by Amy Crandall
Glancing at the time on her phone, she sighed. She couldn’t turn in a paper that she could barely read over through her blurred vision, so she decided it would be okay to rest her eyes for a moment. Laying her head on the desk beside her laptop, Abigale let her eyelids close over her bloodshot eyes. Slowly, the sounds around her—the whirring noise of the laptop and the gentle breeze pushing against the siding of the house—faded.
After what only seemed like minutes, Abigale awoke, startled by a pinging noise. She lifted her head, her vision blurry from lack of sleep, and focused on the bright light emitting from the computer screen. Concentrating hard, she focused on the message that had popped across the screen, indicating she had a new Facebook notification. She checked the corner of the screen. Who would be texting her at two in the morning?
Curious, Abigale rubbed her face and sat up. She clicked into Facebook Messenger and frowned at the name that came across the screen.
DarkHeart434 had sent her a message.
Abigale was even more confused. She didn’t know any DarkHeart434. Why were they texting her? Did they have the wrong profile? Were they looking for another Abigale Fern?
She clicked into the message and waited while the webpage loaded slower than she would have liked. When she read the message, a cold feeling spread from the top of her head and crawled its way down her spine. She read it again. Once. Twice. Three times.
DarkHeart434: You can’t trust him, dearest Abigale. He’s no good for you.
Abigale pressed her fingers to the keys of her laptop and typed furiously. There was no doubt she was frightened. Who were they talking about? Who was no good for her? With a sinking feeling in her chest, she realized that this could be the person who broke into her house a week ago and left the note. Who else would call her dearest? She shuddered every time she read or heard it.
Abigale: Who are you? Who’s no good for me? Are you sure you don’t have the wrong person? I don’t know you…
She waited with baited breath for nearly three minutes, frightened for what DarkHeart434’s reply would be. If they would reply to her, that is.
Abigale’s breath caught in her throat when her message was marked as read. Soon after, three dots popped across her screen. She clenched her hands into fists, more chills making her skin crawl. Her pulse accelerated when the three dots disappeared, and a couple of seconds later a new message popped up.
DarkHeart434: You’ll know me soon enough, dearest Abigale. Didn’t you get my first note? I promised I’d come for you.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Abigale’s whole body trembled with fright. DarkHeart434 was the person who’d broken into her house a week earlier. DarkHeart434 was the one who told her he’d come for her.
DarkHeart434 was the one who told her she was his.
The three dots appeared again, and Abigale stared at the laptop screen in panic. Another message popped up across the screen, an emoticon of a rose. A red rose.
Abigale froze, her heart beating hard against her ribcage. Her growing suspicions were correct. DarkHeart434 was the one who filled her with fear and uncertainty that night, the one who was filling her with fear now.
She slammed the laptop shut. Every muscle shook from fright. She couldn’t even brush it off as a prank like she did with the last incident. No, this was more serious than a prank.
Abigale stood from her chair, tucking it under the desk. She then walked over to the curtains. With her fingers sliding down the smooth fabric, she jerked them shut, cutting off the outside world.
She turned to her bed, which had been put in two days after the incident. To say that she was grateful for being able to sleep in her own bed was an understatement.
Before she climbed into her bed, Abigale made sure to flick a lamp on. After being spooked like that, she didn’t even want to attempt trying to sleep in the dark.
Abigale laid back, her hair spilling out over the pillow. She pulled the covers up, the fabric cocooning her in a protective casing. Her muscles relaxed, but she still didn’t feel safe. At every small sound that came from outside, her head would jerk to the window and she’d have to clap a hand over her mouth to keep from yelping. She was worried that whoever had texted her was out there. Watching…waiting.
Pulling the covers over her body, she shut her eyes, her extremities shaking under the safety of the blankets.
***
Abigale awoke a few hours later to the light that filtered through the small crack in her curtains shining in her face. Her neck felt stiff, and when she lifted her head, she was at her desk, her reflection staring back at her from the black computer screen. An indentation of the computer keys covered her cheek. She cursed in a low voice, rubbing at her cheek as she examined how tired she looked. Her eyes were completely bloodshot and dark circles lined the spot underneath her eyelashes, making it appear like she’d overdone it with her eyeliner and rubbed remnants of mascara from her eyelashes on her skin.
Abigale sighed and forced herself to stand. She didn’t feel tired, probably because of the fire that seemed to course through her veins when she looked at her laptop. Everything from the past five hours came rushing back to her, causing her heart to race again. She frowned at her desk. She could have sworn she’d put herself to bed, but when she looked back at the sheets, they were crisp, unused.
Swallowing hard and not thinking too much of it, she walked past the desk and opened the door to her bedroom. By the smell of the food wafting upstairs, her mother was up.
She stumbled to the kitchen following the mouth-watering scent of pancakes. Abigale remembered when her mother would make pancakes all the time when she was a child. For the past few years, however, her mother had stopped making them for breakfast. Abigale had to resort to making toast every morning. She always wondered why, and her mother could never give her an actual explanation when she asked.
