The apartment block sighs around me, yeah all the apartments are full, but that means nothing. Not even a locked door will stop them. If the monsters decide they want you, and you are ripe for plucking—they’ll take you.
3
Julie
When I open the door, my apartment is cold and dark. I flick on a light, expecting all the furniture to be gone, but the tired sofa is still there. The TV that I bought for us is gone though. Annoyance bubbles up and I exhale, pushing it back down. It’s okay. He can have the TV as long as I get the claw back.
I walk through the apartment, hoping there are other things missing. That he’s taken enough to pay his debt and get my necklace back. Nothing else appears to be missing—not that there was much more to take—until I reach the bedroom. There’s nothing on his bedside table. I fling open the wardrobe and find only empty rails where his clothes had hung. I rip open the drawers where he kept his socks, but even they’re gone.
My bottom lip quivers so I bite it hard, which only makes my eyes prickle.
“No.” He can’t really be gone. I know I gave him an ultimatum, but I didn’t think he’d leave. I thought he loved me and that he wanted to get help. Why did I let my anger push him away? He’s right. I am a bitch. I should know better than to lose control and lash out.
I stumble into the bathroom and open the bathroom cabinet, hoping to see his toothbrush and razor, but even they are missing.
A sob tears out of my lungs.
He left me. He actually left me. I should’ve tried harder to help him. But what else could I do when he didn’t want to do anything?
I slump to the floor, not knowing what to do next. Or if I want to do anything at all.
A tiny part of me is relieved. I no longer have to worry about what will go missing next. I don’t need to worry about him spending the grocery or rent money on drugs or alcohol. I don’t need to keep asking him to get a job and help out.
He was useless. He was dragging you down.A little voice whispers.
But he loved me.
Or at least I thought he did.
As I look around the deserted bedroom, I don’t know if that’s true. Did he ever love me? Am I that unlovable?
I know Bret has issues—who doesn’t? I can’t share mine as easily as some, not unless I wanted to end up medicated in a white room.
I pull my phone out of my pocket, but don’t know who to call.
A year ago, a friend claimed Bret was using me and that I could do better. She said I was holding onto who he had been. Bret had called her a bitch and said she’d always hated him. I stopped talking to her. I don’t speak to any of those friends now, so I have no one to call.
I sniff and it seems to echo around me.
I should call him, and make sure that he’s alive and okay, the way I have so many times when he hasn’t come home. But I stop myself before I even unlock it. He left. He doesn’t want me, and I don’t want to be that pathetic girl who’s always texting her ex and begging him to come back.
Even though that is exactly what I want to do.
I don’t want to be alone, especially at night. My hand darts to my neck for what must be the hundredth time today. The pang of loss hasn’t eased. I let the tears that I’ve held back all-day form and flow. My heart breaks and crumbles and my throat tightens until it’s hard to breathe through the thickness and weight of fear and loss.
I lie on the floor staring at the dust under the bed. Eventually there are no more tears and I’m exhausted. My body aches like it’s been wrung out. I’m still wearing my white shirt and black skirt. I have my bag to unpack and homework to do, but I can’t move.
If I stare at the space beneath the bed all night, then maybe nothing will happen, and I’ll be safe. So I make the promise to myself not to sleep, but to watch.
My phone is in my hand, though who I’ll call if something clawed and horrible reaches out, I don’t know. The police will arrive too late to help.
Gran is too far away.
And this is my fault, anyway.
Maybe I deserve to be taken.
I’ve made so many mistakes even though I’ve tried to be good. I’ve tried to be kind and patient and caring. I stare at my fingers curled around my phone, but they don’t change into claws. The scars on my wrist remain white.