The Trap by Catherine Ryan Howard EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Catherine Ryan Howard
- Language: English
- Genre: Women’s Psychological Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
She’d been out-out, and town had been busy. Stumbled out of the club to
discover that there wasn’t a taxi to be had. Spent an hour trying to flag one
down with one hand while trying to hail one via an app with the other until,
resigned, she’d pushed her way on to a packed night bus headed not far
enough in sort of the right direction. Her plan was to call someone at its
terminus, apologize for waking them and ask them to come get her, but by
the time she got there—to a tiny country village that was sleepy by day and
empty by night—her phone had died. She’d been the last passenger and the
bus had driven off before she could think to ask the driver if she could
perhaps borrow his phone. It was four in the morning and beginning to
drizzle, so she’d started walking. Because, really, what other choice did she
have?
This is the story she tells herself as she leaves the village and crosses
into the dark its streetlights had been holding back.
All around her, the night seems to thrum with disapproval.
Silly girl. This is exactly the kind of thing your mother told you not to
do. There has to be some kind of personal responsibility, doesn’t there?
An ex-boyfriend had once told her that his favorite part of a night out
was the walk home. Just him and his thoughts on deserted streets, the
evening’s fun still warm in his chest. He had no tense wait for a taxi. He
didn’t need to walk to the front door with his keys squeezed between his
fingers, ready to scratch, to disable. He had never texted a thumbs-up emoji
to anyone before he went to sleep so that they could go to sleep as well.
The part of the night he loved was the part she had to survive.
When she’d told him this, he’d pulled her close and kissed her face and
whispered, “I’m so sorry that you think that’s the world you live in,” in so
patronizing a tone that, for a brief moment, she’d considered using her keys
on his scrotum.
The drizzle gives way to a driving rain. When the footpath runs out, her
high heels make her stumble on the crumbling surface of the road. The balls
of her feet burn and the ankle strap on the right one is rubbing her skin
away.
For a while, there’s a watery moonlight inviting forms to take on a
shape and step out of the night—a telephone pole, a hedgerow, a pothole—
but then the road twists into a tunnel of overhanging trees and the dark
solidifies. She can’t see her own legs below the hem of her dress now. Her
body is literally disappearing into the night.
And then, through the roar of the rain—
A mechanical whine.
Getting louder.
For More Read Download This Book
EPUB