Tiny Crown

Chapter 18

With a rumbling stomach, Emilia headed to the door of her room. She turned the door handle and pulled but it wouldn’t open. He’d locked her in.

Emilia didn’t know what she had been expecting. He had been nicer to her. But she had pestered him into admitting he was a murderer.

She stayed in the room for several days, Evan only opened the door to give her food and bottled water. When he gave her the food, he took the empty plate and cutlery from before away.

She wished she had never asked. She’d have no way of escaping, no way of going outside again any time soon. It had been easy to keep track of the days at first, because of what food he had been giving her, and from that she could figure what time it was. She counted the days by keeping a tally on one of the letters, she had found an old pen on the desk. But then she started forgetting if she had made a mark for that day or not.

Eleven days had passed before she had lost count. Emilia knew a few days had passed then. She’d been in the same room for two weeks, doing almost nothing. She’d stopped trying to get him to let her out, banging on the door and walls with her hands only hurt her hands, it didn’t achieve anything.

Finally, one of the mornings - she assumed it was a morning - the door was open. With the mild anxiety that it was a trap, Emilia changed in the bathroom with the door closed while leaving the door from the bedroom to the hallway open. Carefully, she headed downstairs and froze on the stairs as she saw Evan making toast.

“You’re awake.”
“Clearly,” she said, internally regretting her choice of response as soon as the word left her lips. She could have said something less sarcastic, she could have said nothing at all.
“You stopped hitting the walls and the doors,” he said as he put butter on the toast.
“I gave up hitting them, you weren’t doing anything.”
“I was… I was upset and you were angry and scared and I didn’t want anything to happen,” he said as he cut the two slices of toast in half. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Emilia carried on walking to the bottom of the stairs.
“Are you angry now?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I wasn’t too angry with you,” he said as he put the toast onto a plate. “I was more upset but I was still a little angry and you were scared and angry and people do stupid things when they’re scared and angry and upset.”
“Yeah,” she said quietly, just nodding.

Evan looked at her for a moment before pushing the plate along the counter. It stopped in front of her, not too far away from the edge.
“This is for me?”
He nodded. “Unless you don’t want it?”
Emilia shook her head as she picked up the toast. “I mean, I want it, thank you.” He just nodded.

After eating a bite of it, she nervously looked at him again. He was making more toast, presumably for himself.
“How long was I in that room for?”
“Seventeen days.” Her eyes widened. That was six more days than she had counted. Emilia looked down at the toast in her hand and took another bite of it; she didn’t have much else to say. The only thing she had to say had a chance of angering him.

“You’re looking away from me,” he said. “What are you thinking about?”
She forgot he had noticed when she was thinking. “You didn’t mean to, did you?” she asked quietly.
He shook his head. “I didn’t.”
“Do you regret it?” she asked. Even though Emilia asked, she wasn’t sure if she wanted the answer.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think I do. She can’t hurt me or anyone else now. Before you ask, I don’t want to kill anyone again.”
“You don’t?”
“No” he said, quickly shaking his head. “I… I couldn’t.”