“Exactly. You’re not nice.”
He takes my hand and puts it on his arm. I curl my fingers around his biceps, kind of hating the formality of this, and he takes me over to where Lenora and Robert are standing in the kitchen.
“Ah, honey, that sweater is beautiful on you,” Lenora says.
“Thanks.”
Caleb looks me up and down. “It is nice to see you outside of our uniform.” And then he reaches out and shakes Robert’s hand. “Nice to see you both,” he says. “We’ll be on our way. Does Margo have a curfew?”
There he goes using my name again. It does weird things to the butterflies in my stomach.
Lenora and Robert glance at each other.
“Oh,” she says, “this is the first time we’ve had to discuss it. What do you think, Rob?”
“Midnight? Is that too late? Too early?” He laughs.
I shift on my feet, eager to be gone.
“Only too late if she’s secretly Cinderella,” Caleb says. “I’ll get her back by then.”
“Have fun!” Lenora wraps her arm around Robert’s waist.
I barely have time to wave before Caleb has steered me outside.
I slide into the passenger seat of his Audi, trying to hold back my…
Anticipation?
Fear?
Whatever it is, it coils in my stomach like a living thing.
Caleb gets in the driver’s seat. “Want to drive?”
“No.”
“Why not?” He starts the car, the engine turning over with a soft purr. “Afraid you wouldn’t be able to handle her?”
“It’s not that.” I look out the window.
“Tell me.”
His hand touches my thigh. He finger-walks his hand higher, a devilish smile on his face. We’re still in the driveway. My foster parents are right there, probably peeking out from the window.
“Stop.” The coiling heat in my stomach moves lower.
“Do you mean that?”
I shiver.
“Margo.”
His eyes are dark. They always seem to be dark when he does wicked things to me. His finger touches me through my jeans, and I clench my muscles at an unfamiliar ache.
“I can’t drive,” I blurt out. Anything to stop the movement. It’s torturous, just on the edge of not enough.
He pauses. “Really.”
“What, do you think a foster parent would’ve taught me?”
He withdraws his hand, and I relax into the leather seat. He pulls out of the driveway. He has a contemplative expression. Maybe he’s going to ask—sooner or later, everyone asks.
What’s it like?
Don’t people want you?
Why hasn’t someone adopted you?
He gets to the end of our street and turns in the opposite direction of the school. I look over at him, my eyebrows rising. “Where are we going?”
He shrugs. “Coach forbade me from going to the game.”
I scowl. “You tricked me.”
“No, I just…” He yanks off the beanie, tossing it into his backseat. “I couldn’t not show up. Especially since Riley wasn’t coming for you.” He laughs as, unbeknownst to him, my dreams of seducing his friend go down the drain. “Imagine what a terrible third wheel you would’ve been. I saved you from that, love.”
“What do I have to do to stop you from calling me that?” Defeat rings through me. I’d probably do whatever he wanted tonight, just to get the world to stop.
It’s too much. Lenora and Robert are great, but I miss my own parents. There was a time we were happy—Mom and Dad and me. We’d go to the park and have picnics on borrowed blankets, they helped me with my homework and tuck me in at night. Mom read magical stories to me, and Dad checked my closet for ghosts.
Or demons.
If only he was here to protect me from Caleb.
“Why does it bother you?” he asks. “It’s just a name. Better than Sheep, I’d imagine. Although, dear Margo, I must say, you’re still acting like a scared little sheep.”
I shake my head. “I’m not. I’m standing up to you.”
He chuckles. “I’ll let you know when you actually stand up. Until then…”
We pull into the entrance of a park. It’s the same one my parents used to take me for picnics. It’s also…
I close my eyes.
It’s where Dad was arrested.
“Why did you bring me here?”
He turns off the car. “To relive the past.”
“But not all of it,” I whisper. “Just the hard parts.”
“Yes.” He gets out and circles around, opening my door.
He’s smart: I would’ve just stayed here.
He grabs my hands and takes me out by force. “Show me. I wasn’t here, after all.”
I shudder.
“You weren’t,” I agree. “It was…”
The worst day of my life.
Mom was already gone, and Dad must’ve wanted peace and quiet before the next step. Before the other shoe dropped on our family.
He releases me as I start to walk. It’s like there’s a ten-year-old Margo guiding me to the exact spot. We were sitting on a bench overlooking the pond. The running path was behind us. The sound of footsteps hitting the dirt wasn’t out of place in my memory.
It’s getting dark, but I find it with ease.
I sit on the bench. The pond has shriveled since the last time I saw it. Caleb sits next to me, his hands in his pockets. I haven’t been here since that day, and if I let down my guard, echoes of the past surround us. I can almost hear my dad again.
I haven’t heard his voice in six years.
“Speak.”
I take a deep breath. “We didn’t notice the detective.”
He nods.
“She came up from his side—where you’re sitting. Up the path. Sat down next to us. Told us…” I don’t know what she told us. “I was ten, and he had given me a handful of seeds for the ducks.”
“How kind,” he says.
“I looked back, and he was in handcuffs. An officer was taking him down the path, but he kept trying to get back to me. It took two… maybe three officers to force him away.”
A social worker had squatted next to me and introduced herself. When she offered her hand, I took it. And that, really, was the beginning of the end.
“Why’d he bring you here, of all places?”
“It was our spot.” There are a few ducks in the pond now. I get up and grab a rock, lobbing it at them. They take off, flying low across the water. Away from us and toward safety. Smart birds.
“So? Your house was—”
“No,” I argue. “Our house was never our house. It was yours. Always.”
He lifts one eyebrow.
“Every inch of that property was yours,” I whisper. “We vanished like smoke. You probably never even realized—”
“Never realized?” he repeats, staring straight ahead. His jaw ticks. “Never realized what, exactly? That you were gone? That you wrecked my whole goddamn life?”
I cringe backward.
“Yeah, Margo. Run and hide like you always do.” He gets up and stalks toward me.
I back away, tripping over fallen leaves and twigs.
He catches me, like he always does.