I get home later than usual, and my dad is already there setting the table for dinner. As expected, there is a five-course meal ready even though only two people will be eating it. Stress cooking has always been one of my dads coping mechanisms and after that therapy session i know he needs it..

"Where have you been?" he asks, wiping his face and trying his best not to get any sauce on it in the process.

"I was at the bookstore."

I can see the glint of hope in his eyes, "Are you going back to reading? If so, I just started a new collection I know you'll love! It's about--"

"Dad, I never stopped I'm just...taking a break okay? I can't read without thinking about....."

His body deflates back to the depressed man with a kidnapped daughter.

"Your mother used to love watching you read. She knew she couldn't do it herself and I offered to teach her, but she never wanted to learn. She always preferred to just watch you or have you retell it."

"Well it's not my fault mom was illiterate, and she's not here to listen anymore so what's the point?"

"Don't talk about your mother that way! You know good and well it wasn't her fault she couldn't read. The point is," he sighs trying to regain his composure. "The point is, just because she was gone doesn't mean you can't still do it in her memory. It doesn't mean you have to give up something you love."

"Oh sure dad, because it's so easy to go back to doing this just like the old days knowing I'm the reason she's dead!"

I know what he will say after this. I know he will try and tell me that it wasn't my fault that she died but I know that's not true. I killed my mother. I killed my mother by breaking her heart. If only I healed faster, if I escaped faster, she would've still been alive eating with us now. I grab my plate of food and walk to my room, ignoring my father as he calls after me.

I lock the door and listen to see if he's coming after me this time. When I know the cost is clear I walk to the side of the room where there's a whole in the wall just big enough for me to crawl through. I continue to crawl up till I reach the attic. Happy memories flood through my head while I run my hands along the spines of all the marvelous books we have stored up there all the way to the sliding ladder. I push it as far as it travels until I hear a faint click.

My mother had a thing for secret passages and built this one just for me: a small door leading outside onto the roof. We used to spend hours on end thinking about how the passage should look and where would it lead. WE were even thinking about digging underground and building a treehouse at the end of it. Our own personal rabbit hole to wonderland.

I pull the lever and bring myself up to the perch on the roof, taking a deep breath to clear my thoughts.

"Everywhere I go you're gonna be here huh mama?" I ask to know one in particular taking a deep breath.

Outside is the one place that I still enjoy. It smells of freedom and fresh beginnings. Listening to the quietness of birds chirping and crickets singing puts my mind at peace better than anything else.

"You know it's not safe up there, you could fall," a familiar male voice says.

I look down to see adam standing in the garden of my house. This man is EVERYWHERE, and now he knows where I live!

"I've already been kidnapped please don't make me add stalked and murdered to that list."

He gives me a small smile before saying, "Get down, Belle, I would like to show you something."

"How do you know my name?" I say getting up and sliding down the drainage pipe to the damp grass, careful not to crush any flowers in the process.

"The same way I knew how to find you. Let's go, I have to get you back before midnight."

I follow him through the streets silently.

"What do I look like to you? Cinderella?" i say as we both start walking down the street.

He continues to try and make conversation but none of it is sticking enough for me to answer. After about ten minutes it finally hits o the hell are

"Who the hell are you?" I scream.

"Um, that's not something you should say on a first date."

"On a first what? Why did you make me go with you? My dad's going to go crazy if I'm missing he's gonna think I ran or something."

A chuckle vibrates through his chest, "Look, I didn't force you to come, you came by will or compulsion from curiosity. I just want to be friends and get to know you."

I glare at him, weighing my options. My first choice is to walk back home alone in the dark and risk the chance of being hurt again. The second choice would be to stay with this creepy stranger and follow him to wherever he wants to go. I choose the latter, only because I get walked home.

He smiles as if he sees the exception in my eyes and grabs my hand. A tingle runs through my veins from where he touches me all the way up to my heart. It's a painfully sweet sensation and I grasp his hand harder not wanting it to stop.

"We're here," he says in a dark whisper.

I really wish I didn't come.