“There is my valedictorian.” The familiar voice and the individual it belonged to caused my skin to crawl. I looked away from the doors of the gym, turning around to face the dean. It took real courage to not roll my eyes at him as he stood way too close, his feet spread apart and hands on his hips, looking down at me pouting.
“Yes, Mr. Jensen?” I asked, already over this conversation. His gaze snapped down to my lips and I had to fight the urge to clench my fists at my side.
“Do you have your speech ready?”
I nodded.
“Can I hear it?”
“No.”
“Why ever not?” he asked with a smile that under weaker control, would have made me wince.
“I don’t want to ruin the surprise.” I scoured the auditorium, filled with chairs for the graduates and their families, looking for an excuse, any excuse, to escape the dean. He was one of the youngest deans in this college’s history and I didn’t know if he knew a lot about the college or academics in general; what I did know was that he took every chance he had at leering at women, in particular, college girls, i.e., me.
No excuse magically appeared, probably because the one person who wanted to show up for me, I had just told to stay home. I had to get out of this on my own.
“I left my notecards in the back,” I said, and his eyes finally shifted from my lips to look me in the eye. He had the nerve to smirk. Disgusting asshole. He stepped aside, motioning for me to pass him. He didn’t do it to be a gentleman. He did it in the hopes I would brush my body against his (not a chance in Hell) and to stare at my ass as I walked away from him (if I could do something about it, I would).
Once backstage, I unpacked my dress and changed into it, my graduation gown long enough to hide the fact that I wore a dress at all. The white graduation gown looked as hideous as I suspected.
Over the top of the atrocious gown, I lined up my honor cords until they evened out. I didn’t put on my cap as I faced myself in the mirror in the dressing room usually designated for the theater club. A pair of deep blue eyes stared back at me, a determined glint to them.
Graduation marked an end to a chapter in my life. When I woke up tomorrow, not in my dorm room but in an unfamiliar hotel room, a page would be flipped and I’d be filling the pages on a new chapter. Every single person who walked the stage with me today had big plans. Internships and graduate school and jobs lined up.
I wanted none of those things. I wanted something far closer to my heart than a dream job. I wanted revenge.
Today, I graduated and in a few days’ time, if everything went according to plan, this world would be ridden of one less evil person and I’d be on a plane to Mexico. Annie Miller would be as good as gone. I would no longer have to wonder who she was. Olive James would be born and I would be somebody new, somebody that my mom could be proud of.
“Annie.” A girl I had never seen before popped her head around the corner. “You’re up.”
“Thanks,” I replied before her head disappeared, grateful for the reminder. Graduation, now. Murdering Daddy Dearest, later.
“Where the fuck are you going dressed like that?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to deal with this right now. The door clicked behind me and I waited. Maybe if I ignored him, he would go away. Not that that tactic ever worked before.
For the past three days, I managed to dodge Matt, his curious eyes, and what I knew to be his twenty-one questions. I opened my eyes slowly in the hopes that he wouldn’t be standing in front of me and I was instantly disappointed. He placed his hands on his hips and closed the distance between us, his nearly seven-foot frame towering over me. “Well?”
I glared at him. “What did I tell you about commenting on my body?”
He huffed out a humorless laugh. “You said not to objectify your body, which I haven’t. Why the fuck are you dressed like that, Annie?” His normal playfulness gone, replaced with suspicious eyes.
Moments like this I wished, like the rest of the people I’ve crossed paths with in the past ten years, Matt had stayed on the sidelines of my life. On the outside looking in. He’s gotten too comfortable with me. I’ve let him get too comfortable.
I equally hated and loved how he much seemed to care about me. At times over the past couple of years, having Matt in my life hollowed out some of the loneliness I felt. He felt like the first sight of daylight after a three-month Alaska darkness. But with his friendship, came questions. Questions I couldn’t and wouldn’t answer.
