The Stolen Child by Emily Shiner

Author:Emily Shiner [Shiner, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-09-10T16:00:00+00:00

25

Bethany

After dropping Eliza back off at her house, I head home, taking my time on the curvy roads and stopping for longer than necessary at the stop signs. It feels really good to move slower, to feel like I have things under control.

And it’s all because Eliza has a secret that she wants to keep anyone from ever finding out.

“This is great!” I can’t help the words that spill from my lips as I pull into the parking lot in front of my apartment building. Who cares that the place looks like something from the set of a horror movie or that my neighbors give me the creeps? There’s an expiration date on me having to live here, and I feel like it’s coming up faster than I realized.

Eliza bought me so many things, all without complaining, that it takes me three trips to get everything hauled upstairs. Once I have my door locked and I drink a glass of water, I dump everything on my bed and step back to eyeball it.

New jeans. A few dresses. Plenty of tank tops and shirts. Three skirts and two pairs of sneakers. High heels and chunky platforms, which I’ve never bought before, because I didn’t think I had a place to wear them. Even some bras and new underwear, all of it silky and soft with cute little details like bows that will make me feel fancy while I’m wearing them.

I want to try on some of my new clothes, but before I do that, I sit on the bed and grab my phone, navigating to Instagram so I can check on what Eliza posted. She made a big stink about not posting on her mommy blog about the two of us becoming friends, which I don’t love, but she did tell me she’d post on Instagram.

I hope it’s one of the selfies the two of us took in fitting rooms. She kept telling me she was happy to wait outside the room for me, but I wanted her in there with me like a real friend, so I told her I wanted her to help me if I got stuck with a zipper.

“She posted,” I say, tapping on the first square on her page. Excitement rushes through me when I think about making it onto her Instagram twice in a week, but it quickly fades when the little square grows to take up the entire screen.

She posted, but she didn’t post with me in it. I feel anger, hot and fast, rush through me when I realize I’m not staring at a selfie of the two of us, our faces pressed together, matching grins on display for the camera, but one of her and Penelope.

Eliza’s crouching behind Penelope, her arms around the little girl, their faces next to each other as they both grin at the camera. It’s the first time all day I’ve seen Eliza look this happy, and the fact that I wasn’t the one who was able to make her smile like that really burns.

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