Hereafter by Harkins Juliette

Author:Harkins, Juliette
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Moonage Press
Published: 2023-12-08T00:00:00+00:00

Curfew was approaching fast, but this time, we’d actually finished up our sketches for the evening. Even with getting distracted, we managed to sketch out pretty good pieces for each of our dreams. His, of course, much better than mine, but even my drawing of him having coffee with Chloe in Italy turned out decent. Watching him pack up his pencils and sketchpad, I realized it had been a long time since I had allowed myself to trust anyone. And I was beginning to believe that I’d been closed off for no reason. My unwillingness to let people in had cost me so much. I should have trusted Dylan and Elena more. They were my family, and I had kept them at arm’s length.

“My dorm tomorrow?” he asked.

“Sure.” This would give me the chance to see his room.

“Cool.”

A knock on the door was loud and sharp. Just as I was about to call out, the door opened, and Ms. Howell’s head poked in.

“Oh! Ms. Howell, you’re back. I hope your family is okay. We were just working on our dream journal.”

“Yes. Thank you. I hope your work this week is better than what you presented last time.” She looked to Gabriel, “But it’s time to go. Curfew.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Gabriel said as she disappeared into the hall.

He took the two steps over to me and tilted my chin to him. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Kissing me lightly across my jaw until he reached my mouth, where he whispered against my lips, “Goodnight, Lucia.”

A little breathless, I managed, “Night.”

And he swept out the door, closing it behind him.

I took my time getting ready for bed, set my alarm, and crawled under the covers. I thought for a moment about leaving on the light, but I hadn’t left it on since the night Chloe stayed over. I hadn’t felt the need to. Ever since telling her the truth of the attacks, I felt safer, like nothing could harm me now that I wasn’t alone in this. How much of my fear had been isolation? I turned off my light, pulled the blankets over my shoulders, and nestled down into my bed, feeling lighter and freer than I had in a while.

It was after school, and the hallways were already empty. I hadn’t realized that I had taken so long to get to my locker; I didn’t remember taking longer than usual. Maybe everyone else just had places to be, or maybe I was late to class again. I couldn’t remember where I needed to be next. The hall looked strange. I didn’t remember it looking like this before. Was I at the right locker? This hallway seemed longer than I remembered, and the ceiling was lower. It felt more enclosed, tighter. I don’t think I’d ever been in this part of the school before. That’s weird. This was a small school. I thought I had been everywhere in the manor house, but these lockers and this hall—they were not the same.

There were no windows in the hallway.

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