Forever Misplaced, page 1
Books by Heather Michelle
IN RECOMMENDED READING ORDER
The Misplaced Children Series
A Misplaced Child
A Misplaced Hope
A Misplaced Life
Novellas
Forever Misplaced (you are here)
Unseen Consequences
The Unseen Series
A Girl Unseen (Coming soon)
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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Copyright © 2022 by Heather Michelle
All rights reserved.
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Late for Dinner Press LLC
P.O. Box 982
Acworth, GA 30101
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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Please do not steal any of this work, for it will make the author very sad, and they may cry.
Edited by Nicole Schuette: www.nicoleschuette.com
First Edition: August 2022
ISBN 978-1-952857-10-2
To Kody. You owe me now.
Forever Misplaced
A MISPLACED CHILDREN NOVELLA
HEATHER MICHELLE
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
The story of the Twoshy continues…
About the Author
Chapter One
Kody pounded on the locked door of her apartment. “Open up, Roger. This isn’t funny.” She jiggled the handle again, but he’d locked the top deadbolt, only accessible on the inside. The landlady called it a safety feature. Now, that safety feature was ruining her life.
Her day had been great. A quiet morning working the early shift at the bookstore and two call backs resulting in interviews on Monday, bringing her one step closer to the life she wanted. Mindlessly placing new release after new release on the shelf the remainder of the morning let her brain wander. It dawned on her with the new doors in her life opening that it was time to talk with Roger about where their relationship was going. She texted him on her break and asked if they could talk when she got home.
What an epic backfire.
She pounded on the door again, and the phone in her pocket buzzed. She pulled it out. Roger.
She accepted the call.
“Let me in, Roger. I know you’re in there.”
“Look, babe, you were the one who wanted to break up,” he said in the soft, serious voice he used for touchy subjects in front of someone he wanted to impress.
“I didn’t want to break up,” Kody hissed into the phone. “I said we needed to talk about us.”
In their texts, he’d jumped to conclusions, accusing her of cheating and telling her not to come back to their apartment. They were done, he said.
She didn’t get it. He was usually more even-tempered than this. A laid-back guy, so placid in the day-to-day it drove Kody mad just trying to get his opinion on something.
Was it her? Was she not enough for him?
She leaned against the door, waiting for him to answer.
“Well, what’s done is done,” Roger said. “I think we should go our separate ways before things get even more complicated.”
“Roger, where am I supposed to go?” she asked, her heart in her voice. She wanted to build a life with him, and before now, he seemed on board. “Everything I own is in that apartment.”
“I’ll let you in tomorrow when you’re a little less emotional. I can’t just let you live in my apartment for free, babe. That’s not how the real world works.”
Free? What was he talking about? When had she lived there for free? Roger said they should pool their finances from day one, which had always meant she paid the bills and he sometimes made grand gestures of movie tickets or a night out.
Something in her brain snapped, like a spark igniting a fire. Her vision went red, and she kicked the door again and again.
“For free!?” She pounded the wood with her fists, rattling the small numbers nailed on the apartment door. “I’ve been paying the rent for the last year, you mother f—”
The apartment door to Kody’s right cracked open and her elderly neighbor poked her head out. Kody grimaced and gave the old woman a nod before lifting the phone back to her ear.
“Look. I get you’re upset, babe, but the apartment’s in my name, remember? You didn’t have the credit. But I can’t keep letting you live here for nothing. You just got to move on and stand on your own for once.”
The words stung.
How many homes had she moved into as a foster kid and felt like a stranger leaching off the goodness of someone else? She told Roger that once, how she was so excited to get her own place after she turned eighteen. Working her butt off for minimum wage while going to community college, then online courses to finish her degree. Yeah, she had a roommate, but rent was expensive. Then her roommate got married. She and Roger had only just started dating, but she’d known him for a while and trusted him. He suggested they get a place together, and Kody agreed. That was two years ago.
The high notes of a giggle broke through the phone speaker, and the sting of Roger’s words melted against the flames of her sudden, intense anger.
“Who the hell is that? Roger! Who do you have in there? Have you been cheating on me? Is that what this is?” He accused her of cheating. Was it because of a guilty conscience?
“Babe, that’s the TV. You’re delusional. Look, I’m hanging up. You can come back tomorrow for your stuff. I’ll have it sitting on the front porch.”
“You will not touch my stuff, Roger. Let me in now or I’m calling the cops.”
“Call them and tell them what? Your boyfriend won’t let you into his apartment? Who do you think they’re going to believe in this situation, babe? Look, I got to go. Stop by tomorrow. Your stuff will be on the porch.”
