Page 27 of Verity

My eyes return to his. “I have no recollection of that. How can I inflict that much pain on myself and not be aware of it? How can I stand on a railing for an entire hour without swaying, not even a little bit? The video frightened me more than the injury did.”

Again, he hugs me, and I am so grateful that I cling to him tightly. “My mother sent me away for a two-week psychiatric evaluation after that,” I say into his chest. “When I returned home, she had moved farther down the hall, into a spare bedroom where she placed three locks on the inside of her bedroom door. My own mother was terrified of me.”

Jeremy buries his face in my hair and sighs heavily. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

I squeeze my eyes shut.

“And I’m sorry your mother didn’t know how to handle it. That had to have been hard for you.”

Everything about him is exactly what I needed tonight. His voice is calm and caring, and his arms are protective, and his presence is comforting. I don’t want him to let go of me. I don’t want to think about waking up in Verity’s bed. I don’t want to think about how much I don’t trust my own mind in my sleep, and even when I’m awake.

“We can talk more tomorrow,” he says, releasing me. “I’ll try to come up with a plan to make you feel more comfortable. But for now, just try to get some sleep, okay?”

He squeezes my hands reassuringly and then goes to the door. I feel panicked by the thought of him leaving me alone in here. Of going back to sleep. “What do I do about the rest of tonight? Just lock my door?”

Jeremy looks at the alarm clock. It’s ten minutes to five. He stares at the clock for a moment and then walks back to me. “Lie down,” he says, lifting the covers. I crawl into the bed and he scoots in behind me.

He wraps his arm around me, tucking my head under his chin. “It’s almost five, I won’t go back to sleep. But I’ll stay until you do.”

He’s not rubbing my back or soothing me in any way. If anything, the arm that’s holding me is stiff, like he doesn’t want me to misconstrue our position on this bed in any way. But even with how uncomfortable he is right now, I appreciate he’s making an effort to make me comfortable.

I try to close my eyes and sleep, but all I see is Verity. All I hear is the sound of her bed upstairs, moving.

It’s after six when he assumes I’m asleep. His arm moves and his fingers end up in my hair for a moment. It’s quick, as quick as the kiss he plants on the side of my head, but his actions linger long after he leaves the bedroom and closes the door.

I never fell back asleep, which is why I’m pouring my second cup of coffee and it’s just after eight in the morning.

I stand at the sink, staring out the window. It started raining around five o’clock this morning while I was in my bed with Jeremy, pretending to be asleep.

April’s car pulls up into the muddy drive as I’m staring out the window. I wonder if Jeremy will tell her what happened.

I haven’t seen him this morning. I assume he’s upstairs, where he usually remains until April arrives. I don’t want to be in the kitchen when April walks in, so I turn to head toward my office. I unexpectedly bump into Jeremy, but he cushions the blow by taking a step back and grabbing my shoulders. Thank goodness because it saves my precious coffee from spilling.

He looks tired, but I can’t judge him for that since it’s my fault. “Good morning,” he says it like it’s anything but.

“Morning.” I’m whispering. I don’t know why.

He moves so that he’s right next to me, leaning in as if to shield anyone from hearing what he’s about to say. “How would you feel if I put a lock on your bedroom door?”

His question confuses me. “You already did.”

“On the outside of the door,” he clarifies.

Oh.

“I can lock it after you go to sleep. Open it before you wake up. If you ever need out, you can text me, call me, and I’ll open it in two seconds. But I think you’ll sleep better, knowing you can’t leave the room.”

I’m not sure how I feel about that. I don’t know why it feels more drastic than a lock on the inside of the door, when they’d both be used for the same purpose: to keep me in my room. Even though the thought of it makes me uncomfortable, I’d be more uncomfortable knowing I could possibly get out of the room again. “I’d like that. Thank you.”

April enters the house, pausing when she passes the kitchen. Jeremy is still looking at me, ignoring her presence. “I feel like you need to take a break today.”

I look away from April, back to Jeremy. “I’d rather stay busy.”

