She laid me down and pulled my blanket over me, my clothes still on, but I was too drained to change.

“I left a glass of water on the bed stand,” she said, “and there’s a Xanax next to it if you feel like you need it.”

I nodded, knowing I wouldn’t. My eyes were heavy, and I’d be asleep soon enough, waking up tomorrow to face the nightmare all over again.

“Mom?” I called, hearing the music drift up from downstairs as I sat up in bed.

It was so clear.

My door was open. I thought she closed it.

Reaching over, I hit the button on the clock, hearing it read, “Twelve-fourteen a.m.”

I patted around for my phone, remembering my father took it, but felt the water my mom left and gulped down a hefty drink.

The night was still so clear, like I hadn’t been asleep at all, but I was still too tired to muster more tears just yet.

“Mom, are you there?” I shouted.

Nausea rolled through my stomach, and I needed something. I didn’t know what. I hadn’t eaten all day. That was probably it.

Yawning, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and rubbed my eyes, just wanting some soup and crackers or something and then maybe I’d take that Xanax and sleep forever.

Patting my way out of my room, I trailed down the bannister, hearing the faint, haunting tune of “Sleep Walk” by Santo and Johnny playing from somewhere downstairs. Any other time, I might smile at the gesture. My mom knew I liked oldies when I wanted to feel better.

But it was no use playing it while I was asleep.

I made my way into the foyer, still wearing a pair of jeans and a tank top from earlier, but before I swung around to head for the kitchen, I heard the beep of the answering machine near the door. Yawning again, I walked toward it.

It could’ve been a prank call. I was sure lots of those came in today.

But I didn’t have my cell, so just in case Dad called…

Finding the button, I pressed it, my head spinning and my heart hammering as soon as I heard my mom’s voice.

“Hey, sweetie,” she chirped. “Didn’t want to wake you. Your sister snuck out, so I left to go find her. Doors are locked. Don’t leave. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

The music drifted from the ballroom, and I breathed so hard, I was gasping.

Who was in the ballroom?

“Mom?” I screamed.

It was her. The message was from earlier tonight. She came back.

“Mom!” I cried out again.

And a creak split the floor to my left, and I stopped, my face scrunching up and my eyes squeezing shut as the nightmare loomed even though I was no longer asleep.

But I refused to cry. I locked my jaw, fisted my hands, and turned toward him.

“Damon,” I said to my ghost who now had a name. “Perks of being rich, huh? You can make bail in record time.”

I shook my head.

He was going to get off. Nothing was going to happen to him. Guys like him never paid.

“Your friends were arrested, too, I hear,” I said. “The town is in chaos tonight.”

I didn’t hear him move, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t. Reaching behind me, I grabbed a gold figurine on the table, with a nice, pointy part on it.

“And you’re here.” I listened carefully for footsteps. “Why are you here?”

He didn’t say a word, and for a moment it felt like the very first time he broke in and terrified me. This time, though, I wouldn’t be waking up safe. He’d had his fun, and now he was here to have more.

“You want to shut me up?” I pressed. “Hurt me? Or do you want to see how much you already hurt me?”

Was he here to keep me quiet, or because he just couldn’t resist his sick, perverted kink? To survey the damage he’d done on the girl who had been ready to run away with him this morning. Dreaming of waking up in his arms, in a warm bed with a fire roaring in the cold mountains.

It meant nothing to him.

“The best I’ve ever felt in seven years were the nights with you,” I told him, tears springing up. “So just soak it up, because you win. I fucking fell for it. I want to eat my goddamn heart, because it wouldn’t hurt as much as what you did to it this morning. I hate you.”

My legs started to buckle underneath me as I cried, and my head started to swim.

“I hate you,” I said, a sob thick in my throat, “and I’ll hate you forever, so do what you’re going to do, because I’m dead. I’m dead already.”

I would never trust another man again. I’d have to leave my school and my home to escape the gossip.

I was the one paying for his lie, not him, but so help me God, I would drag him down with me. I would make sure he remembered me and know how enormously he failed at being the worst thing to ever happen to me, because he wasn’t that important. He was nothing.

