eyes attached to some random spot. His compliment came out of nowhere. I had to pause at my desk and turn to look at him.
“Are you…talking to me?” I asked, curiously.
He toyed with his cufflinks, glimpsing down at them. “Yeah, I am.”
“You think…you think I look good?”
“I do.”
Heat warmed my insides.
Locke had never, ever complimented me.
This was such a victorious moment.
I looked over my work clothes. I was wearing a black pencil skirt and a flattering white top that showed off my cleavage. It was the first time in a long time I had spent longer than ten minutes getting ready.
It was also nice not hitting up thrift shops for office attire. Ever since going full-time here as Locke’s accountant, my pay checks were very healthy looking.
I was learning to enjoy the present and the comfort that extra bit of cash bought me.
“Thanks,” I finally said, smiling broadly. “Laura came to visit me on the weekend, and we shopped ‘til we dropped. I never got that saying until now.”
Glancing at me disinterestedly, he briskly retorted, “I don’t care, Charlotte.”
Then he walked away, never looking back at me once.
Yep, that was Locke for you.
One second semi-nice, and the next…a complete cunt.
This would never change.
When Penny learned to speak fluently, it was adorable for five minutes. Then shit deteriorated fast.
We argued, all the time, and her little heart couldn’t handle the word no. One second it was,
“I love you.”
The next, it was,
“I hate you.”
And then,
“Go away, Mama.”
But when Penny came down from her vicious little moments, she would find me waiting nearby, and she would come to me and wrap her little arms around me. We held each other because she was all I had, and I was all she had.
And years would pass like this.
She was my best friend, my partner in life. Without her, I dreaded to think where my path would have led. I fought the monsters in her closet. I nursed her when she was sick. I bathed her in the evenings. Made her breakfast, lunch and dinner. Tucked her into bed every single night. Read stories to her, hung her scribbles on the fridge with a magnet of her smiling face, and I listened. I listened because that was what a child needed the most. They needed to be heard.
I was never heard.
I had never been given time by my mom.
I had learned to grow on my own and figure things out along the way with a father who knew little to nothing about raising a girl. I navigated the years of growth spurts, periods, and boys alone. I’d never resented my father for it. I’d never even resented my mother, either. I simply didn’t know to. You couldn’t expect someone to know the better side when they’d never experienced it.
I made sure Penny never went to bed in a mood. I made sure we spent every evening with her cradled in my lap, watching a movie, or flicking through a book.
Skin on skin didn’t have to end after she’d stopped being a baby. We sprawled on the couch, chatting endlessly. I gave her every ounce of my attention, enjoying her soft moments. I reminded her that her hard edges didn’t have to be gone, they just needed to be rounded out a bit.
“When is Daddy coming home?” she’d ask periodically.
“Soon,” I answered, soothingly.
“You always say that.”
“Because it’s true.”
“It feels like it’s never going to happen.”
I felt my lips tremble. I blinked back tears, whispering. “I know.”
Fucking time, that dreaded void, never seemed to inch closer to where we wanted it to be.
“But I promise,” I added, pressing a loving kiss on her forehead. “I promise soon will be here before you know it.”
And I waited.
And she waited.
And we waited, together.
THE HOLE
One day, four boys decided to play hide and seek under a hot sun on the outskirts of a rotting town.
One boy decided to be It.
The three boys hid.
Two were found.
The third vanished.
Chapter One
Thames
He stood still, waiting.
A gentle calm settled over him. Every breath expelled was another second closer to the end of this abyss.
This godforsaken, never ending hell.
This pit of despair.
This fucking doom that had stripped him of life and love and all things good.
They’d ushered him out of his cell hours prior at the bumfuck of dawn. After a frisk, he signed a gutful of paperwork and was transferred to the holding cell.
Freedom was within reach.
But every time he heard approaching steps, or the sound of movement, or even a sigh from beyond that