CHAPTER 13
“What am I going to do?” I asked, pacing back and forth in Annie’s bedroom. “They could be in there right now discovering that I’m not there! How could this happen? Do they not trust me?”
“I have found,” Annie said smugly, “that a person who is breaking the rules should not spout words about being offended over someone not trusting them to not break the rules.”
“What?” I said, turning to her, exasperated. Why is she always turning everything I say around on me? “Shouldn’t you be on my side here?”
“I am on your side,” she said with a hint of a smile. “It’s just that you can hardly allow yourself to feel offended over someone thinking you might break a rule when you have actually been breaking this rule for days now. Plus, you said you screamed at your father. It probably made him suspicious.”
I stared at her, dumbfounded.
“What you need to do,” said the ever-so-wise Annie, “is just let it go.” She moves her hands as if shooing a fly.
“Let it go? Let what go?”
“This need that you have to please your parents.”
“I don’t have a need to please my parents,” I said defensively.
Annie scoffed. “Oh please.”
“I may,” I said, not conceding anything, “have a need to have a roof over my head. And that need may require some rule following, even if the rules are quite ridiculous and designed to keep me stifled for my entire life, but that is it. It is definitely not a need for any sort of approval or whatever it is you seem to be suggesting.”
Annie nodded once. “Right,” she said, drawing the word out.
“Well what do you suggest I do? I shouldn’t even be here! It’s not like I have any other choice but to follow the stupid rules until who knows when. Until I find a husband, I suppose.”
Annie really rolled her eyes at that one. “Why on earth would you need one of those?”
“Well what else is there to do?”
“My mother doesn’t have a husband,” Annie said, sticking her nose in the air.
“Well she did. And now she has her husband’s money.”
She shrugged. “I plan on being just fine all on my own. Well,” she says, getting a glimmer in her eye, “there will be men obviously, but I certainly don’t plan on keeping any of them all that long.”
I gave her a little smack on her shoulder. “How can you say such things?”
She raised her eyebrows. “The world is changing Sadie,” she said. “Just think how lucky we are that we have the opportunities we do now. There are things a woman can do. In fact, a woman can do most everything,” she stood now, her speech gaining momentum, “we just have to have the guts to go out there and do it.”
I sighed. I suppose she did have a point, but that was her world, not mine.
“Fine, that’s all well and good for someone like you, someone who doesn’t have to worry about keeping up appearances. Who doesn’t have a father dictating every little thing that every single person in his life is allowed to do or not do.”
“So what if you have a father who cares about you?” she pouted. “Don’t you think I’d give all this up to have a father again?”
No one like mine, you wouldn’t. But then again, Annie never would believe it when I tried to tell her how difficult mine could be. I sighed. “You’d have to give up your dreams to go out into the world and do what you want.”
She turned her back on me, crossing her arms at her chest. “No I wouldn’t. I’d still venture out on my own.”
“If you were allowed.”
“Even if I weren’t allowed, I’d do it!”
“And how would you support yourself?” I said, gaining confidence in my argument.
“What do you mean? The same way I will be as soon as I’m finished with school.”
“Oh really,” I said, crossing my arms now. “You actually believe if your father was still living that he’d let his daughter gallivant off to New York City all by herself?”
“Well, it wouldn’t matter if he approved or not.”
“Except that if he didn’t approve, he wouldn’t give you any money to get settled.”
And that is what finally shut her up. Well, for about half a minute. “Well, lucky for me I guess, that’s not the way my life turned out. I will have a fabulous life in New York City. Just you see. Now, if you don’t mind, I don’t really feel like going out anymore so you can just go sneak back to your house full of stupid rules and stupid parents.”
She stormed out of her room and a moment later, the bathroom door slammed.
I had to admit, I really didn’t feel like going out anymore either. In fact that little urge left me around the same time as that little knock on my door back in my bedroom.
I was about to storm up to the bathroom door and tell her my life wasn’t so bad. At least I had two parents who cared about my well-being… but the muffled crying stopped me.