I looked down at myself, at the clothes I wore. I still wore jeans. Tight black ones instead of my normal faded boyfriend jeans. A black long sleeve that exposed my midriff and shoulders. Turning away from Matt’s looming, I grabbed my jean jacket from the back of my desk chair. Shrugging into it, I purposely took my time on rolling the sleeves on each arm.
I hoped Matt would say something or leave but he did neither.
I spun around and held my hands up in the air, showcasing the newest addition to my outfit. “Better?” I asked, a fake smile glued to my lips.
Matt shook his head and fell into the chair he brought into my office just for himself. “Where have you been?”
“I’ve been here. You’ve been busy.”
His eyes fell away from my face, sticking to the bare skin at my midriff, looking like he wanted to ask that damn question again. I wouldn’t tell him the truth, no matter if he asked a million times.
Instead, he asked another question. A question he’d been asking me since the beginning of my last semester. “Have you thought about it? Moving in with me?”
I sighed, preparing to lie to him. Again. I don’t have to make a decision right now, Matt. The school is not evicting me until the summer semester starts. I haven’t made up my mind yet. “Won’t I put a crimp in your style?”
In response, I didn’t get the sly tilt of his lips I’ve grown accustomed to. Instead, he glared at me, his brown eyes darkening.
I shrugged nonchalantly. “Hey, I had to ask.”
I didn’t tell him I left campus last weekend with my diploma, my backpack, and the lone suitcase I owned and booked a hotel room at the cheapest hotel in the city I could find. I didn’t tell him anything about my future because after tomorrow he wouldn’t be a part of it.
The thought of Matt no longer ceasing to exist in my world tugged at my chest but I shook it off and started throwing things in my backpack. In the grand scheme of things, Matt wasn’t important. Hell, I wasn’t important. The only thing that was important was the worn-out piece of paper sitting in my back pocket holding the knowledge of what I had to do.
Tomorrow, I would come in here for the last time. In twenty-four hours, I would be packing this same bag including the gun I owned but had never before carried with me. I would have to wave to Matt with a promise to see him the next day, the day that would never come.
When I chanced a look at him, his head was thrown back against the top of the chair, his fingers intertwined, covering his closed eyes. Throwing my backpack over my shoulder, I walked over to him and poked him in the middle of his forehead.
His fingers fell away from his face but his frown went nowhere. “Why do I get the feeling you’re hiding something,” he mumbled petulantly.
I forced a small smile to my lips. “It’s good to be a little mysterious. You might’ve gotten sick of me otherwise.”
I didn’t give him the chance to pry more. And I didn’t give myself a chance to feed him another lie. I fled from the range, feeling like I could breathe again once the sun kissed my skin and the bustle of the city consumed me, reminding me what it felt like to be invisible once more. I walked a couple of blocks until I could no longer see Philly Range before I found a bus stop. I grabbed fifteen dollars from my pocket and waited. Every day for the past week, with school no longer a part of my routine, I caught this bus after my shift at the shooting range.
I stood up when the familiar red, white, and blue bus, New Hazle scrolling across the LED sign
, stopped short in front of me. I paid my fee and held on to the strapped handles until I found an empty seat near the back.
I was going home. Home, where I spent the only good twelve years of my life. Home, that turned into a nightmare. Home to my mother.
If I closed my eyes, I could still picture her face. Her blonde waves that felt so smooth when she let me brush her hair. Impossibly dark blue eyes that always shined with amusement on my behalf. Perfect pale pink lips that would attack me with kisses all over my face first thing in the morning.
Michelle Miller was the perfect mom.
I had no complaints of a bad childhood for the most part. If I wasn’t at school, I was attached to my mom’s hip. I used to park my butt at the kitchen table while she cooked or cleaned. Every Friday night I would sit on the toilet in the bathroom or plop on her bed, next to her vanity, my hands holding my face as I studied her every move before she went to meet some friends and left me with our next door neighbor for a few hours. Even as I grew up, our relationship hadn’t skipped a beat. If anything, I wanted to be more like her. Pretty like her. Kind like her. Smart like her.