He regards me for a silent moment before nodding in understanding.

“Good morning,” April says, kicking her muddy shoes off at the door.

“Morning, April.” Jeremy says it so casually, as if he has nothing to hide. He walks past her, toward the back door. She doesn’t move. She stares at me with her glasses at the tip of her nose.

“Morning, April.” I don’t look as innocent as Jeremy. I head back to Verity’s office and start my day, despite not being able to get over what happened last night.

I spend the morning online, catching up on emails. Corey has forwarded a few interviews, something that’s never been requested of me. A lot of the questions are similar, wanting to know why Verity hired me, what I plan to bring to the table, how my past experience has put me in the position to write for her. I copy and paste a lot of the answers.

After lunch, I focus on developing an outline for the seventh book. I’ve given up on finding one, so I work on building the novel from scratch. It’s hard because I’m exhausted from last night. I’m unsettled. But I try not to think about last night.

It’s afternoon when I smell tacos. It makes me smile, knowing he’s making them because I requested them. I’m sure he’ll save me a plate like he always does. I’m just not in a position where I feel comfortable eating dinner with them when April has Verity at the table.

I spend the next several minutes thinking about Verity, wondering why I’m so scared of her. I stare down at the drawer that contains her manuscript. One more chapter and I’ll stop. That’s it.

So Be It

It had been six months since they were born, and I still wished they didn’t exist.

But they did, and Jeremy loved them. So I tried. Sometimes I wondered if it was worth it. Sometimes I wanted to pack my bags and leave and never look back. He was the only thing stopping me from going through with it. I knew a life without Jeremy was not a life I wanted to live. I had two options:

Live with him and the two girls he loved more than me.

Live without him.

They were a package deal at that point. I hate myself for not using birth control. For thinking I could do this and everything would be alright. Everything was not alright. Not with me anyway. It was like my family existed in a snow globe. Inside, everything was cozy and perfect, but I wasn’t a part of them; I was just an outsider looking in.

It was snowing outside that night, but the apartment was warm. Even still, I woke up with chills. Or tremors, really. I couldn’t stop shaking. The nightmare I’d had was so vivid, I felt the effects of it for hours after I woke up. A nightmare hangover.

I dreamt of the future, of the girls and Jeremy and me. They were eight or nine years old. I wasn’t sure because I didn’t know a lot about kids and what they look like at each stage. I just remember waking up and feeling like they were eight or nine.

In the dream, I was walking by their bedroom. I peeked inside and couldn’t understand what I was seeing. Harper was on top of Chastin, covering her head with a pillow. I rushed over to the bed, terrified that it was too late. I pushed Harper off her sister and pulled the pillow away. I looked down at Chastin and then slapped my hand over my mouth with a gasp.

There was nothing there. The front of Chastin’s face was smooth, like the back of a bald head. No scar. No eyes, no mouth. Nothing to smother.

I glanced at Harper, taking in her sinister expression. “What did you do?”

And then I woke up.

My reaction wasn’t to the dream. It was to how much it felt like a premonition. And how much it gutted me.

I hugged my knees, rocking back and forth on the bed, wondering what this feeling was. Pain. It was pain. And…heartache.

I had felt heartache in my dream? When I thought Chastin was dead, I wanted to fall to my knees and weep. It’s exactly how I felt when I thought of the possibility of Jeremy dying. I would lose all function.

I sat there and cried, the feeling was so overwhelming. Had I finally connected to them? To Chastin, at least? Was this what it felt like to be a mother? To love something so much, the thought of it being ripped away from you causes physical pain?

It was the most I had ever felt since the girls had been conceived. Even if I only felt it for one of them, it still counted for something.

Jeremy rolled over in the bed. He opened his eyes and saw me sitting up, hugging my knees. “You okay?”

I didn’t want him to ask me that because Jeremy was good at getting my thoughts out. Most of them, anyway. I didn’t want him to know this one. How could I admit that I’d finally fallen in love with one of our daughters without also admitting I had never loved either of them to begin with?

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