I didn’t love him. I didn’t even understand him.

“My father hates me. My sister hates me,” I said. “My mom can’t stand on her own. You made me think I wasn’t alone. Why would you do that?”

The floor creaked again, closer this time, and I shot out my hand to get ready, but I stumbled, my head spinning, and I fell to the floor.

What was going on?

I swayed my hand on the floor, unable to steady myself.

“What’s… what’s wrong with me?”

“You drank the water,” he finally spoke.

The water. The water? And then I remembered the glass my mother left me in my bedroom.

And my door was opened when she had closed it. He’d come in when I was asleep. He’d put something in the water?

Oh, Jesus. No, no, no…

I started gasping, trying to stand up, but I couldn’t get my legs under me. Where was the figurine I had? I just had it in my hand.

“Wh—what did you give me?” I growled.

He grabbed hold of me, hauling me off the floor and holding me upright with his arms wrapped around me.

“Shhh,” he said.

But I shook my head again and again. No.

Please, no.

“What are you going to do?” I choked out. “What do you want?”

I tried to pull away—tried to stand up—but my brain was slipping sideways, and I couldn’t get control of my limbs.

“I just wanted to hold you,” he said. “One last time.”

Hold? What? His voice was fading, like it was in stereo down a long tunnel.

“Just wanted to hold you.” His voice loomed somewhere over my head as my eyes started to close. “And say I’m really fucking sor—”

“What?” I asked, giving out and falling into him. “I can’t understand you.”

“Don’t let me go,” he whispered in my ear. “Don’t let go.”

“I’m gonna…” My mouth was so dry. “I’m gonna send you to jail.”

His lips rested against my cheek, and I thought I felt his body shake with a silent sob.

But as I fell into sleep and oblivion, his words were sharp and clear in my ear. “Then you better hope I never get out.”

Winter

Present

I sat in the theater, listening to the latest rehearsals for the annual Nutcracker performance and remembering when I was up there with all the little kids, too. The stage was larger than life, and I still remember leaping around as the snow fell, barely registering the audience, because the world up there was far too beautiful to look anywhere else.

Someone squeezed past me in my aisle seat, sitting next to me.

“How are you?” Rika asked.

I just gave her a small smile.

There were no answers to that question. Saying “fine” would seem comical.

I clasped my hands in my lap, chilled from the air, and I dipped my mouth under my thin scarf, breathing out to heat myself up.

“Come stay with us,” she said.

She’d made the offer ever since the haunted house the night before last, but I felt numb now, and I didn’t want to run. I wanted to win.

“You’re helping me,” I pointed out. “I appreciate it.”

We met yesterday about her and Michael sponsoring a performance, and it wasn’t much, but it was a path to get out on my own. They’d get their money back with ticket sales—if I were fortunate enough to have any—and whatever was left we’d split as profit. But she’d called earlier today with more ideas, including a tour. Maybe scouting other performers who weren’t getting seen. She was really into it, and it was nice to have another person excited for my dancing. Other than Damon…

“You look a little dangerous,” she mused. “Like you’ve got ideas.”

“For the tour or for my sister’s husband?”

She snorted. “Whichever one you have that look to kill for.”

“I hate him,” I said, pulling down the sleeves of my little jacket. “I hate what he did to me. He deserved his punishment.”

He deserved to go to jail.

“But?” she pressed.

But my weak heart kept thinking about what he said in bed two nights ago when I’d held the blades to his rib and neck. About lying to me being the only way he felt he could get close to me in high school. Maybe it was just a lie he fed my mother to get rid of her.

Or maybe it wasn’t. It didn’t make it right, though.

“There were so many moments back then—” I told her, “—they felt real, like he could’ve been different and I could’ve been different.”

He seduced me with a lie. Why was I having any doubts about the man he was?

“I do hate him,” I told her. “I just wish I hated him every second.”

“Alex told me after the haunted house the other night about everything that happened to you,” I explained to her. “How they mistakenly thought you were the one to upload the videos and they went after you because they thought you sent them to prison.” I paused as she remained silent. “She told me what Damon did. But you don’t seem to hate him. Why?”