Someone to Watch Over Me by Helen R. Myers Read Free Book Online Page A

and volunteer.
    Gwen finished her dinner, eating no more than half of it, and quickly cleaned her plate and utensils and then faced her tidy, empty house.
    She felt safe inside its walls most of the time.
    Relatively safe. She might actually be getting better. Oh, she got impatient with herself and just plain mad at the whole world sometimes, but that’s just the way life was. Things happened.
    Bad things.
    People got hurt. They got scared. They got mad. They ran away. They got lost.
    Why was that? Gwen just didn’t know.
    She sat down on the sofa, curling up on one end, her head against the left arm, her feet tucked under her. Her eyes wandered around the house that still didn’t feel like her own, and she happened to glance at a figurine on the mantel, one her aunt had left behind. It was an angel.
    A woman in a beautiful, long, flowing gown with something that looked like wings. She had the kindest expression on her face.
    Gwen was at something of a standoff with God ever since the attack—she didn’t think she really believed anymore—but she liked having her angel on the mantel, liked to imagine a real angel sent by God watching over her. There was something motherly about the idea, and Gwen had been missing her mother since she moved here.
    Her mother hadn’t quite understood what had happened to Gwen. Gwen understood not wanting to believe awful things could just happen to people. But when thatled to people thinking she was somehow responsible…That’s when she stopped understanding and was just plain hurt.
    Plus, there was that whole mad-at-God thing Gwen had going on, which her mother really disapproved of. The attack had somehow become a test of faith that Gwen had failed, at least in her mother’s eyes.
    Things had gone from bad to worse at home, and Gwen had just wanted to get away. So when her aunt had decided to move, Gwen had jumped at the chance to come to Magnolia Falls.
    She curled up on her couch, her head on a pillow tucked into one end, all the lights still burning, the music still playing softly to cover all those pesky little night sounds, her little figurine seeming to watch over her in a way she found comforting beyond any kind of logic, and in that moment, the day didn’t seem so horrible or overwhelming.
    She needed someone to listen, to say that yes, sometimes life was really scary and so very difficult, and that people on Earth really didn’t quite understand why; she needed someone to even be a little angry on her behalf.
    As if what had happened to her had been so bad, it could make God mad? It hadn’t been. Not in the grand scheme of things.
    It had just shaken her to the core, left her feeling vulnerable and alone. It was like being dropped in a deep, dark hole and not knowing how to get out.
    So she’d come here, to a place where no one really knew her, a place she’d visited a few times and always felt safe. To a place where the man who’d attacked her wouldn’t be able to find her once he got out of prison. That had been important to her—that he wouldn’t know where she was.
    She’d told herself she’d rebuild her life here, that she’d get better.
    Maybe she would.
    In the meantime, she curled up almost in a ball and miserably poured out her troubles to an empty room and wondered if anyone was listening.
    I’m so tired, Gwen said. Everything seems so hard, like such an effort. Sometimes, I don’t know how I’ll be able to go on, if things are always this hard. Help me. Please. Couldn’t you just help me? Couldn’t you just take all the pain away?
    And when she was done, she cried a little bit, closed her eyes and imagined someone stroking her hair, telling her everything was going to be okay.
     
    Jax woke disoriented, with the sun blazing into his eyes. He groaned and rolled over, to get away from the light, then realized he was on the sofa in his mother’s living room.
    Wincing at the pain in his head, he stared at the clock, and saw that it was six-thirty.