Page 22 of Follow Her Down
I like being believed.
10
Sera
Deathshoulddecay.Butthe hand in its velvet coffin?It stays pristine and mocking, like the lies its owner told about me under oath.
I’ve spent the morning hunched over my laptop, reading about David Farley’s “tragic accident.”According to the local news sites, he was attacked outside his home the very day I arrived in Wichita.He survived, minus one hand.The article describes a “brutal, unprovoked assault” and mentions that Sheriff Vincent Harrow has assigned his best detective to the case.
The very same bad-boy-looking Detective Eddie I met at the gas station who unnervingly looked through me rather than at me?The one with dark hair flopping over one blue eye and the most chiseled jawline I’d ever seen?
Regardless, the irony is delicious.Vincent is investigating the mutilation of his own alibi.Is he worried?Does he know it’s connected to me?
My guess is no.
There’s a photo of David from last year’s Christmas parade, his arm slung around Vincent’s shoulders, both men grinning like they’ve never ruined a woman’s life.
I remember David on the witness stand, his face a mask of fake concern: “Yeah, I saw them in the club talking.She was clingy, you know?And when he tried to walk away, well…some women just can’t handle rejection.”
Some women just can’t handle having their drink drugged and waking up bleeding and bruised and near death.Some women can’t handle being told they “wanted it rough” when they know—they fucking know—they never consented to anything at all.
The article says David will undergo months of physical therapy after getting a prosthetic.Good.I hope every second hurts.I hope he feels phantom pain in the fingers that no longer exist.I hope when he reaches for things—his coffee, his car keys, his dick—he remembers what was done to him, and why.
I close my laptop and walk to the hallway closet where I’ve hidden the box.Not out of shame or fear, but because it’s precious.Evidence of the first time anyone has taken my side since the night it happened.It may as well be a love letter.
I lift the lid, check that the hand is still there.It is, of course, pointing right at me like an accusation.
Grinning, I carefully replace the lid and push the box deeper into the closet.
A laugh bubbles up from my chest.It makes me giddy that David’s not dead, just maimed and marked, forced to live without his right hand.The one he raised in court to swear on the Bible before lying for Vincent.
“Perfect,” I whisper.
One perfect gift has made me feel lighter than I have in weeks.
Later, when I leave for work, I pause at the front door.The house feels different today, more attentive.The silence has texture.
“Bye, Shadow Daddy,” I say to the empty hallway.
In response, a long scratch sounds behind the locked basement door.
Smiling, I head to work, hoping I see my stalker again.
I want him to know I got it.And I love it.
***
Everydingwhen the door opens makes me look up, searching for James’s muscular frame and boyish smile.But he doesn’t come.
Customers flow in and out.They buy their cigarettes and lottery tickets and sugary drinks.They either hardly look at me, or they stare too long at my chest, my hips, my ass.
None of them look at my eyes like they mean it.None of themseeme.
Every man feels wrong because they’re not James, and it pisses me off.I didn’t ask to want him here.I don’t need him.I don’t need anyone.
And yet my stomach drops each time the door opens and it’s not him.His absence feels deliberate, pointed, like a punishment.Or a game.
By hour two, I’m angry.By hour three, I’m pouring myself coffee so aggressively that it splashes onto the counter.As I wipe it up, a shadow falls across me.
