I’m falling for her. No, I’ve already fallen. I feel too goddamn much, and I’m feeling it all for Danica. My princess, my angel.
Danica
I wake up in Edmund’s bed. His spot is empty beside me, but warm. He must have gotten up recently.
My nightmares are blurry horrors, washed away first by his comfort, then by the morning light. Like a true “daddy,” he chased away the monsters.
Low voices sound from the other room. Troy’s home! I sit up and swing myself out of bed. I didn’t have a chance for a real apology last night. It was rushed, nothing like the long speech I’d rehearsed, the groveling I was prepared to do.
I hurry into the living room, not bothering to dress. I want to see that man right fucking now.
But he isn’t here. The voices came from newscasters on the television.
“Hey.” Edmund gives me a smile. “Coffee’s in the kitchen. Want me to pour you a cup?”
“Not yet…where’s Troy?”
Edmund winces. “The flash drive he had…our attorney wanted to go over it with him, see if there’s anything that can be used in a trial.”
“So he’s still not home?”
“He came home, then he had to take off again. He sneaked into my room to give you a kiss, though. He didn’t want to wake you up.”
I wish he’d woken me. I wish a lot of things, though—my biggest wish is that I’d never made him leave.
“Hey.” Edmund stands and comes over to hold me. “He’ll be home again soon, and you can go through your whole apology speech with him then.”
I lean into Edmund’s embrace. I could get used to this—his attention, his care.
The news continues to play behind him. The reporters segue into something about the human remains found at the north side of Danish Lake.
“Oh, Elias is going to be all over this.” I roll my eyes and turn Edmund so he can see the screen. “Unless he already knows. He probably does. I made a bet with Wallace that Elias sleeps with a police scanner. I haven’t proven it yet, though.”
The woman on the television screen adopts an expression of sympathy, balanced with professionalism. “The remains have been identified as belonging to Britney Gardner, an SEU student who disappeared fifteen years ago?—”
Wait a minute. I grab Edmund’s arm. “I know that name. Britney Gardner.”
“Yeah. She disappeared while I was in college. It was all over the news. But you must’ve been…what…really young.” He grins. “I didn’t realize I was a cradle-robber.”
“Don’t be gross.” I give him a gentle shove and turn my attention back to the TV. “I vaguely remember the story.”
Two images come to my mind. Britney’s beautiful face on the news. Her parents clutching each other at a press conference, begging for information about her disappearance.
The rest of the details are fuzzy. Too much time has passed.
But the name, the revelation, the buzz about her death—it feels important. It feels big.
I have to look this up. I grab my phone at the same time the newscaster starts talking again. “…She disappeared from Danish Lake Summer Camp, where she’d been a counselor. Searches were conducted?—”
“Oh.” I sit down, hard. My phone tumbles to the rug in front of me. New images are flashing through my mind. Fresh ones. Or at least, they feel fresh, because I just dreamed them.
“Danica?” Edmund tugs at my hand. “Are you okay?”
Sinking into the water. Mud filling my mouth, nose, ears. Trying to get up but there’s a heavy weight pressing on me.
I almost drowned.
And I think Britney did drown.
My nightmares aren’t nightmares at all.
They’re memories.
