All day long, I had been waiting for that one sound. The sound that would bring an end to my misery. The doorbell. And when the dull ring finally reached my ears, I practically skipped to the front door.
Swinging the door wide open, I begged with pleading eyes. “Save me, please!”
Kieran just laughed my theatrics away. With a shake of his head, he didn’t wait for an invitation but simply brushed past me.
“No!” I reached for Kieran’s arm and pulled him to a stop — well, pull is a big word. More likely, Kieran stopped all by himself. “You can not go inside. You need to take me somewhere. Anywhere.”
“Don’t make it sound like you’ve been held prisoner in this house.”
“But I haven’t left in almost a week. Kieran, that’s as close to being a prisoner as I will ever get. There’s nothing for me to do here.”
“You don’t need me to tell you that it’s for your own —”
“Safety? I know, Kieran. Don reminds me of the danger on a daily basis.”
“Then you understand it is not wise to go out and about unless the situation absolutely requires it.”
The thought of spending yet another afternoon inside Don’s house, watching senseless TV, caused panic to rise within me.
Before then, I’d never really felt claustrophobic. But if nothing changed soon, I would.
“Kieran, please. I will lose my mind if I don’t feel the sun on my skin, breathe in fresh air, smell that lovely nature…”
Kieran sighed. “You are aware of the rain outside, right? So even if I were to agree, you would not be feeling a lot of sun on your skin.”
“Don’t take everything so literally.” I looked away from Kieran and gazed through the half-open front door. Wistfully. When my eyes met Kieran’s again, I was prepared to drop to my knees if necessary. “Please, Kieran. I really need this. If you take me somewhere else, anywhere but here, I will do anything you want. You can ask me anything, I promise, pinkie-swear.”
“Fine then. Go put on some shoes and a coat. We will go someplace else for a little bit. But, understand that we will not be gone long and there will not be any complaining when I decide we’re coming back.”
“Okay!” I hollered over my shoulder, because I had already run halfway through the house in search of my shoes by the time Kieran finished speaking.
Apparently, my babysitters needed to keep Don updated on my whereabouts. This was something I was not told but found out when Kieran and I closed Don’s front door behind me and he instantly reached for his phone. Even though this was a measure for my own safety, I still felt like my privacy was violated. While I could make a big fuss about it, I decided to let it slide and focused instead on the fact that I was outside. Even the rain let up after a while.
Kieran and I walked around town for a little bit, receiving stares from nearly every single person we crossed paths with. The uncertainty of the reason behind the stares let itself be known by upsetting my stomach. Borderline nauseous, I kept close to Kieran’s side and tried to stare at my own two feet instead of paying attention to the passersby.But there was no escaping the openly curious people who stopped right in front of us, eager to have a chat. One of those people was an elderly man, who wore a suit and hat, and held a cane in is left hand.
“Good afternoon, Kieran,” the man said with a nod in his direction, but his gaze was directed at me. He didn’t wait for Kieran to greet him back. “And you must be the daughter of Mr. Evers.”
VOUS LISEZ
Mountain River Girl
Roman pour AdolescentsSeventeen years ago, a baby was found at the edge of the forest and later raised by the villagers as their own. While Seda grew up, she often wondered about her heritage, her history and why her parents left her to fend on her own. Every attempt a...
