet.’

‘Okay. Five more minutes.’

He’s at work until late tonight, attending the same weekly meeting. She suspects that he’s fucking a coworker and is glad for the reprieve his cheating offers. She only wishes it meant he stopped touching her altogether, but she is never that lucky.

Tessa always brings her daughter to this park, where they can spend the entire day without any scolding. They don’t leave the house much. She began homeschooling ever since the teachers started asking questions about bruises.

‘She ain’t going back there. You can teach her at home. Don’t need people up in our business.’

They aren’t allowed to visit the park, but she comes anyway when he’s in the arms of another woman. Risks her own safety to give her daughter a taste of the outside world. To let her play with other children and spin circles in the sunshine.

It’s their secret. They never tell him or let on that they’ve left the house at all. She may lose all her privileges if she does, and they’realready few and far between.

The grocery store is her only outing now and even that is stressful when stretching a small amount of money for the two of them. He gets double because he pays the bills, he says. He provides her with a list of requested items and checks the receipt to make sure she didn’t leech off a single cent for her own food.

‘Don’t know how lucky you are. People are starving all over the world. Fucking spoiled, the both of you.’

She goes without most meals so her child gets enough. She’s used to it. It doesn’t matter anymore. She hardly craves anything except those damn cookies he makes her bake for him, but never lets her eat. They sit on a tray in the kitchen where they taunt her with gooey chocolate chips and mountains of sugar.

She stole two of them once…never did that again. Even her daughter knows better.

One day, she’ll bake cookies for both of them and they’ll eat the whole tray themselves. One day they’ll leave, she thinks, watching the girl laugh on the playground equipment.

One day it’ll all be different.

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