The phone clicked and went dead in Kody’s hand. Through the door, Roger’s deep voice rumbled and a high-pitched laugh answered. She kicked the door once more in frustration, but regretted it. Roger would only think he won.
From the day she entered the system a nameless, anonymous baby, she had been taught time and time again that she could only trust herself and what she could make with her own hands. And so she fought for her independence. Every decision she made, every late night studying and twelve-hour shift, it was all to reach a place where she would never again be forced to pack a trash bag with her life’s possessions and abandon another home with no notice.
She was so close. One of the interviews on Monday would finally put her degree to use and pay twice what she made at the bookstore.
At first Roger hadn’t fit into her plan but building a life with someone else had sounded so good, and her heart had hoped for something brighter than cold independence. Roger proved her hope naive, but she would never again make the same mistake.
Kody sighed and left the apartment complex, setting off along a main road into town. She would head to her favorite coffee shop where she could think and use the Wi-Fi to look up cohabitation laws in their state. Her name wasn’t on the lease, but it was her residence, and she had the bills and rent receipts to prove it, as long as Roger didn’t do something to them before she could get in. She could crash on her college roommate’s couch for the night, but she didn’t want to bother her. Maybe she would put her emergency credit card to use while she secured a crappy apartment in a rough part of town. She was more established now. Someone would rent to her.
With a plan in mind, she could breathe easier. It was how she got through life—make a plan, breathe, follow the plan.
She’d been too submissive in their relationship. She spent too long enjoying the comfort of having someone to call hers and let the part of herself who always fought to get ahead fade into the background. Never again. Never again would she let some man make her feel safe and forget she was the only one looking out for herself.
The bright, end of winter sun chased off the crisp chill in the air. Green shoots popped up out of the dead earth on the sides of the road as spring threatened to emerge.
Kody glared at the patch of daffodils.
Daffodils always caused a flurry of mixed emotions within her spirit. The sight of their leaves poking up through the bracken of the winter months signaled the end of her favorite time of year. They were an omen for the death of winter, yet when she passed a horde of the bright yellow bulbs bursting above the cheery green leaves and watched their heads bob and wave in the light breeze, she couldn’t help but smile. She wanted to hate these harbingers of the death of her beloved winter, but the edges of her lips bent into a smile and she found she could not do so.
Kody hated the summer. She hated to be hot and sweaty, and in the long-sleeved shirts she wore year round, the heat became unbearable.
The only way to hide pit stains
But that had been her life for well over a decade, ever since her skin issues became more apparent, and kids started making fun of her.
Her skin color, she’d known from a young age, was important to how those around her perceived her. She wasn’t black, or white, or Asian, or Latina but an unguessable blend forever unknown by the absence of parents and family. Being brown wasn’t the worst thing growing up. She didn’t burn easily, and she quite liked her unruly curls. Brown had been nice, but when she turned ten, standing in the sun, it was hard to miss the odd discoloration of her skin. Streaks of green wound over her arms and legs, up her neck and onto her face. One foster mother wondered if maybe they were oddly hued scars, darkening with age.
Long sleeves covered most of the oddity, but that foster mother refused to let her wear foundation. The next foster home hadn’t cared, or even noticed, as she lathered on makeup, causing a terrible case of acne. From there, the breakouts were enough to rationalize the need for makeup until she graduated and learned a better skincare routine.
Roger was her first boyfriend that didn’t seem bothered by her discoloration. He was the first man she ever truly let her guard down with. There were other boys, the ones who made nasty comments when they got her jacket off and saw her warm brown skin marred by the faint green streaks that swirled her body. The comments always killed the friendship and then names came later. But Roger, the first and only time he saw her without her long-sleeved shirt in good lighting, said nothing. The silence was heavy, but easier to deal with than anything he could have said.
She’d been stupid to think disinterest was enough to build a relationship on.
Kody continued down the road, too frustrated to bother with the bus. She held her breath whenever a car passed and kicked up dirt and exhaust in her face. Halfway to her destination, a sixteen-wheeler passed, and she threw an arm over her face to block the dust and dirt. The dust caught the light, shimmering in the air, and the world seemed to shift around her. As if caught in a stiff vortex of air coming off the truck, the wind caught her, and Kody’s heart skipped a beat as her feet fell out from under her. She fell, pulled to the left, and her eyes stared into the face of an oncoming truck just before impact.
Chapter Two
Kody landed hard on her elbow and tensed, waiting for the impact of the truck.
It didn’t come.
