The Lucky One by Jessica Payne

Author:Jessica Payne [Payne, Jessica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781803146584
Published: 2022-09-13T16:00:00+00:00

FORTY-EIGHT

TEN YEARS AGO

“Can’t you just be normal?”

My father’s words resonated through me, over and over. He’d yelled them when I broke down in tears after the mail carrier rang the doorbell. After I’d refused to go out to dinner with him. When I’d declined movie night.

Instead, I lay asleep in the same bed I’d slumbered in for a decade, but I wasn’t the same child. The same teenager. My hands gripped the blanket for dear life. I felt cold, so cold, like I might never be warm again. My chest squeezed, and every time the air conditioner clicked on or a branch swayed, brushing against the house, I was sure it was him.

Hansel.

He said he’d wait for me.

He said he wanted me forever.

I took finals but skipped graduation. I avoided the stares of my fellow students, and shut my phone off rather than see Janie’s calls. When she came knocking at the door, I pretended I wasn’t home. She looked just like August, and worse, I should have been the one checking on her. I gazed at photos of my mother, wondering if she came back, if maybe then I’d feel safe again.

Every time I shut my eyes, I’d see him. The darkness was like him—all encompassing, like death. And August, poor August.

I should have kept us safe. I should have locked the doors. We should have never left prom early. If only I were normal—a normal teenage girl who liked prom. If only we’d stayed with Janie and Esme.

If only, if only…

“Norah?” My father’s light knock on the door all but sends me into another panic attack.

“Yeah?” I sit up, pray he won’t notice how tight and fearful my voice sounds even to me.

He opens the door, comes in in the darkness. “Honey, you can’t change the past.” His weight dips on the bed. His hand lands on my ankle over the covers. I have to inhale to keep from yanking away from his touch. We’ve never been close, never ones to hug spontaneously or tell one another we love each other—but casual touch was never a problem before. Now? Now, it’s different.

“I know,” I say, but not because he’s right. He’s not. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know what it’s like to nearly die at a serial killer’s hands. He doesn’t know what it’s like, thinking said serial killer might be lying in wait, ready to grab me the moment I’m vulnerable.

“So you have to look to the future.”

I swallowed back the reality—that he was still out there. Waiting for me. That Hansel was my future, even if it was me figuring out how to keep myself safe from him always. The police had no new leads. I had no hope they’d catch him, not now.

I’d come to accept a new reality—that I have to make myself invulnerable. And until then, I was in danger.

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