She was greeted by her mother’s smiling face. Abigale hadn’t seen that smile for a long time, and it took her back. Why, after years of her being a serious and uptight person, was her mother suddenly being so cheerful?
Was her hunch correct? Was her mother seeing someone else besides her father? Abigale hadn’t heard from her father since that day her mother abruptly forced them to move. Her chest tightened when she remembered how he left the house. Even though he’d been angered by her mother’s words, he still hugged Abigale good-bye. To think that could have been the last time she ever saw her father was causing her to tear up. Where was he? Why hadn’t he called back after the many times she’d tried to contact him?
“Good morning, Abigale,” said her mother, snapping Abigale out of her thoughts.
“Good morning.”
“Did you sleep well?” her mother asked, flipping a pancake onto a plate. She offered it to Abigale, who took the plate gratefully.
“Not really,” Abigale admitted. “I was writing an essay and fell asleep on the desk. Kept waking up throughout the night, though.”
Her mother’s eyebrows shot up in concern. “Is everything okay? You’ve never had troubles sleeping before.”
That was before I started receiving creepy messages.
Instead of bothering her mother with that fact, Abigale only shrugged. She got a fork from the drawer, then spread syrup over the pancake with the bottle sitting on the counter. She leaned her back on the granite and began to eat like she hadn’t eaten in days. In some ways, it certainly felt like it. This was the first home-cooked meal they’d had in the new house. Since they’d only just gotten the stove installed the night before, Abigale had been getting used to crappy takeout food.
“Don’t eat that too fast,” her mother laughed. “You’ll get a stomachache.”
“Eh, I’ll survive.”
Her mother flipped another pancake onto Abigale’s plate, her features turning serious. “I’m not going to be here when you get home. I was invited to dinner.”
Panic rose from the pit of her stomach. The last time her mother had been out with
someone, their house was broken into with Abigale still inside. “With who?”
A slow blush worked its way onto her mother’s cheeks. “A friend.”
“A friend?” Abigale echoed suspiciously.
“Yes.”
“What’s this friend’s gender?”
“It’s none of your business,” said her mother, suddenly stern. She placed the pan used to cook the pancakes in the sink.
“It is if you’re cheating on Dad, Mom,” Abigale said boldly, sliding her empty plate across the counter. She licked the stray syrup from her fingers and stared her mother down, waiting for a reply.
Her gaze was hard. “It’s none of your business, Abigale.”
Abigale was on a roll. “Where’s Dad? Why did we leave him in San Francisco? Why hasn’t he answered the thousand calls I’ve made? Mom, what happened?”
“Go get ready for school,” her mother said coolly. “We’re leaving in a half hour.”
Abigale clenched her fists. Why wasn’t her mother telling her anything? Where the hell was her father? Instead of pressing for answers any longer, she spun on her heel and went upstairs to get changed.
If her mother wasn’t going to tell her where her father was, she would have to do some digging herself.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Over the next few days, Abigale refrained from every type of social media and didn’t participate in anything out of the ordinary. She woke up, got ready for school, went to school, came back home, and locked herself in her room until morning. She did not stray from that schedule for fear of what could occur if she did. The messages she’d received from DarkHeart434 frightened her to the core. She didn’t know what was going on, and she certainly didn’t feel safe.
It was becoming increasingly difficult for her to sleep at night. Abigale found herself staying up until six in the morning. After sleeping for an hour, she’d have to get up to get ready for school. One hour of sleep a night was certainly taking a toll on her, and by Friday she was barely able to get out of bed by seven-thirty.
She was late for school and had to run to her first class before she was marked absent. She stopped by her locker on the way to retrieve her binder and math textbook. When she reached for her binder, a small wad of paper fell out of her locker. Abigale froze, looking down at the paper with suspicion and fear. So far, she’d been given one note on paper and been sent one online.
Abigale’s eyes flicked up to her open locker. There wasn’t anything else out of the ordinary that was visible, such as a rose. She relaxed a bit. Maybe it wasn’t from DarkHeart434 after all.
As the bell signaling the start of class rang, Abigale reached down to collect the paper from the floor. Carefully unfolding it, her fingers fumbled with the edges. She smoothed the creases of the paper on her locker door. When she saw its contents, her shoulders dropped and the panic in the back of her head subsided.
It was blank.
Abigale crumpled the paper in her fist. She was being too paranoid. There was no way DarkHeart434 would have left a note in her locker. Why would they? Smiling at her stupidity, she collected her textbook and binder and walked down the hallway to class.
***
“Abigale,” Jules said impatiently from across the table, “are you even listening to what I’m saying?”
Abigale straightened in her chair. “Oh! Sorry, Jules. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”
Jules raised an eyebrow. “That’s been your excuse for the past week, Abby. Is there something going on with you?”
Looking nervously around the cafeteria at her classmates, Abigale cleared her throat. “Um…nothing is going on. It’s fine.”
“Doesn’t sound like nothing,” Rachel piped up, her worried gaze prominent. “Do I have to talk to someone? Has someone been bothering you?”
“What?” Abigale’s eyes widened. “No! Everyone’s been nice here.”
