I didn’t understand why he was going to so much trouble. Why had he come in to get me in the first place? Why hadn’t he just called the police? Anyone else would have dialed 911, complained about the noise, and left it at that.
Suddenly I realized—he had heard me. No one had ever heard me before. Why him? Why now? Wasn’t he supposed to be at work?
I glanced over at the digital clock on his microwave. It read 3:37 am, so he was home early. I knew his work hours kept him out all night. Most likely he’d never been home to hear me during one of those attacks.
It was painfully awkward to sit in silence and stare at him, but I didn’t want him to ask about what was happening in my apartment. In my experience, once people got to know me, they tended to act like my brand of crazy might be contagious. With him, I had a clean slate—at least for a little while. I wanted to savor it while it lasted, so I didn’t dare say a word.
He glanced up at me so suddenly I startled. His bizarre eyes caught in the dim light of the room and shimmered in hues of soft lavender and vivid violet.
“What?” he asked with a frown.
“Nothing! It’s uh … I don’t even know your name.” I blurted out the first excuse I could think of.
He rolled his eyes, looking back down at my arms as he finished tying off the last strip of gauze. “Zeph,” he answered. “Zeph Clemmont.”
Zeph. I’d never heard that name before. It sounded kind of exotic. Then again, he wasn’t exactly what most people would call average-looking.
“Your eyes are kinda strange,” I blurted again before I could stop myself.
His eyes narrowed slightly, making one corner of his mouth scrunch as though he wasn’t sure if he should be insulted.
“I-I mean I’ve never seen anyone with purple eyes like that.” I frantically tried to explain myself. “I bet people ask you all the time if you wear contacts.”
Zeph shrugged as he gathered up his medical supplies. “It’s a genetic thing,” he mumbled. “Is there anyone you can stay with tonight? A friend or something?”
“A friend?” I gaped at him for a moment like he was speaking a foreign language. Then I remembered normal people had those. I slowly shook my head. “N-no. It’s fine, though. I can just go back to my apartment. I’ll give my cousin a call tomorrow. He looks in on me sometimes.”
The corner of Zeph’s mouth twitched into a smirk, as though he wasn’t buying one inch of that story. “Cousin, huh?”
“His name is Ben,” I said as convincingly as possible. “He exists. Don’t look at me like that. I’m not lying.”
“Whatever you say, princess. You should probably let someone know what happened, though, even if you don’t want to call the cops. Not a good idea for you to stay there tonight since I busted your door down. It isn’t safe.”
I wanted to tell him it didn’t matter if I had a front door or not; I was never safe over there. I hung my head instead, watching out of the corner of my eye as Zeph stood up and went into the kitchen. He rooted around in his cabinets and finally came back with a jumbo-sized can of sliced peaches, a fork, and a big glass of milk. He sat down next to me again and gulped down half the glass of milk in one noisy slurp.
“I guess you can borrow my couch for tonight,” he offered so casually that at first, I didn’t realize what he’d said.
Then it clicked. “Wait, what? You mean I can stay here?”
“Well, it’s that or you sleep in the hallway, right?” He had a mouthful of sliced peaches.
“But you don’t even know my name,” I protested. He was right, though. I had nowhere else to go.
He glanced sideways at me through some of his long, messy bangs. “So what is it?”
“Uh,” I stammered. It was hard to answer when he was looking at me like that. “It’s Josie.”
“Josie who?”
I was really hoping he wouldn’t ask me about my last name—or anything else specific about my life. If Child Protective Services ever got wind of my living situation, I knew they’d pull me out of school and send me to live with strangers. I’d gotten a small taste of foster care after Dad died, and I was not eager for seconds.
But I couldn’t lie. Not when he was glaring at me like that. “Josie Barton.”
“And you live alone?” I could feel his gaze moving over me, sizing me up from the other side of the couch.
