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Followers 13
13Sidney peeled herdehydrated eyes open as the early morning sun pierced into her room. As her consciousness surfaced, she felt the thin, uncomfortable wake of all her drinks from the previous night. The high-altitude air she heaved during her run through the dark exacerbated the hangover spreading through her. Her head ached along the back of her forehead, the painful pressure begging her to close her eyes again. When she allowed her eyes to drape shut again, her subconscious swelled over her like a dark flood. Adam emerged first. The feeling of his arms around her through her hoodie, the sweet abrasion of his rough cheek. She dissolved back into that moment as sleep rolled on top of her. The night replayed through her mind until she was back alone on the trail, hearing something large step through the water. She snapped back awake when that something shoved through the branches to get to her.Sidney groaned and dug her fists into her eyes, her heart pulsing through her ear
Followers 14
14Sidney’s hands trembledas she cupped the steaming coffee mug on the breakfast bar in her condo. She gently touched her palms to the mug then retracted as the heat singed the scabs that had hardened there. Exhaustion lay heavily on her muscles, the painful drain of all her flight response adrenaline, yet her mind sprinted in several concurrent and colliding circles. Her thoughts whirled as she stared blankly into the dark liquid in front of her.Her eyes drifted out of focus, her memory assaulting her in staccato bursts. The weight of her attacker climbing up her. Her heartbeat banging so desperately in her ears. The gravel grating against her and digging into her palms as she clawed. The lights of the condo parking lot so far away. She was back in that moment when Wes opened the door, and her arms flinched so hard she nearly spilled the coffee on herself.“Just me,” Wes said, gently.“Was there anything out there?” Sidney said in a shaky voice.Wes answered by holding up
Followers 15
15“Mommy!” Cameron squealed, bounding down the hallway as Aiden opened his front door. Cameron’s smile stretched so wide and so bright that Sidney did not even acknowledge Aiden. He was a doorstop, nothing more.“Mom, you’re back,” Cameron said as he reached her. Sidney let Cameron plow into her midsection and truly felt the tightness in his hug. She didn’t even care to see if Aiden watched. “I missed you,” Cameron said.Sidney could see that he really had. Maybe he had talked to Aiden about how he missed his mom. Maybe he had made Aiden listen to how great she was, for once. Sidney smiled openly in front of her ex-husband for the first time since their marriage had ended. Aiden was mumbling something as Sidney turned, her arm still around Cameron’s shoulders, and walked down the driveway. But she didn’t hear it. She happily shut Cameron’s door behind him and dropped into the driver seat.“How was your trip, Mom?” Cameron said from the backseat. His voice surprised her. The infl
Followers 16
16Adam: Good morning, beautiful.I miss you.Sidney smiled to herself, reading the messages through bleary eyes. She felt relieved to hear from him, to read the affirming words, like an addict getting a fix.She lay on her back in bed as the dawn painted along her ceiling. No alarm waited on her phone since it was the weekend, but she had been watching the light creep into her window, developing the room out of the darkness. The hours had dragged out above her. She had counted the seconds tick off as her mind refused to plunge into sleep, as her brain flexed hyperaware of every noise and creak inside and outside her room.Sidney let a heavy, frustrated breath dribble out of her lips and lifted the phone to her face to read Adam’s messages again. She typed I miss you toointo the field then tapped the delete button until it disappeared again. The cursor blinked, mocking her.Sidney ran her fingertips along the vacant sheet beside her. She turned her head to look at the empty
Followers 17
17“Tell me againwhere the other residents are,” the officer spoke in a dreadful monotone, her eyes reflecting the flatness of her tone. “Kendra, my roommate. She and her daughter are with Kendra’s aunt,” Sidney repeated. “My son is with his father.”“And you were coming from work and dropping off your son.” The officer looked at her pad as she spoke.“Right. I opened the door and walked in like usual. When I turned on the light, I realized the window was open and the screen was gone. Then I ran out here and called.”The officer stopped talking and tapped her pen on her pad. She did not make eye contact with Sidney, did not acknowledge her. Her curly hair was wrangled into a bun at the base of her skull. She wore no makeup and no jewelry and towered above Sidney with an intimidatingly calm presence. Her partner, a pale and slight man who appeared to be drowning in his uniform, moved up behind her. She nodded at him then stepped aside so he could face Sidney in parallel.“W
Followers 18
18The house lookedrestored with the new screen, locked window, and cleaned mess. The house even felt normal with Kendra and the kids back within its walls. Their energy filled the looming vacancy Sidney had felt the night she interrupted the break-in and the morning that followed when Jordan escorted her back to her ransacked room. Yet below Sidney’s casual smile, as she sat on the couch beside Kendra and listened to their children play through the hallway, her heart and mind were at odds. Her brain reasoned that the danger had passed and life was back to normal, yet her heart could not relax in her chest. Her anxiety, warranted or not, nibbled at the edge of her brain in the quiet moments between her and Kendra’s words. Donning fluffy pajama pants, Kendra folded her legs beneath her as she piled her curls on the top of her head. She loosely gathered the tresses before winding a rubber band around them. When she released her hands, the strands fanned out like the pointed leav
Followers 19
19The days bledinto weeks, gradually eroding Sidney’s anxiety. Each uneventful day that passed lulled that nagging, chewing sensation at the back of her brain. Every time the morning broke and nothing happened, it became easier to inhale against the weight crushing down on her chest. Complacency unraveled over her like a familiar blanket. The sound of her attacker’s steps ripping across the gravel trail faded back into her memory to be replaced by the chorus of promotion videos on the screens at work. The footprint on her couch cushion was replaced by the curve of her constant seat as she jammed away at her laptop. She stopped dreaming of finding tiny, blue baby booties on her pillow and started dosing off as she composed new articles in her mind until the darkness swallowed her into sleep.Adam: Good morning, beautiful.The same message greeted her every morning. She fixated on the idea of meeting up with Adam again.“Divorced Wives Club tonight?” Kendra asked her as she
Followers 20
20Just go home.They had been told to just go home. Sidney and Aiden had told the same story and answered the same questions, described their son on repeat. They had texted the most recent photos to the officers as the AMBER alerts began chirping on their phones describing their own boy. They had watched the coach, beset by officers and questions of his own. They had filled out the missing person report, tears threatening to blind Sidney as she scribbled. Now they were supposed to let them do their jobs, let them send out a BOLO and set up checkpoints, let them question the others from baseball practice. And just go home.The words had not made sense when the officer said them to Sidney and Aiden. Sidney stared at him dumbfounded, knowing he was saying words but unable to discern what they meant. They held no meaning at a time like this. They sounded like instructions to do nothing, but she could not do nothing. When she did nothing, she only inventoried all the awful things
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