As I stared at the fifty dollar bill on the table, Grayson made her way over from visiting with the guys who’d stolen her attention. I tried to pull my eyes away from the money, but it wasn’t until after Gray had introduced herself and forced Ben to scoot over, into me, that I realized what was going on. I slid all the way to the wall, barely making enough room for my sister, with Ben pressed up against me.
Once our food came, we ate in relative silence. Gray got up quite a few times to refill her cup, use the bathroom again, and basically do whatever she could to speak to the hot guys that were already in the restaurant and those that arrived while we were eating. A lot of them were older than me by at least four or five years. Gray didn’t care. She would flirt with a dad if he was hot.
I wasn’t even all the way inside of the kitchen when Grayson started complaining about Sam to me. “Can you believe that jerk?” she shouted. “Where does he get off trying to tell me who I can and can’t talk to?”She went to the refrigerator and slung the door open so wide, it shook. I gave her a minute to get her drink and close the door.
I stared at my grandma with my mouth agape, trying to figure out what she was talking about. “I did?” I repeated. She thought that I had turned my twenty dollar bill into a fifty and then back again? “You mean… you think that I hallucinated it or something?”Grandma shook her head. “No, honey. You changed it. You changed it back. Listen
Joshua’s words hit me right in the gut. I didn’t understand what he meant, and I was afraid to ask. But I did it anyway. “What do you mean the Parkers want me?”His brown eyes didn’t quite meet mine when he said, “It’s complicated, Harlow, and I probably shouldn’t get into all of that. It’s just… I know how these
“Mom!” I shouted, running across the yard to catch up to my mother before she made it inside. She stopped and turned to look at me, a little surprised, either at hearing me shouting her name so frantically or seeing me come out of the woods. Maybe both. I didn’t mean to sound desperate, but I also didn’t want her to go inside before I spoke to her. I didn’t want Gray to know that I'd ratted her out if I could avoid it.
That night, I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, as I did most nights, but I wasn’t just listening to the cries of the wolves from the woods this time. No, I was also listening for noises inside of the house. I was listening for Gray, wondering if she would try to leave the house. I knew my mom had talked to her after dinner, and I had to assume they’d gone to some lengths to attempt to secure the doors, but it was a lot harder to lock someone in then it was to lock someone out. They couldn’t put a lock on her bedroom door either, or else she wouldn’t be able to get to the bathroom. So… I lay awake, hoping she didn’t try to sneak out and wishin
The sound of the axe thunking through the wood as someone chopped wood led me to the Ford house, not that I didn’t know how to get there by now. As I walked through the woods, the flowers opened to greet me. It was so strange. They danced and bowed their blooms, like small animals greeting their owner. I even found myself wishing them a good morning and welcoming a few new patches. These were blue, the same shade as Ben’s eyes.
I walked in the kitchen door a few minutes after leaving the Ford place to find Grandma eating a bowl of oatmeal. She set her spoon in her bowl and smiled at me. “Good morning, dear. Been out in the woods already?”I arched an eyebrow at her. Did she really not know about my little adventure in the middle of the night? I couldn’t tell by looking at her, b