The only gloom that settled over my childhood was Cameron Wade.
The only thing less certain than my identity was that of my father’s. I couldn’t remember a time growing up when he felt like a father. If I were ever captured in a picture, I would be in the same shot as my mom and Cameron would be the distant figure just outside of the picture, using this occasion to place a beer bottle to his lips.
I couldn’t remember a time when he even told me he loved me. I didn’t remember him holding me when I was a toddler nor kissing my bruises as I grew into a tiny human. He was there, but at the same time, he wasn’t.
As I grew up and befriended other kids at school and they talked about all of the fun stuff their dad did with them, I realized my dad wasn’t normal. And by the time I grew brave enough to ask my mom about him, about why is the way he is, I had long since been acquainted with the brown bottle of peroxide and the soft feel of cotton balls as I relieved her skin of the marks he left on her in a fit of rage.
I could still hear her words in my head, in that delicate voice of hers. “He’s not a perfect man, but he once was.”
I felt my stomach recoil then at her words, and now just thinking of them. I only knew him to be one sort of man. The worst kind of man, the Devil dressed in men’s clothing.
I often wondered why they bothered to have a child. I had neither mom nor dad to confirm that I was, in fact, an unplanned mistake, but I knew that I was. I had to be. He was never home, always out with his work colleagues, and if he was at home, he always made my mom send me to my room so he could spend time alone with her. It surprised me that I never much minded his absence in my life but I knew it was my mom’s doing. She loved me enough for both of them.
For the first twelve years of my life, I never questioned love, she gave it to me so freely.
It wasn’t until he made the occasional appearance before she tucked me in at night that I realized my home wasn’t as happy as I originally thought.
I knew because my mom’s usually radiant smile slipped from her face. The happy, loving side of her vanished, transforming into a version of her that felt wrong. I turned invisible as soon as he called or stepped through the door. Her sole attention focused on him or ensuring the house was spotless, not stopping until her hands stained red.
The days following his appearances improved and worsened at the same time. I got my mom back but she wasn’t the same. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes and when I tried everything to force a laugh out of her, it sounded off-key like she hadn’t laughed in so long it felt foreign to her.
The physical signs, I noticed a little more each day. She limped from the kitchen to the sink. Bright red spots appeared on her skin, usually around her neck. I’d only notice when she didn’t bother with her makeup. Anytime I asked about it, she shrugged her shoulders and blame it on her clumsiness.
I never questioned it. Not until I saw it with my eyes.
Not until the one night she tucked me in bed early, telling me that Daddy was bringing home very important people over for dinner. Upstairs, already tucked in, stubbornly not falling asleep waiting for her to come give me my goodnight kiss, I heard her pleading whimpers. I snuck out of bed, hearing the word “stop” flow from her lips like the lone word was a song stuck on repeat. Stopping on the middle of the stairs, it happened. I couldn’t tear my eyes away when I witnessed his brutal hands on her. Her watery eyes met mine from across the room and my heart broke for the very first time.
Every day after that night, for years, I begged her to leave, just the two of us. Her answer remained the same. Smiling down at me and running her long fingers through my hair, she kissed my forehead and promised, “Your mama’s got this, baby girl.” And like the innocent child I was, I believed her. And when she finally decided to leave, he wouldn’t let us.
I dabbed at the wetness on my cheeks with the sleeve of my jean jacket before pressing the button for my stop. New Hazle greeted me as soon as I stepped off the bus. I traded in tall buildings and bustling traffic for lifeless trees and a ghost town.
I walked down the familiar street leading me to Locust Cemetery. I bowed my head, avoiding any and all surveillance systems. As far as anyone knew, the last time I stepped foot in New Hazle was four years ago, right before I started college.
I walked the familiar path until I reached her headstone.
Michelle Miller. Loving Mother and Friend. 1977–2007.
