Chapter 4 I Fought

Amy's POV

The final bell was the best sound I had heard all day.

I packed up my things faster than everyone else, keeping my head down as the classroom filled with the scraping of chairs and the noise of students spilling into the corridors. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I didn't want to be looked at. I just wanted to get out.

"Hey, wait up!" Lia's voice caught me just as I stepped into the hallway. She jogged to my side, slightly out of breath, her bag bouncing on her shoulder. "You move fast for someone so small."

"I'm not that small," I muttered.

"You're tiny, and that's okay." She linked her arm through mine before I could protest. "Come on. We're taking the bus together."

I opened my mouth to say I was fine on my own, but she was already pulling me along and honestly I didn't have the energy to argue.

Mia caught up with us at the front gate, slightly out of breath and carrying what looked like three textbooks she hadn't bothered to put in her bag.

"You two were really going to leave without me," she said flatly.

"We literally waited two minutes," Lia replied.

"Two minutes is a long time, Lia."

I found myself smiling without meaning to.

We said goodbye to Mia at the bus stop closest to her street, and then it was just Lia and me for the rest of the ride. She talked the whole way, about Mrs Rodriguez, about how Marcus had somehow charmed his way out of a second detention, about a series she had been watching that she was convinced I needed to see. I mostly listened, giving short answers when she asked me things directly, and she didn't seem to mind. She just kept going, filling the silence like it was second nature to her.

It was strange being around someone who didn't need me to perform or explain myself. Who just talked, and let me exist beside her without making it a big deal.

Strange, but not unwelcome.

We got off at our stop and walked the short distance to our street. The evening air was cooler than I expected and I pulled my hoodie tighter around myself.

"Same time tomorrow?" Lia asked when we reached the point where our paths split.

"Sure," I said, and I almost meant it.

She grinned like I had said something far more exciting than sure, waved, and disappeared through her front door.

I stood on the pavement for a moment longer than necessary, staring at nothing in particular. Then I turned and walked into the house.

.......

Mark wasn't home yet.

The house was quiet in that heavy way it got when he was absent not peaceful, just waiting. I dropped my bag by the stairs, went to the kitchen and started on dinner without being asked. It was better to have it ready. Less to answer for.

I was halfway through chopping onions when the doorbell rang.

I froze.

Mark had told me more than once not to open the door to anyone. I wiped my hands on a dish towel and went to the window first, pulling the curtain back just enough to see the front step.

Lia. And beside her, a woman I didn't recognise warm-faced, with Lia's same blonde hair and a foil-covered dish balanced in both hands. And behind them, hands in his pockets, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else on earth, Leo.

I let the curtain fall.

The doorbell rang again.

I stood there for a second, weighing my options. Mark wasn't back yet. They were just neighbours. Lia had been nothing but kind to me. And that woman was carrying food.

I opened the door.

"Amy!" Lia's face broke into a wide smile. "I told you she'd answer," she said to no one in particular.

"Hi, sweetheart." The woman beside her smiled, warm and unhurried, like she had all the time in the world. "I'm Sandra, Lia's mom. I wanted to come say welcome to the neighbourhood properly." She held out the dish. "I made cookies. They're still warm."

I looked at the dish, then at her face. There was something about her a kind of steadiness that made it hard to stay guarded.

"Thank you," I said, taking it carefully. "Please, come in."

Sandra stepped inside first, then Lia. Leo followed last, ducking slightly as he came through the doorway even though he didn't need to, his eyes doing a slow sweep of the room like he was cataloguing it.

"Lovely place," Sandra said, settling onto the sofa like she'd been invited a hundred times before.

Leo dropped into an armchair and said nothing. He was looking at the wall.

"Sorry about him," Lia whispered, appearing at my elbow.

I nodded and set the cookies on the table, my eyes drifting to the front window every few minutes without meaning to. Mark. If he came back and found people in the house.

"Are you okay?" Lia asked quietly.

"Fine," I said. "Just... my brother should be home soon. I wasn't expecting."

