Honey’s death was the catalyst to everything, my downfall, my banishment and punishment, the reason I’m standing exactly where I am, going by Clara Parker—Honey’s full maiden name—instead of the name I was born with—Parker Montgomery.

But I don’t blame Honey. I blame my parents, who would rather send me away—out of sight and out of mind—than take the time to help me with a loss I couldn’t manage to cope with.

I imagine, if there were a heaven—and Honey were allowed in—she’d be wearing her finest gown, smoking a cigarette, and drinking a Manhattan. If I ever got a chance to go there and find her, she’d look at me and ask, “Where have you been, honey?”

And I’m sure the next thing she’d say is, “How could you let them do that to you?”

* * *

Most twenty-nine-year-old women have a nighttime routine that includes retinol and a rich moisturizer. I’m not most twenty-nine-year-old women. My nighttime routine does include slapping on some moisturizer and brushing my teeth, but from there, things go differently, depending on the night.

On a good night, before I sleep, I check the front door by flipping the handle’s lock three times. And then I bolt it and repeat the process once or twice.

On a bad night, my brain yanks my body out of bed a dozen or more times. Those nights, I also check under the bed. But I’m not looking for the boogeyman, unless you consider the boogeyman someone my parents hired to kidnap me in the middle of the night when I was seventeen and take me—by force—across the state to a therapeutic boarding school.

Tonight, despite it having been a relatively good day, is a bad night.

My legs, tired from their mileage in heels during my shift, scream as I squat to look below the bed frame again. It’s irrational, I know. I’m very self-aware. But no one understands how deep the scars I carry are. They’ve cracked open my chest and allowed fear to seep into my veins, making me afraid to sleep at night after tough days. The thing is, I’m not scared of the things I might see when I close my eyes. I’m terrified of what—or whom—I’ll find when I wake up.

And so, I listen for the worst, like the heavy steps of grown men on the hardwood floors I refuse to cover with even the smallest of area rugs that might muffle their sounds, leaving me vulnerable, like the hallway runner outside my room in Captain’s Cottage. I often think if it hadn’t been there, maybe I would’ve heard them before they got to me. Maybe I would’ve had a chance to make it to my window and dash from it.