He wouldn’t even look at me as we dressed.
And most humiliating of all was the light kiss he gave me on top of my head right before he said, “Trust me on this, Jane. This is what’s best for you.”
Stupid, stupid, stupid for ever having given an ounce of my heart to him.
That was it for me. I tore myself away from him and ran out of his house. He called after me, but I didn’t stop, because I never wanted to see him again as long as I lived.
I’m so proud of myself that not a single teardrop has fallen, and I expect that’s because I’m so mad that my body is shutting down. I angrily jam my house key in the lock and storm into my house, intent on perhaps throwing some glass items and easing my frustrations that way.
Instead, a large hand clamps over my mouth. A jolt of fear rips through me so forcefully that every bit of anger and betrayal I’d been feeling toward Kyle immediately vanishes.
A gun appears before my eyes, and my intruder says to me, “I’m going to move my hand from your mouth, but if you scream, shout, or do anything contrary to what I tell you to do, I’m going to put a bullet in your brain. Got me?”
I nod my head furiously, despite the fact I seem to be paralyzed in terror. I can’t fathom someone in my house with a gun. I have nothing of value here except… myself.
Immediately, tears fill my eyes and start to leak down my cheeks as he removes his hand from my mouth. His hand goes to my shoulder and he turns me to him. It’s dark and I can’t make out much except he’s large. I don’t know if I can fight him off, especially since he has a gun.
“Turn on that lamp,” he orders me with the gun pointed straight at my face.
I do as he requests. When the glow of light hits him, I gasp in recognition.
Steve. From the diner yesterday.
Steve, who asked for Miranda’s number.
“What do you want?” I manage to push the words out past my throat, which is constricted tightly in fear.
“I want your boyfriend,” he says simply with a nod of his head toward Kyle’s house.
“What?” I ask, dumbfounded.
“Call him,” Steve—if that’s his real name—says as he waves the gun toward my front door, beyond which lies Kyle’s house across the street.
“What for?” I ask.
Stalling maybe, I don’t know.
“Call him,” he barks at me. He swings the gun back my way, the hole of the barrel looking ominously big as it sits less than a foot away from my nose.
“I don’t understand. What do you want him for?”
“I want him to come over here, and I don’t want him to suspect a fucking thing. I want him walking in here unprepared and unarmed, and you’re going to call him right fucking now and get him over here.”
“I can’t,” I say on a sob, my life literally flashing before my eyes.
Steve moves faster than I could have ever imagined, and he lunges at me. Grabbing a handful of my hair, he viciously yanks my head back and pushes the barrel of the gun to my forehead. “I’m not going to fucking tell you again… call him.”
“I don’t know his phone number,” I cry out. This is absolutely true. I only found out he had a cell phone yesterday morning, and I never did get a chance to ask for his number. And the jerk never offered it to me either, I think bitterly, but even if I knew it, I wouldn’t ever call him. I would never ask Kyle to come over here into unsuspected danger.
And oh, Kyle… what have you gotten yourself, and now me, into?
“How can you not know his fucking phone number?” he snarls at me, yanking my head back further. I can feel hair ripping from my scalp.
I cry out in pain, but I manage to stammer, “He just got the phone. I hadn’t had a chance to get his number.”
This doesn’t enrage him as I suspected it would, but it doesn’t pacify him either. With his fist still gripping a hunk of my hair, he shoves me viciously away from him, causing me to go crashing to my floor.
“Fuck,” he curses in frustration, and, for once, his gun points downward and away from me as he seems to be thinking up an alternate plan.
I suppose I’ll never know how Kyle knew what was going on or how to capitalize on the fact that the gun was no longer on me, but to both my astonishment and Steve’s, Kyle comes bursting through the door, bellowing in rage and charging at my attacker.
I watch, horrified, as Steve swings his hand with the gun toward Kyle, but he’s not quick enough. Kyle barrels into him—his shoulder to Steve’s chest—with one hand locking around Steve’s wrist. They go crashing backward over my couch in a tangle of limbs, and Kyle actually yells out to me, “Get out of here, Jane.”