"We won't stay long," Sandra said from the sofa, as if she had heard. "I just wanted to put a face to the neighbours."

Ten minutes passed. Then fifteen. The conversation moved easily between Sandra and Lia about the neighbourhood, about school, about a neighbour down the road who apparently had the best garden on the street. I answered when spoken to and kept half an eye on the front door.

Leo, for his part, said almost nothing. He had picked up a small decorative stone from the side table and was turning it over in his hand absentmindedly, looking thoroughly bored.

Mark. If he came home...

Then the front door opened.

My stomach dropped.

Mark stepped in, loosening his tie, and stopped when he saw the room full of people he had never met.

For a terrible second, nobody spoke.

Then Mark smiled.

It didn't reach his eyes.

"I didn't know we had company," he said, his voice smooth and pleasant. He looked at me just for a moment, just a flicker and in that look was everything he wasn't saying. Every single word of it.

My throat tightened.

"I'm Sandra, your neighbour," Sandra said, standing to shake his hand. "I hope you don't mind I wanted to welcome you both to the street. I brought cookies."

"Of course," Mark said, shaking her hand with a warmth that would have fooled anyone who didn't know him. "That's very kind. I'm Mark, Amy's brother." He turned the same easy smile on Lia, then on Leo. "Friends from school?"

"My daughter and nephew," Sandra said. "Lia and Leo."

Mark nodded pleasantly. He sat down, crossed one leg over the other, and joined the conversation like he had been there all along. Asked Sandra how long she had lived on the street. Laughed at the right moments. Said all the right things.

I sat across from him and could barely breathe.

Every time his eyes passed over me casually, briefly, the way you glance at a piece of furniture, I felt the weight of what was coming settle a little heavier on my chest.

Leo was watching me.

I noticed it without meaning to the way his gaze had shifted from bored indifference to something quieter, more focused. Like he had caught something in my face that didn't add up. I looked away before he could decide what to do with it.

When Sandra finally announced they were leaving, Mark stood and walked them to the door himself, charming and gracious to the very end. Lia squeezed my arm on the way past and mouthed see you tomorrow. Leo said nothing, but at the threshold he glanced back at me, it was quick, and unreadable before following his aunt outside.

Mark closed the door.

The smile dropped off his face like it had never been there.

I stood very still.

He looked at me for a long moment. Then he said, "I'm ordering food. You don't need to cook tonight," and walked upstairs.

Just like that.

No raised voice, no belt pulled from its loops. Nothing.

I stayed rooted to the spot long after his footsteps had faded down the hallway above me. I didn't trust it. I didn't trust the quiet, or his even tone, or the fact that nothing had happened. With Mark, nothing happening was sometimes worse than something happening. At least when I knew what was coming, I could prepare myself.

This.... this I didn't know what to do with.

I went back to the kitchen, turned off the stove, and sat at the table. I peeled back the foil on Sandra's cookies.

They were still warm. Soft in the middle, slightly crisp at the edges the kind that took actual effort to make.

I ate one slowly, alone in the quiet kitchen, and tried not to think about how long it had been since anyone had brought me something just to be kind.

I had almost fallen asleep when the knock came.

Three raps. Slow and deliberate.

I was already sitting up before the second one landed, my heart slamming against my ribs. The room was dark. The takeout boxes were still on the counter downstairs. Everything was quiet in the way that meant nothing good.

"Amy."

I pulled my knees to my chest and said nothing.

The handle turned, then the door swung open.

I had locked it this time. I was sure I had locked it. But the lock on my door had never been something Mark couldn't get around when he decided he wanted to.

He stepped inside.

"No," I said. The word came out small and cracked but it came out. "Please. No."

For a moment he just looked at me in the dark. Then something shifted in his face.

He crossed the room in three steps.

I fought. I always fought even though I knew it only ever made things worse because the alternative was lying still, and pretending I was somewhere else and I couldn't do that tonight, not after Sandra's cookies and Lia's arm linked through mine and the strange, dangerous feeling that maybe something in my life could be different.

So I fought.