Fucking mob families.
I wait until later to go back, and when I do, Paul’s truck is gone. Less fortunately, it isn’t the stupid cell phone fuck guarding her tonight, but the guy who actually watches—and boy, is he watching tonight. I observe him for a few minutes, and I’ve actually seen him walk along the far side of the house and check the back yard twice in the ten minutes since Paul left.
It’s not a risk I want to take, and it’s not pressing enough to justify it.
I wish I could walk around back and just peek in her bedroom window, just to see her. The light’s on, so she’s probably in there.
But it’s not worth it. I need to talk to her, and I will, but Paul’s gone a lot. I’ll come back tomorrow, and hopefully then it will be the younger kid.
Tomorrow I will kiss her.
Tomorrow I will hold her.
Tomorrow I will warn Annabelle not to go to that goddamn party.
Annabelle
“Pack your shit.”
I heard Paul rustling around in the closet when he got home, but the weight of something being thrown on top of me as I lay curled up under my blankets gives me a jolt.
I don’t understand what he’s doing, but I don’t have the energy to deal with it. I’m not up to engaging and it shows as I roll over, scowling, then craning to see what he threw at me.
A suitcase.
“What?” I ask, bleary and confused.
He looks tired. Dim. Worn down. Older than last time I took a good, long look at him.
“Get up.”
I’m confused, and his words aren’t registering. They can’t. I don’t have the experience to reconcile his actions with his words.
“Why?”
“Because you need to pack. Your. Shit,” he says, enunciating slowly, like I’m especially dense.
“Why am I packing my shit?” Still frowning. Still confused. Still not getting it.
He sighs, like I’m being aggravating.
“Come on, Annabelle.”
I do sit up, slowly, but I’m still bewildered.
“You’re going to stay with your mom,” he says.
Fear coils around my gut like a snake, squeezing the breath right out of me. “What? No! No, I’m not.”
“You have to. You don’t have anywhere else to go,” he states, with the sureness of a man who never has his life decided for him.
I don’t know what I’m feeling. Well, terror. Terror. I don’t want to go. I can’t go back there.
“Why? Why? Are we going…?”
But I know before I ask, I know. I understand. He’s given up on me. It’s hard to wrap my head around it, after years of him fighting to hold onto me, of fighting me, I never thought I’d live to see the day he willingly released me. I’d fantasized about it a couple of times, but it wasn’t realistic so I didn’t make it so far as to plan where I would end up if he did.
He doesn’t meet my gaze. “Pack your clothes. What you need now, at least. I’ll send the rest later.”