33 – A Friend in the Forest

Reed blinked, waking up feeling fully rested for the first time in months. The sun was up, but her bed was empty, save for her. She sat up, looking for Troy. He leaned against the wall by the window, watching her heavily.

“Did you sleep?” she said.

“Nah.”

“Why not?”

His expression said she knew and he didn’t want to say, but she most certainly did not know. It made all the crazy things he’d said the night before come careening back into her head, all those things that had almost been almost believable while the moon was up and the night was full. In the light of day, though, she didn’t think she could believe even one of them. Figures, she’d find the perfect man, and he’d be a complete fruitcake. Maybe they could make it work.

Reed put her feet on the ground, fully aware of just how naked she was. Wait. She thought back to the night before. Had she let him come inside her again? What in the hell was wrong with her!?

Reed wrapped a sheet around herself, thinking she needed a life coach or something. She’d never been so stupid before, why was she behaving this way? She headed straight for the bathroom, closing the door behind her, and stepped right into a scalding shower, thinking furiously as she soaped up on autopilot. She hoped he wouldn’t come in. She wasn’t ready for him to be in her bathroom yet. Her vagina was one thing, but her bathroom? That was private.

The hot water went cool, then cold, forcing her out of the shower. She took as long as she could in the bathroom, no closer to knowing what to do now. Wait, she did know what to do now. Get another job. Pull yourself out of your funk, Re-re, stop distracting yourself with dick and drama, stop thinking about running home to your mother, and get. a. job.

Right. Easy enough. She primped a little, but not too much, then headed out with a towel wrapped around her. He was still against the wall.

“Sexy,” he growled at her, but he looked tired, maybe even exhausted.

She grabbed her clothes and ducked back into the bathroom to dress, then headed out to her kitchen for breakfast, but first, she would get the Sunday circular from the newspaper box. “I’ll be back,” she said awkwardly, under her breath, but not really.

When she opened her door, a bright orange paper caught her eye. NOTICE, it said on the top, in bold, black letters. She ripped it off her door, adrenaline spilling into her blood stream. Evicted. She had 30 days to be out. At the bottom was a post-it note in her landlord’s handwriting.

I know you stole my cup, I can see it on your porch railing, and you have some sort of a wild animal up there, I heard it growling all night. Animal control will be there at ten. You better give them whatever you’ve got in there or I’ll call the cops.

Reed shot a look behind her at the clock on the wall. 9:45.

She shook her head. Her body shook. “Troy,” she whispered to herself.

“I’m here,” he said from behind her and she jumped and shrieked a little, immediately embarrassed. She waved the paper in front of his face, unable to say a word. He read it all, his expression changing from curious to furious in a few minutes.

He held the paper up. “I’ll fix it,” he said.

She grabbed it out of his hand and ripped it in half. “You’ve done enough. I think you should go.”

His expression went stricken. He shook his head. “No, Reed, I shouldn’t go. We can work this out.”

Just like that, she knew something had changed. He wasn’t not going because he was an overbearing asshole, but rather, because… because something had changed between them and she didn’t know what.

She would go then. She pushed at him so he would back up and jammed her feet into the closest pair of shoes. She grabbed her purse, found her phone, and took off down the steps. He followed. “No,” she said over her shoulder. “Just give me some breathing room.”

He slowed, but he didn’t stop. She hit the landing and headed for her car, searching in her purse for her keys. They weren’t in there. She turned to head back to her apartment, but he was there, in front of her door, pleading. “Reed, please slow down. Listen to me.”

She didn’t want to listen. Evicted. She was fired, fired, and evicted, and God help her if she was pregnant, too. What was she going to do? She paced around her car a little bit. He kept trying to talk to her and she kept not wanting to listen. She had to just get away from him. Just for a little bit. Just long enough to think.

For some reason, she headed for the forest, the main place she hadn’t felt safe inside since she’d been four years old. She hit the first trail in at a fast walk, but when she heard Troy coming up fast behind her, she started running, too angry and confused and scared of what was going on in her life, to be scared of the forest.

He ran, too. “Reed, please, you don’t─,” he called, but then he stopped speaking. She threw a look over her shoulder. He was following, but without warning, quicker than she could track, he leapt into a thick pile of bushes near the entrance to the trail and flailed around back there. She faced front, eyes wide. He really was out of his mind. What had she been thinking?

She ran faster, the branches whispering past her face, but none of them touching her. She could hear him behind her. His footfalls heavy. “Reed,” he called, his voice pitched low. “They’re in the forest. You can’t run from me. It’s not safe.”

They? Who in the hell was they? She shook her head and put on a burst of speed. “Stop him,” she whispered, not knowing who she was talking to, a crushing weight rolling onto her heart as she did so. “But don’t hurt him,” she added, just under her breath, the weight rolling off just enough that she could breathe.

Reed ran, even when she could no longer hear his footsteps.