Read Online Before He Finds Her by Michael Kardos - Free Book Online Page B

about three seconds after he’d said them, when a squirrel dropped out of the tree under which they were passing. It had either misjudged a jump or slipped, and came whooshing out of the branches and plopped down onto the road just a few feet in front of them.
    Melanie heard: Slap, slap, slap, slap, slap, slap.
    The squirrel froze, momentarily stunned, before finding its bearings and darting away from the road toward the curb and scurrying up the nearest tree.
    Melanie looked left. Phillip was no longer beside her. She turned around. He was at least twenty feet back, looking sheepish in his flip-flops, which had broadcasted his hasty retreat.
    “What the hell was that about?” she asked.
    “It startled me.”
    “You ran away from a squirrel?”
    He walked back to her. “It could have been rabid.”
    She started walking quickly ahead without him, this man whose quirky fears were suddenly not remotely endearing. Maybe she’d been drawn to him because he was so different from her aunt and uncle. But if they were smothering her, this was no antidote. An antidote like this would get her killed.
    “I need to go home,” she said. “I need to not see you right now.”
    “Melanie—”
    “Let’s just walk.”
    The carnival sounds faded. Soon there were only their footfalls and the cars going by, and the birds and, yes, squirrels mocking them from the trees. When they reached Phillip’s house, they went inside and Melanie collected her backpack and returned to the front door.
    “I’m sorry,” Phillip said.
    She wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t talk to him. She wasn’t intentionally giving him the silent treatment, but she felt nauseous and sweaty and exhausted. She descended the concrete steps and returned to her car.
    There was only one way to deal with the storm she was walking into. By the time she’d made it back to Notress Pass and driven up the pebbly driveway and put the car into park, her aunt and uncle were already rushing out of the trailer.
    “I’m fine,” Melanie said, shutting the car door behind her. “I spent the night with the man I’ve been seeing. But things between us didn’t work out. I’m very tired and need to rest. We can talk about anything you want, I promise—but later. I’m very, very sorry for worrying you, and I love you both very much.” She walked between them, her face hot with humiliation, and was quickly past, up the stairs, into the trailer, into her bedroom, shutting the door and locking it behind her.
    Her aunt and uncle, to their tremendous credit, didn’t come knocking.
    An hour later, she’d emerged from her bedroom and was lying on the living room sofa, feet resting on her aunt’s lap. Her uncle sat in a chair opposite them. “I thought there might be a future with him,” Melanie said, “but I was wrong. That’s really all there is to it. I’m sorry to have worried you—I know that was awful of me.”
    She’d expected plenty of yelling when she returned home. Wayne and Kendra weren’t people who yelled, but Melanie had never stayed out all night. There was no rule forbidding it, because such a transgression was unthinkable.
    Yet there had been no yelling, no tirades when she came out of her room—only concerned embraces and as much patience as she could possibly hope for. They were wonderful from time to time, she had to admit.
    “Who is this man?” her uncle asked.
    Melanie shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over.”
    “When did you meet him?” her aunt asked.
    “Did he hurt you?” her uncle asked.
    “No, nothing like that. He’s a decent guy. It just didn’t work out.”
    Her aunt and uncle exchanged glances. “You told him, didn’t you?” Wayne said. Melanie briefly considered lying, but her hesitation told them everything.
    “So what happened?” Kendra asked. “He couldn’t handle it?”
    “Something like that,” Melanie said.
    Her aunt, eyes wet, reached out and took Melanie’s hand. “That’s why you have us.