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“Let’s get your stuff and get out of here.” Because I didn’t want her exposed for one more second.
JOURNAL ENTRY
I saw her again today. It’d been three weeks and I’d given up hope that she would call. I nearly stumbled when I walked into the coffee shop, in a hurry the way I always was. I’d even told myself that I didn’t have time to stop in, but there was something that compelled me.
I guess it was her.
She was sitting in the corner, almost completely hidden, drinking coffee and reading a book.
I ordered my coffee, and rather than ducking out when they called my name, I moved through the packed coffee shop, through the groups of people who were chatting and others who worked on their laptops, to the small, empty table next to hers.
I sat there sipping my coffee, allowing the tumult of her emotions to wash over me.
Being an empath was hard sometimes. Feeling what others felt.
Their excitement and their love.
Their despondency and their fear.
Hers was convoluted and confused, like she couldn’t quite put her finger on what she was supposed to feel.
When she finally made eye contact with me, I quietly told her hi, keeping my voice secreted, hoping to convey that even though she didn’t know me, she could trust me.
But it was distrust she was riddled with.
And God, she was beautiful. Striking. Her makeup and hair done to perfection. Dressed in posh clothing that was clearly expensive.
How easy it is for the exterior to shine while the inside decays.
Warily, she returned my hello, but not before she cast another furtive glance around the shop.
We might have been sitting at different tables with silence echoing between us, but I somehow knew that we shared our coffees.
That time.
That understanding.
Are you safe? I finally had asked her, gazing out on the patrons of the coffee shop while I asked it.
She’d chewed at her bottom lip and stared into her coffee as she’d whispered, I really don’t know.
I told her I was a therapist and anything she told me was confidential. That I was here for her, whatever she needed.
I could see the doubt and suspicion carved into her features, all while I could feel a piece of her reaching out.
A tendril of her faltering spirit looking for something to hold onto.
A moment later, she got up and left, but not before she whispered, thank you, as she walked by.
NINETEEN
SAVANNAH
My throat tightened as I looked at the man who’d begun to pick up my stuff that I’d left strewn about the room. Emotion knitted me in a blanket of a thousand different colors and a million different threads.
Weaving me together or rending me apart, I couldn’t tell. There was no making sense of the uproar that crashed through my senses.
No making sense of his care or the brand-new fear that had struck inside me.
All of it blazed through the intensity that rioted in the room. Slamming the walls and radiating back, becoming more and more intense with each fiery pass. I still couldn’t believe that I’d agreed to stay in his guest house, but that had been overshadowed by the fact that someone had tried to break into my motel room.
My chest constricted with the impulse to tell him. Lay it out. Why I was here. Let him hold my fears.
How could I fully trust him, though? With the very thing most important to me? This overbearing man who I couldn’t discern where his intentions really lay.
A law enforcer, nonetheless.
The last time I’d taken the chance and asked for help haunted me. The face of the police officer who’d come to my house under the guise of taking a report.
Disgust rolled over me as I was hit with the memory of his cologne. A stagnant stench I didn’t think I could ever rid from my consciousness. “I think we could probably help each other out.”
While Ezra was gathering clothes from the floor, I moved to where I’d left my duffle on the bed.
My hand was shaking out of control as I quickly slid it to the bottom under the pretense of stuffing clothes into it. The clump of dread sitting like a tank on my chest lessened a fraction when my fingertips grazed the journal still hidden where I’d left it.
A wash of relief slammed me.
This had to have only been a fluke.
Random.
Coincidence.
I refused to believe what I’d told Ezra had been a lie. I really had no idea who it could have been or even why someone would come looking for me. Unfortunately, claiming it did nothing to eradicate the disturbance that rattled me to the bones.
I zipped the duffle up quickly before I turned to the man who had his arms full of my things.
“You don’t need to do that, Ezra.”
He grunted. “The faster we get your things together, the faster we can get out of here.”