My face began to get hot, and I looked down at my lap. I didn’t want to answer that. “I-I need to go find my phone,” I tried to change the subject. I was already wondering how I could explain all this to Ben.
Zeph leaned over to one side and pulled his cell phone out of his back pocket. He tossed it into my lap and went back to his dinner of peaches and milk. “Call whoever you need to. I’ll stop by Mr. Bregger’s tomorrow and let him know I’m paying for the door, since that one’s my fault.”
The door was the least of my worries. Hadn’t he seen the rest of my apartment? It was an absolute wreck. It would take me all day to clean it again. I’d have to buy new picture frames and restock the refrigerator. I was worrying about all those things as I picked up Zeph’s cell phone. It was still warm from being in his pocket, and there was a picture of a beautiful night skyline as his background image.
“Is it okay for me to send an email?” I asked. “It’s probably too early to call him. I don’t want to wake him up.”
Zeph shrugged again and went on eating his peaches.
I logged into my email account and quickly typed a message to Ben. I tried to keep it as vague as possible, telling him there’d been an accident at my place. I told him it was my fault, but everything was okay now. I was going to stay with a friend for the night, so he didn’t have to worry.
It was a lie, of course. Calling Zeph a friend was a huge stretch. I doubted Ben would catch on, though. At least, I hoped he wouldn’t. I wasn’t confident in my skills of deception, even though I had never told him anything about my personal life. He didn’t know about the trips to the principal’s office or my visits with a doctor. I’d been careful about that, using cash to pay for the appointments so he wouldn’t see the charges on the credit card. He didn’t know anything about my ptsd outbursts, or how I saw things that weren’t there. I guess part of me was afraid that if he did find out, he might send me off to one of those mental hospitals himself.
“I’m going to bed,” Zeph announced as he swallowed the last slice of peach. He left all his dishes and the empty can on the coffee table as he stood and stretched. Then he held a hand out to me, wiggling his fingers like he wanted me to take it.
I was stunned.
It looked like an invitation. Was he … asking me to go to bed with him? I opened my mouth to speak, but all I did was make choking sounds.
“My phone,” he growled, frowning like he wasn’t sure why I was taking so long.
Now I was even more embarrassed. Way to go, Josie. Jumping to that conclusion right off the bat.
“Thank you for letting me stay here,” I squeaked as I handed him back his cell phone.
“Don’t worry about it.” He went to a closet in the hall and took out a spare pillow and blanket. He tossed them at me before disappearing down the hall. Somewhere out of sight, I heard a door shut.
For a moment, I sat there and stared around his apartment. It wasn’t much bigger than mine, although the layout was different. The kitchen and living room were combined, and the walls were painted a dark, soothing slate blue. His furniture was simple, just a dark brown leather sofa and two matching chairs. There were no decorative pieces anywhere—no pictures on the walls, only one rug that was too small for the room, and no artwork. There was nothing personal about the place at all, nothing to tell me about his life or who he was.
There was a stack of magazines on his coffee table, though. The first few were what I would expect a guy to have—about cars and fitness—but the third one down had a big picture of a busty woman straddling a motorcycle on the cover. Th
e one after that had two busty girls in string bikinis posing on the hood of a sleek black car. I stopped there because I was blushing like crazy. Did all guys keep these kinds of magazines lying around in the open like this?
Curling up under the blanket, I tried not to think about what had happened in my apartment. Whenever I closed my eyes, my skin crawled. It was as though I could still feel those cold fingers squeezing me.
I wished I hadn’t dropped my cell phone. I wished I could send Ben another message to make sure he believed me when I said everything was okay. I was terrified of him finding out how miserable I was. He’d told me once that there was no shame in asking him for help when I needed it. He was probably right, but that didn’t make the situation any less terrifying. I was already a financial burden to him. I didn’t want to be an emotional burden, too. I didn’t want him to think I couldn’t handle living by myself. If he found out about the things I saw, he might ship me off somewhere much worse than a special school.