I kneeled down and ran my fingers across the hard marble, ridding it of all of the spiderwebs. “Hey, Mama,” I whispered. “It’s your little girl.”
I ground my teeth together in hopes of keeping the tears at bay. “I don’t know if you would be proud of this version of your daughter. I wonder what you would think of her. Half of the time, I don’t even know what to think of her.”
A shaky sigh escaped me as I leaned back, letting my ass fall to the splintering needles of grass. Resting my head on top of my knees, I shut my eyes, my hands falling to the dirty ground clutching a fist of the earth. “I have to do this, Mom. Not just for you, but for me. And I hope, if we ever meet again, that you’ll be able to forgive me.”
I stood abruptly, pressing a kiss to two of my fingers before placing them directly on her name and I ran.
I pushed my legs faster and faster, my feet thudding against the cracked sidewalks, vicious with every step. I ran, not seeing which direction my feet carried me. I didn’t stop when my heartbeat sounded in my eardrums or when sweat dripped from my forehead down the crevice of my nose and onto my parted lips. I didn’t stop until my legs grew shaky and my breakfast threatened to reappear.
I slowed to a jog before settling into a walk. I glance up and found myself exactly where I needed to be. Hank’s Bar and Grill, one of the only bars in this town and Cameron Wade’s home away from home.
Without pause, I yanked open the old, heavy wooden door, ordered a glass of water and took it with me to a booth in the back.
The inside of the bar reeked of smoke, booze, and scum, and my father hadn’t even shown up yet. The bar itself wasn’t in bad shape. Its dark vibe and slow, melodic music filtering through the room complemented the dark wood of the walls, floor, and bar. It wasn’t the owner’s fault that this place attracted the worst kind of humans.
The door swung open and my eyes snapped toward the movement, my heart stuck in my throat. Afraid it would be him walking through the door, afraid it wouldn’t.
This wasn’t the first time this happened. It happened every time I was here. They wouldn’t let me in here when I was a minor but as soon as I turned eighteen, I frequented this place on a weekly basis. During my four years of college, I used it as my excuse to study, laying out notebooks and textbooks without ever seeing them at all. The real reason I was here was to watch, to study, to memorize Cameron Wade’s habits.
He walked in, dragging his feet across the few st
eps from the door to the one side of the bar, his back facing me. He slurred his drink order at the bartender who shook his head in pity but obliged anyway. He gulped one drink after another for the first hour. He seemed to wake once the alcohol pumped its way through his veins. His booming voice carried across the room to reach me. “One more fucking day in that hellhole and I’m free.”
No one paid attention to him. No one other than me.
I sat there and watched him drink beer after beer. Laugh at his own crass jokes. His eyes roaming the room for any attractive woman stupid enough to give him a second of attention.
Rage burned through my veins like fire. How dare he laugh so easily when I couldn’t remember the sound of my mother’s laugh? Talk so simply when it was hard for me to remember the sound of her voice? Breathe in a way she no longer could? Live however he wanted when he single-handedly ruined my life. I clenched and unclenched my fists for so long, somehow resisting the urge to claw his eyes out in front of a room of a dozen people.
“Hope you enjoy that beer,” I hissed under my breath, “it’s one of the last ones you’ll ever have.”
At a quarter to ten o’clock, Cameron closed his tab and paid for his drink and the woman’s next to him, who he spent the last two hours trying to convince her to allow him to take her home.
Cameron was a creature of habit. In the four years I had been watching him, his life felt like a loop. Every day was a song stuck on replay.
He still lived in that same old house in New Hazle on Mercer Road, a few blocks from the bar. He still worked as a paper pusher for Mackenzie Enterprise. And he still spent all of his money on beer and women.
I had his days and nights memorized.
The lights in the house switched on at about eight-thirty in the morning. Only the downstairs. Which told me one thing: he passed out on the couch before he ever made it into one of the two bedrooms upstairs.
Hijacked Page 2
