Yet, for as much as I could rationally point out to myself that I was probably safe, I didn’t feel safe. I felt exposed, like a lamb waiting for slaughter. All someone had to do was drive through town and they would see me, walking around, working, acting like nothing was wrong. It had me looking over my shoulder constantly, sure I heard someone following me. Every car door was someone coming for me.
I had to block it out. There was work to do, and I was still the new girl. As unsafe as I felt, there were people in our area who lived in fear of a lot of things that were much more realistic than someone coming for me in a sleepy mountain town that no one knew where I was.
As my lunch break came, I grabbed my things and headed outside. It was getting bitter cold, but I needed to not be in the store. Not only did I want the privacy to make the call to Sammi, but I was feeling closed up in there, like I was in a box. If someone came for me there, I had no escape. I was a sitting duck. That type of thought wasn’t going to help me stay sane, so I needed to talk to Sammi and calm my ass down. I just hoped she had a better coping mechanism than wine, since I couldn’t exactly drink on the job.
“Hey, Desi,” she said as her face popped up on the screen. I balanced my phone on the wheel so she was dead on in front of me rather than on the holder on the dash.
“Hey, Sammi,” I said.
“What’s going on, girl?” she asked, pulling a tripod out from the corner of her room and standing it up. I rolled my eyes.
“Just worried,” I said. “About everything.”
“It’s going to be okay, hon,” Sammi said, moving the phone to the tripod’s little holder. Sammi was a master of selfie technology and had every method of holding a phone that didn’t involve her actively holding a phone.
“I just keep finding myself looking over my shoulder all the time, you know?”
Sammi sighed.
“I know, but I was talking to Dad about it,” she said. “He thinks that you should be on guard, but don’t get all wonky. He said wonky people, especially new wonky people, stick out.”
“Is that a scientific term? Wonky?”
“Shut up. But he said that these threats usually don’t pan out. They just want to scare you into not coming back and taking revenge or whatever. That said, we have a safe house in the city we can move you to that would keep you super, super protected.”
“No. I definitely don’t want to be holed up in a safe house.”
“What’s the difference?” Sammi said. “Holed up in a house in the mountains with snow or holed up in a safe house near your best friend? I know which one I would pick.”
“The house in the mountain still means I can live like a normal person, Sammi,” I said. “Or close to it anyway. If I were in the safe house, I would be under lock and key all the time and have to know the whole city is right outside that door.”
“I guess,” Sammi said. “But really, just keep an eye open. And if you feel like things are too dangerous, just give me the word. Dad’s ready to get on the road.”
It felt good to spend a little time talking to Sammi, but my lunch break was over far faster than I wanted. I finished work in a kind of funk, not really able to concentrate on anything in particular. My mind kept drifting back to the kiss in the kitchen with Aiden. Then to the call I got threatening me. Then to my father, who wanted so badly for me not to be involved in any of this.
Occasionally, work got in there somewhere.
When I got home, I had been there for a half hour or so before there was a knock on the door. I froze in the living room, waiting to hear anything else, something to give me an idea who it was. Carefully, I made my way to the door, stepping up on my toes to look through the peephole.
It was Aiden. He had something behind his back, but he looked alone. That boyish grin was on his face. Carefully, I opened the door.
“Aiden?” I asked as the door cracked open enough to see him.
“Hey, Desiree,” he said.
From behind him, he produced a bouquet of various colored roses. They were beautiful, and for a moment, I let my guard down. I let the door slide open the rest of the way and took the flowers from him.
“Come on in,” I said. “These are beautiful.”
Aiden shut the door behind him, and I walked across the living room to the kitchen to get a vase. It was then that I realized I didn’t have one. What I did have was a super-large fast-food cup. It was going to have to do. Emptying it out and washing it quickly, I then filled it with water and rested the flowers inside and against the wall.