She scrambled to her knees. The world wasn’t what it had been a moment before. Gone was the sun reflecting off the asphalt. Gone were the light posts and bus stops and the general noise of running motors and speeding cars. Everything was green and slow. Trees swayed in a warm breeze and the sun filtered down through the foliage and cast a warm green glow to the earth.
Kody blinked and rubbed her eyes. Her skin buzzed, and her head swam with the sudden change in light, temperature, sound, and literally every other external factor she could think of. She took a deep breath, and it was as if she’d never done so before. There was something alive all around her, pulsing in the air and flowing below the ground.
A leaf fell from the canopy above, and Kody lazily reached out a hand but froze at what met her eyes.
Her hand glowed. Not the entire hand, but the streaks she had known to shine green in the right light were now radiating a solid green hue. She turned her hand, and the spiral running down her wrist and around her thumb continued in a glowing swirl on her palm. It had always been faint before, but now it was unmistakable.
This had to be a hallucination. She could never hide her green bits if they glowed. Was the foundation on her face even working anymore?
She pulled up her sleeves, and sure enough, the glow continued, following the path of her spirals. Lifting her sweatshirt, even her stomach spirals glowed. Her heart raced. She stuck her hands in her pockets, hoping no one was near enough to see. Peering around her curls, she gazed through the trunks of wide trees, ferns, and brambles but saw no one. She was completely alone in this secluded stretch of forest.
Living in the city, Kody never paid much attention to trees, but these didn’t look like the beech and oak trees she was familiar with. She couldn’t even see the road. She rubbed her eyes again, her skin’s green glow nearly blinding. Was it getting brighter?
She didn’t know what to be more worried about, her apparent arrival in an unknown forest or her deepest secret glowing like a night light and threatening to show the world what a freak she really was.
Pulling her hood down over her hair, she stood on wobbly feet. Every cell in her body felt alive and on edge. She couldn’t sit in one place a moment longer. There didn’t seem to be a break in the surrounding brush, and looking up, there wasn’t even a Kody-shaped hole in the leaves above. What could have happened? Had she passed out? Been kidnapped or abducted by aliens?
The thought made her grin, and she took another deep breath, steadying herself. She could make a plan and figure this out. She pulled her phone out and groaned. There was no signal. She always had a signal in the city. She didn’t even know how far she’d have to travel to lose a signal. Surely farther than she’d ever been before.
She could try calling out, but then the aliens or kidnappers might have an easier time finding her. She wiped her sleeve across her forehead and grimaced at the smudge of foundation. It was hot. Much hotter than the early spring afternoon she dressed for. Had she lost time as well as distance in passing out?
Maybe she really had fallen into traffic and cracked open her head, and now here she was, months or years later on a hike where she’d fallen and had a memory lapse.
Kody dabbed at the sweat on her forehead again. She couldn’t stand here thinking up crazy events. She looked around one more time, picked the direction where the trees looked furthest apart, and started walking.
See? A plan was all she needed.
As she set out, she felt like a looming presence watched her, but no matter how many times she looked over her shoulder, she was alone. The forest was . . . weird. The constant chirp of birds and squirrels dropping acorns or rustling through dry leaves didn’t help her paranoia. A branch snapped behind her and she flinched and spun around, but all she could make out through the dense trees was a green deer. At least, she thought it was a green deer. She laid her face in her hands. Aliens seemed more likely by the minute.
Trekking through a forest wasn’t easy. Her sneakers weren’t up for the damp ground, and her jeans barely protected her legs from branches and brambles. Some plants seemed as sharp as steel, and others felt like they reached out to snare her all on their own. If Kody were superstitious, she might believe the forest was working against her. As it was, she was sticking to her plan. Walk, walk, walk, and walk some more. Eventually the forest had to end, the city girl reasoned.
After a hard twenty-minute walk, Kody stopped and leaned against a tree with chalky white bark to catch her breath. Something stabbed her neck. Careful exploration found a long thorny vine caught in her curls from when she’d ripped away from a bush. Thorns covered her sleeves and pants and her skin underneath felt chewed up and raw. She checked her phone for a signal again and, disappointed, she picked thorns out of her clothes for a few more minutes. The date and time on her phone seemed accurate for when she’d left her apartment and started her walk to the coffee shop, so she couldn’t have lost more than a few minutes, definitely not weeks or months, to explain the weather. Weren’t forests supposed to be cool with all the shade?
Kody needed to get back to town and figure out what to do about Roger. She needed to call the cops and politely ask someone to escort her to her old apartment so she could collect her things, and then she needed to find a cheap place to sleep for a few days.
