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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
Followers 21
21Fear devoured thefollowing days. Long after the police questions, paranoia reached its tendrils up through Sidney’s thoughts. Exhaustion condensed her mind, reducing its capacity and allowing twisted perceptions to blossom in neglect. Everything seemed hard. Everything became a threat. “Mom,” Cameron whined, “I can’t miss practice tonight. I can’t keep missing practice.” He stomped down the hallway after her, half dressed for school.“Baby, your daddy can’t be there tonight, and I’ll be at work,” Sidney said. “You know we have to be there now, after what happened.”“You guys don’t have to be there. I’ll be fine, I promise. I’ll never go with someone again, I promise.” Cameron slammed his feet with each syllable.Sidney stopped walking. She planted her hands on her hips before turning and leveling her face with her son’s. “Baby,” she said in a heavy and slow tone, “you got taken. Someone took you. Horrible, horrible things could have happened to you.”“I know, Mommy,”
Followers 22
22“Mom, I don’twant to change schools!” Cameron shouted deeply, projecting his voice from his belly in an attempt to sound like his father. In his rage, he nearly succeeded. Sidney leaned against the counter bordered with colorful paper pencils, massaging her forehead. She flinched at the similarity and at how his voice carried through his school office. She leaned down to shush him, quelling her desperation.“I know, Cam, baby,” Sidney said. “But it’s the only way we can be safe.”“We’re already moving! Why isn’t that enough?” Fat tears spilled from his eyes to dribble down his angry cheeks.Sidney reached out toward him, to calm him, to quiet him, to comfort him. He retreated away from her, growing in his anger and stomping hard. He pulled back until his heels butted into the thick, large wooden chest that served as the lost and found, sleeves and legs of abandoned clothes reaching out desperately for their neglectful owners.“I wish it was enough, baby.” The guilt thic
Followers 23
23“Sidney, honey,”Brady said from across his apartment, “he’s here.”Sidney went to sit up from the couch but found herself so heavy. Her muscles trembled weakly, depleted at the thought of moving her own weight. Her head itself seemed to be packed with lead. Or that was the heaping exhaustion from not sleeping for more than an hour straight in a couple weeks.Sleep felt like betraying Kendra, but waking up felt even more sinister.Sidney heard the two sets of footsteps move toward her over the hard floors and wrenched herself upright. Adam smiled at her—gently, cautiously—as he followed Brady. Sidney’s hands swept over the face and hair she had not washed in days. Her cheeks felt tender from the endless flood of tears. She did not even know if she had brought a brush to Brady and Jordan’s apartment.“I told you I didn’t want you to come,” she said, her voice like gravel in her own mouth.“Then why did you give me the address?” Adam joked softly.“Because I knew you would
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