When I look down at his hand, I tense for an entirely different reason. Under the fading lights of the city, I spot a black-and-red embroidered friendship bracelet peeking out beneath his long sleeve shirt.
He still has it.
I glance at my own wrist and swallow.
The bindings dig into my skin, and he catches sight of my wince, frowning to himself.
He moves his hand to fiddle with something on the center dash, but the absence of his touch doesn’t make me breathe any easier. It isn’t until soft chirping filters through the speakers that I stop breathing altogether.
I haven’t listened to a nature podcast in years. We had a list of all the podcasts we wanted to listen to, then every day, we would plan which one we’d listen to that night as we fell asleep under a different roof. He said it would be like we were right next to each other, hearing the same sounds and learning the same things.
When he left, I couldn’t listen to them anymore, because I was too busy wallowing over someone who wasn’t there. And now here we are, listening to the same podcast like the past three years never happened.
I watch skeptically as he pulls a blanket from the back seat and drapes it over my lap.
“Go to sleep,” he says, tone filled with the warmth he’s only ever directed at me. “You’ve had a long night. I’ll wake you up once we’re there.”
I know I should protest, and self-preservation requires I stay awake to see where I am going.
His hand moves languidly up and down my leg, lacking any pretense other than comfort. Against my better judgment, the hypnotic touch makes my muscles relax.
Before sleep pulls me under, I hear him ask, “Do you remember what I told you, Bella? Do you remember what I promised you?”
Of course I do. I could never forget his promise.
Chapter 7
ROMAN
7 Years Ago
Roman: 15 years old – Isabella: 13 years old.
I’m bad at math, but lately, I’ve been really fucking good at it.
43 weeks.
301 days.
7224 hours.
That’s how long she’s been gone.
I’m great at counting now. Bella would be proud.
She used to tell me that she likes to count the marks on her ceiling when she feels like her mind is a little too much for her. I didn’t see the appeal in counting anything, because putting a value on something implies a limitation.
Now I get it. I’ve started counting my steps as I walk, not always intentionally. Still, I count the bricks in the pavement and add another point for every one my shoe touches. Sometimes I count the number of stairs as I go up or down. I lose focus half the time and miscount, but no one is keeping track. No one will know of the mistake but me.
Here are a few examples of my new fondness for counting:
Six. That’s how many times Aaron—my new foster father—has scowled at me this morning.
Two. That’s the number of times he’s hit me since I woke up.
Eighteen. That’s how many hours I’ve gone without food—not Aaron’s fault—Because nothing tastes right.
And my favorite: one. That’s how long until I see Bella again. One hour.
I knew the hell I went through would be worth it the second I saw her again. When she left, I sat in the back of a cop car, bloody and bruised, my voice hoarse from screaming my lungs out, then seeing the vicious look on Steve’s face when he picked me up. By that point, I was too numb to the reality of the situation to figure out where I was or why I was there.
Because the voices were quiet, and she wasn’t there.
I stared at the darkness for three days. And in those three days, I understood what Bella meant when she said that sometimes the quiet in the brain is too loud. Usually, I had my own thoughts to keep me going, but they left with her. Then Steve got busted for child abuse, and now, here I am with Aaron. He’s a total cunt. But Julie is nice enough—when she’s around.
Aaron likes to accidentally forget to feed me when Julie is away at work. Some kind of hairstylist or makeup artist or something. But it isn’t like when I was eight years old and didn’t know my way around the kitchen.
So, I just help myself to the kitchen—on the rare occasion there’s food.
Whether by blind faith or complete idiocy, I’m still here, putting up with the back of Aaron’s hand whenever Julie isn’t around. Yes, I tried running away a few times to find Bella, but I always came back. And yes, Aaron tried kicking me to the curb for it, but the government checks kept rolling in.
Plus, leaving for good wasn’t an option. How else would she know how to find me?