The Hidden Read Free Page B

how to do it. She even made me a cheat sheet so I wouldn’t forget. Only took a couple loads of pink shorts and one overflowing washer, but then I taught Dad.”
    I watched his face move as he spoke, and was struck once again by how beautiful he was. And by something more … How
mine
he was.
    “So you did all of your own laundry? What else did you do?”
    “I got myself up for school and made my own lunches.”
    I pictured a younger version of Caspian trying to put together peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every morning, and my heart felt sad. Mom had
always
made my lunches for mewhen I was little. She’d even taken special requests, like when I wanted egg salad for three months straight. “I would have made your lunch for you,” I said softly.
    He went to squeeze my hand, but pulled back as he remembered he couldn’t. “I know, Abbey,” he replied instead. “I know.”
    We lay there in silence until finally I said, “You know what’s going to be the best thing about having you here with me?”
    “Having a manservant at your beck and call?”
    “Nope. But that’s a close second.” I moved my free hand closer to his until that faint tingle of almost touching buzzed through me, and I gazed up at the constellations covering my bedroom ceiling. “The best thing is having someone to look at the stars with.”
    A couple hours later Mom called me down for dinner, while Caspian stayed up in my room. The whole time we ate, I kept thinking about what it was going to be like to have him there without my parents realizing it.
I’ll have to be careful. Have to watch that I don’t let anything slip in front of them, that they don’t hear me talking to him.
    “You’re awfully quiet over there,” Dad said. “What are you thinking about?”
    “The fact that we should get an alarm system.”
    Okay, so that wasn’t really what I’d been thinking about, but it sounded good.
    Mom and Dad exchanged uncomfortable glances. “Your mother and I have someone coming over this week to talk about our options,” Dad replied.
    I forked a piece of broccoli and kept eating. “Okay.”
    They both just looked at me, dumbfounded.
    “So … you’re okay with that?” Dad asked.
    “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”
    “Well, we wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable with the idea of needing to have one, to feel safe here.”
    I put my fork down. “Dad, someone broke into our house. I think an alarm system would be okay.”
    Mom put her hand on the table with a loud bang. “Enough! Enough of this conversation! I don’t want to discuss it anymore.”
    “I think we should
all
discuss this,” Dad said.
    “Yeah. It’s only an alarm system, Mom. No big deal …”
    Mom’s face was stricken. “
I
don’t want to discuss this. We’ve lived in this town our entire lives and nothing like this has
ever
happened before. I don’t want to know that we’re getting an alarm system put in because there’s some crazy person breaking into homes and hurting people’s children and …
and
…”Her voice grew louder with every word until she was practically screaming.
    Then she shut down.
    “I can’t deal with this. I need a pill.”
    She suddenly left the room, and I waited for some type of explanation from Dad.
    But he didn’t give me one.
    “What was
that
all about?” I prodded him. “‘I need a pill’?”
    “Your mother is just upset by everything that happened. The doctor prescribed her some pills to calm her nerves.”
    “Calm
her
nerves? You’d think she was the one who’d been attacked.”
    Dad sucked in a sharp breath of air.
    “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just—”
    He shook his head. “I know what you meant. But it’s going to be tough for a while. We all need to … adjust. Your mother and I love you very much, Abbey.”
    “I know, Dad. I guess I just need some time to adjust too.” Time to adjust to the fact that they didn’t know what had happened, and I could never tell them.
    My broccoli was cold