𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐘𝐏𝐒𝐎 | ᴍɪʟʟᴀʀᴅ ɴᴜʟʟɪɴɢꜱ

𝟑] 𝐓 𝐈𝐒 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐔𝐌𝐀

CHAPTER THREE ˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ T IS FOR TRAUMA

I SPENT THE WEEKS FOLLOWING MY GRANDFATHER'S DEATH CYCLING THROUGH A PURGATORY OF BEIGE WAITING ROOMS AND ANONYMOUS OFFICES.

We were analyzed and interviewed, talked about just out of earshot, nodding when spoken to, repeating ourselves, the object of a thousand pitying glances and knitted brows.

Our parents treated us like a breakable heirloom, afraid to fight or fret in front of us lest we shatter. Jacob was plagued by wake-up-screaming nightmares so bad that he had to wear a mouth guard to keep from grinding his teeth into nubs as he slept.

His solution was to stop leaving home. For weeks he refused even to venture into the driveway to collect the morning paper. He slept in a tangle of blankets on the laundry room floor, the only part of the house with no windows and also a door that locked from the inside.

That's where we spent the day of our grandfathers funeral, sitting on the dryer with my laptop, trying to lose ourselves in online games. I blamed myself for what happened. If only I'd believed him was my endless refrain. But I hadn't believed him, and neither had Jacob, and now we knew how he must've felt because no one believed us, either.

My version of events sounded perfectly rational until we were forced to say the words aloud, and then it sounded insane, particularly on the day we had to say them to the police officer, who came to our school.

Jacob and I told him everything that had happened even about the creature, which was apparently there, as he sat nodding across the kitchen table writing nothing in his spiral notebook.

When Jacob finished all he said "great, thanks," and then turned to our parents and asked if we had "been to see anyone."

As if we wouldn't know what that meant. I told him I had another statement to make and then held up my middle finger and walked out.

My parents yelled at me for the first time in weeks. It was kind of a relief, actually--that old sweet sound. I yelled some ugly things back. That they were glad Grandpa Portman was dead. That we were the only one who'd really loved him.

The cop and my parents talked in the driveway for a while, and then the cop drove off only to come back an hour later with a man who introduced himself as a sketch artist. He'd brought a big drawing pad and asked Jacob to describe the creature again, and as he did he sketched it, stopping occasionally to ask for clarifications.

"How many eyes did it have?"

"Two."

"Gotcha," he said, as if monsters were a perfectly normal thing for a police sketch artist to be drawing.

As an attempt to placate him, it was pretty transparent. The biggest giveaway was when he tried to give Jacob the finished sketch.

"Don't you need this for your files or something?" Jake asked him.

He exchanged raised eyebrows with the cop. "Of course. What was I thinking?"

I swore up and down that I hadn't seen any creature in the woods that night--even though Jacob swore he shined his flashlight right at it which is just what he told the cops.

I had heard barking, though. We both had. So it wasn't a huge surprise when the police concluded that a pack of feral dogs had killed my grandfather. Apparently they'd been spotted elsewhere and had taken bites our of a woman who'd been walking in Century Woods the week before.