Megan's Way by Melissa Foster Read Free Book Online Page B

hair and held her
close. She felt each sob deep within the pit of her own stomach.
“Livi, do you want to tell me first? Would that help?”
    Olivia tightened her grip around Megan.
“That’s worse!
    You’ll hate me!”
    “I could never hate you! I love you!” She
lifted Olivia’s dirt streaked face in her hands, and was met with
dark circles around her daughter’s haunted eyes. What on earth
have I done to my baby? each beat of Megan’s heart hurt with
the answer. “Olivia, you did nothing wrong. I could never think
badly of you.”
    Olivia yelled, “But I did! I went to
myroom.com! You told me not to! You said something bad could
happen!” Olivia threw herself against the passenger door, arms
crossed over her chest. She stared out the window. “You told me,
Mom! You warned me! god! I’m such a mess!” She buried her face in
her hands and brought her knees up to her chest. “You must hate
me!”
    Megan slid over to Olivia’s side of the car,
wrapped her arms around her daughter’s shaking body, and let her
tears fall onto Olivia’s shiny hair. “Baby girl,” she crooned, “you
made a mistake. god knows I’ve made a ton!”
    Olivia laughed, “Yeah, right. You? You are
like Miss
    Perfect. You never fuck up.”
    Megan flinched at the word. “Yes I do…fuck
up,” she said, and they both laughed through their tears. “I fuck
up all the time, Olivia! I just hide it well!”
    “Oh, Mom!” Olivia threw her arms around
Megan’s neck. They remained there, safe in each other’s arms, until
their sobbing stopped and their hearts calmed. “What am I going to
do? Do I have to tell the police?”
    “Yes. Otherwise that maniac can hurt someone
else.”
    “But, Mom, he isn’t the one I met. I met a
younger guy.
    Someone…like…my age. No! He must have been
sixteen because he drove. He drove me to this guy and then took
off.”
    “The green truck!” Megan looked out the
window, remembering the vehicle speeding away through the field,
the bright color of it, almost fluorescent.
    “Yes! He drove a green truck!” Olivia
said.
    “We have to report it, Livi. Besides, I might
have killed that guy. What I did to him was so…” Megan felt sick
remembering the awful sensation of her thumb digging under the
man’s eye socket and rifling through the remains.
    “Brave. It was so brave, Mom. You saved my
life.” “Well, someone had to do it!” Megan swallowed her impulse to
cry, trying to remain strong for Olivia.
    Just before Olivia fell asleep, she said to
Megan, “If my father was around, he would be so ashamed of me. I’m
glad I don’t know who he is. It hurts less this way.”
    Megan tried to console her while wrestling
her own private demons. How had she let this happen? Why hadn’t she
forbade Olivia from going out earlier that evening? How can I
leave her? Thankfully, the Valium that the physician had given
Olivia kicked in, and she faded off to sleep with her worries
written all over her young face.
    Megan couldn’t leave her bedside. The guilt
she felt swirled through her like a whirlwind, dusting up all of
her confusion and pain.
    Jack and Peter had come and gone, staying
much longer than Megan had the energy for, though she was thankful
for the comfort from them. They had both offered to go look for the
man that Megan fought and the green truck, but the police said they
were already doing that, and Megan didn’t want her friends to be
bothered anymore than they already had been. Their guilt for not
having been available when Megan had been in a crisis was evident
in their eyes, their actions. What they didn’t realize, however,
was that the time was yet to come when she would truly need them
like she never had before.
     
     
    While Holly waited downstairs, Megan
reflected on the scene at the police station. It had been
heart-wrenching to watch Olivia describe how depressed she had
been, and how that was the first time she had “chatted” with anyone
online besides her two best friends.