I had never known Annie to cry before. Even when we were small girls and her father had just died, she shed no tears. I suppose I always thought she must have at some point, but I certainly didn’t see any. She was a good person of course, at least for the most part, but it hadn’t dawned on me that her heart might be made of anything other than stone.
I wanted to go in and apologize, but I realized she probably stormed off for a reason, and that reason was specifically so that I wouldn’t see her. No, it was best just to leave her alone for now and come back to apologize in the morning.
I only stopped to collect my ‘new’ dress, carefully packing it into the laundry bag before I snuck out into the chilly night.
It never really dawned on me that I should be concerned about who else might be out in the dead black of night. Since I’d always been under so much intense scrutiny and hardly ever left home alone, I’d never bothered thinking about my own well-being. Perhaps my parents just hadn’t thought to warn me of the possible dangers out on the streets at night since they probably never imagined in a million years that I would think of going out on my own after dark.
But as I strolled down the street, I had a sickening feeling that someone was following close behind, yet when I turned around there was nothing there. I quickened my steps, extremely aware of my pace. I didn’t want to go too fast and alert the person that might be following me that I was on to them. If there even was anyone back there, that is. It was perfectly possible that I was just being completely paranoid. I wasn’t having the most relaxing of evenings, what with being spied on in my room and then the fight with Annie. Needless to say, I was not feeling like myself.
Unfortunately, I also wasn’t paying enough attention to what was in front of me since I’d been so preoccupied over what might be behind me. I turned a corner and ran smack dab into two gentlemen that had obviously been partaking in some of the illegal beverages around town. The first man stumbled back a few steps I’d knocked into him so hard.
“Whoa there little lady,” the other man said, grabbing my hand for support so he wouldn’t stumble back as well.
But then he didn’t let it go. He just held on tight while he looked behind him, chuckling a bit as his friend regained his composure. He turned back to me, his face much closer to mine than was comfortable. “Where’re you off to in such a hurry?” he said. His breath was atrocious.
“Just heading home,” I said quickly, trying to pull my hand away.
The other man walked up. “You look like you could use a little help getting there,” he said.
My heart was pounding as I tried to struggle free of the man who was still holding onto my hand. I wouldn’t have thought someone could be so strong after what had obviously been many, many drinks, but the grasp was firm and I could not wriggle free. I smiled as best as I could under the circumstances. “Thank you sir, but I’m fine.”
“Oh, I can see that you’re fine,” he said, taking a half a step back so he could get a good look at me.
“Thank you for your assistance,” I said, ev
en though they certainly had not helped me in any way, “but I must be getting home.”
The grip on my hand did not loosen even the slightest and now the second man was leaning in close to my face too. Close enough that I could tell he had been drinking a different concoction than the first man, though it sure didn’t smell like it had been any less strong.
“Oh, you’re welcome,” the second man said, putting his hand around my waist now.
I needed to scream out for someone, anyone to help me, but I couldn’t get anything more than a whisper out. I was frozen, being jostled back and forth between the men who seemed to be playing a sick sort of catch with me. The dress I was carrying flew into the middle of the street. They were both laughing loudly, making it my only hope that someone might hear and come to my rescue. I let my body go limp, causing it to be a little harder for the men to pass me back and forth. Finally, I fell to the ground.
I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the inevitable. I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen, but I knew it wouldn’t be good. I pulled my arms up over my head, waiting to feel the heaviness of one or both of the men on top of me. As the shadow of the first man blocked the streetllight above, I tried to pretend I was already home, safely back into my bed.
But somehow, miraculously, the weight of my attacker never descended upon me. After a few moments, I dared open my eyes, surprised to see tears had welled up in them, and when I moved my arms away from my face, I was even more surprised to see the two men stumbling backward in the direction from where they’d come, looks of sheer terror on both their faces.
I slowly turned my head to look behind me, anxious to know what the two men were so scared of, but the streetlight was too bright, silhouetting whatever was standing above me. I scrambled to my hands and knees, desperate to know if I was safe.
But I soon discovered that I was very, very far from safe.
I was staring down the barrel of a shiny, silver gun.