The problem was … I needed help so badly I couldn’t stand it. My stupid pride and determination to be mature and rational about this was crumbling. I couldn’t handle this on my own for much longer. Things were getting way out of control. I’d been screaming for help for years now, praying someone would come.
Zeph Clemmont was the first person that had ever heard me.
I couldn’t remember the last time I had slept so long without being disturbed or woken up by something terrible ripping my apartment to shreds. Zeph’s apartment felt safe. It was quiet, warm, and everything stayed peaceful for the rest of the night. I slept like a log.
The sound of traffic woke me late the next morning. I squinted at the digital clock on the microwave again. At first, it didn’t matter to me what time it was. I didn’t care. I was comfortable in that hazy state of bliss, clinging to the first good dream I’d had in months—which happened to be about eating sushi from one of those neat restaurants with the conveyer belt that went around with seemingly endless delicious options. I’d never actually been to one, but seeing them featured on the cooking channels always piqued my interest. Yes, I dreamt about food. Go ahead, judge away.
Then it hit me.
It was almost noon.
All my delightful visions of a brightly colored sushi parade evaporated. My head popped off the pillow immediately. I bolted upright, snatching the blanket off my legs. I was late for school—extremely late. I’d already missed morning detention, which was a sentence leftover from another one of my outbursts earlier in the week, and most of my morning classes. Ms. Grear was going to be angry enough to breathe fire by the time I got to her office. Getting written up two days in a row was a new low, even for me.
“So, you’re alive.” A deep, masculine voice made me jump. Zeph was leaning on the kitchen counter, sipping a cup of coffee with a scheming grin on his face. “I was beginning to wonder if I needed to check for a pulse.”
“Oh no. No, no, no, no …” I couldn’t even put a sentence together as I scrambled to my feet and rushed to his door. “I’m late! I am so late!”
Zeph didn’t try to stop me as I unlocked the door and then flung it open wide.
I didn’t even get one foot outside. When I saw all the workers filing in and out of my apartment, I was too surprised to move. Men in matching uniforms were fixing my door, while others were carrying out bags of trash and mopping up the spilled food in the kitchen.
I stood in the doorway with my mouth open, staring, until I heard a loud sipping, slurping sound. Zeph was standing right behind me, drinking coffee like there was nothing at all strange about this.
“That cousin of yours works fast,” he observed casually. “They’ve been here all morning. I went ahead and told them I’d pay for the work on the door.”
“H-he didn’t have to do all this,” I whimpered. I was mortified at having all these people in my house, touching my things, and looking at the damage. It was like being violated somehow. “I could have cleaned it myself.”
Zeph snorted. “So I take it you won’t be filing a police report for a home invasion after all? Afraid cps will come for you?”
I flinched at that accusation and shot him a glare. “It’s none of your business.”
“It wasn’t,” he corrected me as he went sauntering back into his apartment. “Until I had to come rescue you and let you sleep on my sofa. Now, I’m involved.”
I slowly shut the door so none of the workers would overhear us. “Zeph, please don’t tell anyone about this, or that I’m living by myself. I turn eighteen in a few months, and then it’ll be legal for me to live alone. I can’t go into a foster home. It’ll ruin my school year and—”
“Can the waterworks, princess.” Zeph plopped down onto his sofa and started flipping through one of his non-pornographic magazines. “I’m not telling anyone. It’s your business, not mine.”
I sank back in relief, leaning against his front door and letting out a deep sigh. “Thank you.”
“You can thank me with some favors.” He took another noisy drink from his mug. “My silence won’t be free.”
I frowned as my relief swiftly devolved to suspicion. “Wait, are you blackmailing me?”
He shrugged slightly. “That’s an intense word for it. Let’s just say a few favors on your end would ease my guilty conscience about letting a little high-school girl live all by herself in an apartment that’s been vandalized.”
