Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 78884 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78884 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Aimee moved in with us when the lease on her place was up, but she and Aubry are looking for another place. When she first moved in and realized just how paranoid I really was—between my locked doors, alarm system, and my three-knocks-on-the-door code—she thought I was a little crazy. Even after knowing what happened to me, she doesn’t completely grasp what happened to me. I don’t blame her. I don’t think many people can understand it or fully believe it; it sounds like an episode of NCIS or something.
The recurring nightmare hasn’t come to me in a while and I know I should be happy about it, but it’s really bothering me. It’s not that I want to remember my mother lying in blood, but I want to remember the faces. The faces of the killers. Cole keeps asking me to see a therapist. He promises it’ll help to talk about what I remember. I went to a therapist for years, though. It only helped me because they gave me something to help me sleep. I just need to remember. When I remember, I’ll be fine. When I remember, I’ll move past it. I started keeping a box of memories. In it, I have the photos Shelley left me and her last letter. I also have a timeline that I’ve been working on and a diary that I’m using to write my memories in.
Recently, Cole and I have been discussing buying a house together. I know it’s a big step, but I also know that it’s not something we’ll regret. He thought it was hilarious when Aimee told him that their parents live across the street from the house from Home Alone. He keeps telling me that it’s a sign. I don’t think I should remind him what the plot was in that movie. Every Sunday we go house hunting, which can be pretty fun sometimes. We’ve driven by a couple of adorable-looking town homes in the city, but he says the yards are too small, and they all have stairs. It’s a big issue for me—the stairs.
“Remind me again why it is that you hate stairs?” Cole asks one afternoon as we’re driving by some big two-story homes.
“I hate the build-up of emotions related to them,” I say before I bite the inside of my cheek, waiting for him to start laughing at how stupid that sounds.
He chuckles and grabs my hand as we stop at a red light. “Baby, they’re just stairs. They don’t have emotions!” he says as his eyes twinkle at me.
I take a deep breath and shift my body to face him. “They’re not just stairs. Have you ever seen a movie with a one-story house? Stairs are a big deal. They’re such a big deal that you never have a scene of a girl walking toward her prom date without her walking down the stairs first. You never see a bride stroll through the hallway in her wedding dress. You always see her walk down the stairs. You never watch a scary movie where the main character doesn’t run up the stairs to get away from her attacker. In my case—in real life—I walked straight into my attacker. After I walked down.the.stairs. There is no way I want to own a house with stairs. No way.” The amused look in his eyes vanishes as he looks at me for a long moment before nodding his head once and continuing to drive. I let out a sigh of relief and turn to look out the window as one house catches my attention. It’s a white colonial style house with a pink front door and it’s beautiful. Too bad it’s two stories.
It’s dead winter and I swear, I’ll never get used to this weather, even though I’ve lived here my entire life. I think it’s a little strange, until I look around and see herds of people bundled up like pigs in a blanket. I am on my way to meet Cole for lunch at a little Irish restaurant in Michigan Avenue. As I’m walking—and trying not to slip in the icy street as I curse myself for wearing heeled boots—I spot a man among the pack of hungry vultures that work in corporate America. He’s looking right at me and it makes me cross my arms over my chest. He has short blond hair, almost shaved bald, and is very big. Something about the way he’s sneering at me makes the hairs on my arms stand up. As I’m approaching where he’s standing, I notice that he has two different color eyes. One is dark—black almost—the other is blue, I think.
I want to look away from this man—so bad because my stomach is in knots, but I cannot look away from his stare. As I get closer, I squint my eyes to get a better look at his face, and feel the air swish out of my body when I notice his dark eye is a glass eye. My step falters and I have to grab on to the wall beside me to keep my knees from giving out on me. I’m still looking at him when he leans away from the wall, still watching me intently. When I start to move again, I look down—breaking eye contact—to check if my bootie is stuck on something, and when I look back up he’s gone.