Except for Bethany, of course.
Jules twirled some of her blonde hair around her fingertips and stared at Abigale for a while, a calculated look etched across her features. Something was wrong, and Abigale knew she wouldn’t let it go until she found out exactly what it was. It frightened her. She didn’t want anyone to know about what was going on, but a part of her wanted to have someone to talk to. But she had so many concerns. Would they treat her differently? Would they stop hanging around her? Would she lose her friends for good because a creep was trying to communicate with her?
“So,” she said in an attempt to break the silence, “where are Bethany and Mike? I thought they were supposed to be meeting us for lunch?”
Just as Abigale finished her sentence, Bethany stormed into the cafeteria. She appeared angry. Abigale tensed up as she stalked toward the trio’s table. Bethany’s focus zeroed in on her, and she knew she was in trouble.
Bethany stopped in front of the table, refusing to take a seat when Abigale offered it to her.
“Get up,” Bethany snapped. “We need to talk.”
Abigale flashed a panicked look toward Jules and Rachel, who appeared equally concerned. She gulped. “What’s wrong, Bethany?”
Abigale noticed a small group of preppy students looking their way. They seemed intrigued by the conversation, and she observed hands exchanging cash discreetly. They were betting on the two of them, and by the furious countenance that Bethany had, Abigale believed a fight was about to break out.
“You ruined my relationship with Mike,” Bethany stated in a steely calm voice.
“Wh-what do you mean?”
“I mean,” she continued, her tone rising a few octaves, “Mike just broke up with me because of you! You come in here all innocent and introverted, expecting everyone to fall all over you. Oh, I have you all figured out, Abigale Fern. You’re no saint. You’re just a bitch who wants to take everything and everyone for yourself!”
Abigale stood, holding her palms in front of her defensively. “Look, Bethany, I don’t know what Mike told you, but I’ve kept my distance from the two of you. He’s the one that’s been coming after—”
Suddenly, Abigale’s back was slammed against the hard floor of the cafeteria. She let out a strangled gasp of air as the wind was knocked out of her. Jules and Rachel were looking down at her from the table with horrified expressions. Jules, perched on the edge of her seat, appeared ready to spring into action at any moment. Rachel was close behind her.
“Coming after you? Please! Do you know how many times I’ve caught you staring at him like he was yours? It was pathetic!”
Abigale shook her head, trying to clear her muddled thoughts. “No, what’s pathetic is that you were so worried about me that you didn’t pay any attention to him!”
At her words, Bethany lunged. Luckily, she was stopped by Jules, who jumped up to stand in between her and Abigale at the last minute. Half of the school was now lined up across the cafeteria, watching the fight unfold. Abigale was in too much pain to care about the giggling students snapping pictures of the display.
She hadn’t tried to sit up yet; she was worried Bethany would just push her back down again. Rachel grabbed Bethany’s arms, holding them behind her back like she was arresting her. She whispered something in her ear that caused Bethany’s shoulders to slump in submission. However, her brown eyes still blazed with pure fury as she glowered down at Abigale.
Jules turned from the two girls to offer Abigale a hand up, and she took it gratefully. Once she was confident that nothing was seriously injured, Abigale addressed Bethany. “Did you ever think about the fact that Mike may have just had enough of your clingy, obsessive behavior, Beth? Did you ever think about the fact that he may not like you looking at other guys?”
The fury in Bethany’s eyes faded. Abigale wasn’t finished.
“Yes, Bethany. I saw you staring at Donny the other day. Were you cheating on Mike? Did he know about it? Did he actually tell you why he was done? Did he outright say I was the reason? I’d think not, considering you’re not even trying to deny it.”
“Let go of me,” Bethany snapped, ripping her arms out of Rachel’s grip. Rachel and Jules exchanged a meaningful glance, and Abigale couldn’t decide what they were trying to say.
“You’re wrong,” Bethany said. “He did say why he was done. Do you know what he said to me, Abigale?”
Abigale kept her gaze level with Bethany’s, somehow knowing exactly what Bethany was about to tell her.
Tears rolled down Bethany’s cheeks. “He said he was falling for someone else. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what he meant by it, does it?”
Again, Abigale kept quiet. She watched as Bethany fled, tears streaming down the blonde girl’s face.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The day after she found out about Bethany and Mike’s breakup, Abigale noticed that Mike was beginning to hang around her a lot more. In between classes he’d always be waiting at her locker, casually leaning against the neighboring one while he pretended to look busy on his phone until she walked up. He’d offered to walk her to class more than once throughout the day. At morning break, he asked her if she’d eat lunch with him.
She wanted to scream, You just broke up with your girlfriend yesterday! Don’t you have any decency to wait before taking an interest in someone else?
However, she didn’t say that. She couldn’t. As much as she hated to admit it, she was developing some feelings for him too. Abigale wanted to slam her head on a locker door for feeling that way about someone who just broke up with their girlfriend a literal day earlier. As the day went on, she began to suspect that maybe she was the reason he broke up with Bethany.
What had Bethany shouted yesterday? He said he was falling for someone else.