“It wasn’t vandalized, I … I did it myself!” I couldn’t keep my voice steady. It was easier to agree with the doctors and Ms. Grear—to blame myself rather than trying to explain the things I saw.
“Right. Sure.” He cocked an eyebrow.
I marched over to stand in front of him. “What kind of favors are you suggesting, exactly? It better not be anything like your gross magazines!”
He made a sarcastic snorting noise and shot me a cunning grin. “I was thinking more along the line of chores, actually. But if we’re going that route—”
“No! No we are not,” I interrupted. “Chores? You mean like doing your laundry?”
“I was thinking more like cooking.” He flashed me another appraising glance with those mesmerizing eyes before going back to his magazine. “I’m a vegetarian, though. So keep that in mind.”
I’d seen plenty of vegetarians before. Zeph did not look anything like a man who lived off broccoli, carrots, and kale salads. He had a robust, sturdy build even for a man of his height. His arms and chest were very toned beneath the thin, cotton undershirt he wore. I could see faint veins in his forearms and biceps as he sat there, nursing his coffee mug.
I narrowed my eyes suspiciously.
“Just leave whatever you make by the door.”
“How did you know I like to cook, anyway?”
He didn’t even look up from his magazine. “I can smell it when I leave for work. Smells good. And since you live alone, you must do your own cooking.”
I blushed a little because that almost sounded like a compliment—a watered-down, vague compliment. “And that’s it? You just want me to leave a bunch of food sitting outside your door?”
“Or bring it in. I don’t care.”
It was hard not to read too much into that. Was that an invitation come over and visit? I dared to dream. “Fine. I guess I’ll have to read up on vegetarian recipes.”
He grunted in agreement.
For a few minutes, everything was quiet except for the noise of the traffic outside and the workers fixing my apartment. I couldn’t help but realize what a total wreck I was. My long red hair was frizzy and falling out of its braid. I was still wearing pajamas that weren’t even remotely attractive. It made me even more self-conscious as I sat down on the opposite end of the couch from him.
“I guess I’m not going to school today,” I muttered to myself in defeat. I couldn’t even get inside my apartment to take a shower or retrieve my uniform. To be honest, my heart wasn’t in it anyway. I didn’t have th
e courage to endure another visit to Ms. Grear’s office.
“Don’t worry about it,” he grumbled. “One day won’t kill you.”
“In my case, it might. My school counselor absolutely hates me, and so do most of the other teachers and people at my school.”
Zeph finally glanced up from his magazine. He looked surprised. “Why? What’d you do?”
I looked down, fidgeting with my hands. “Well, you know. I’m crazy.”
“Crazy how?”
I forced a laugh, trying to play it off like it wasn’t a big deal. “Come on, you saw what I did to my apartment.”
He’d been referring to it like it was a real home invasion, but surely he didn’t believe that. Nothing was stolen. I hadn’t been murdered or kidnapped. So what would have been the point of anyone breaking in? Besides, it was a lot more believable for me to have a mental breakdown than to try to convince anyone there was an angry, dark spirit haunting my home.
He was scowling. “And?”
“And it’s like that all the time. I don’t remember doing it, but it had to be me. It couldn’t have been anyone else, right? It happens at school, too. I see things that aren’t there. The counselor says I’m causing a disturbance, and she’s right.”
“Your counselor sounds like an idiot.” He snorted. “You’re not crazy.”
“H-how can you say that?”
He went back to sipping his coffee as nonchalantly as ever. “Because, believe me, I know crazy. You’re weird, maybe even a little ditzy, but you’re not crazy.”
Before I could stop it, a grin wriggled up my face.
Being called crazy was terrible. I’d heard it whispered at my back so many times I’d lost count. It was like having a disease that everyone else was afraid of catching. All of a sudden, nothing about you was credible. But weird? Ditzy? Those were words I could live with. Those were tolerable things.
I’d never been tolerable to anyone before.
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