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“Why would I do that?” she questions, walking to a large walk in wardrobe.
I laugh, unsure why I thought she would. They’re married. Married people normally sleep with each other in the same room. Maybe married people here don’t. Maybe they fuck together, play together, but don’t sleep together. Why bother marrying then? What’s the point?
Married.
I frown and open a large jewellery box, gazing at the array of diamonds and jewels on show. They glitter under the lights in here, a cascade of rings lined up with all the colours under the sun gleaming at me. “Why did you marry him?” I ask.
“Because I love him. Strange question,” she calls, shuffling something around in the walk-in.
Love? I glower at the thought, dismissing the frivolous emotion. It isn’t worth anything other than pain and agony. And yet it’s still there buried inside me, weakening my knees and shortening my breath every time Rick enters my head and fucks with it.
I slam the box closed and turn to face her, annoyed by my mind thinking things I don’t want to think about. She hangs the long gown on the door, shuffling the weight of it out and stepping back so she can look at it.
“Anniversary three years ago. You might need to keep away from Malachi for the night. He liked it,” she says. “Might jump on you.”Anniversary.
My arms wrap around me, trying to shield me from the onslaught of emotions that are trying to bed in again because of that word. “Although, I doubt Gray will be sharing you with anything now. How have you managed that? He’s besotted.” Besotted? I doubt that. Infatuated with the thing he can’t control maybe, but not besotted. Besotted means affection and love.
And love isn’t happening here anymore.
Can’t.
I shrug and move towards what I hope is the bathroom, still with my arms covering as much of me as I can manage. I feel exposed suddenly, naked and on show. A quiver rides over me, as I close the door behind me and stare at myself in the floor length mirror. I don’t know what I’m doing now. I feel lost and lonely all of a sudden, as if the walls are vast around me and stretching further and further away.
On my own.
That’s what I am. Alone.
It’s what I wanted, who I wanted to be, but now, at the mention of love and anniversaries and marriage and besotted, alone feels cavernous and daunting around me.
My vision swims, the mirror distorting the edges of my reflection and creating copies of a Hannah I don’t understand. Each one of me bleeds into the next until I’m spilling off the gilt frame and parts of me fracture to the walls, still expanding. I’m going mad. This can’t be right. None of it. My head shakes, as I try to clear my thoughts. Nothing helps, though. It’s all whirling and changing, the boundaries of me contracting and escalating over and over again.
Fingers start tapping my arms. They dig in, bang in to try separating my gaze from the reality of me alone in here.Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.
Music. I need my melodies and sounds. It’s all senseless. All of it. Everything. Only Gray makes sense, and even the thought of those callous eyes and his orders seem to be morphing into unknown boundaries I can’t reach or use.Gray.
My eyes flutter closed at the image of him so angry in my mind, and then an exhaustion starts creeping over me that counters the need to see him clearly. So tired. Maybe I should curl up in here. Sleep and forget about dancing and fun. He might come to me then. He might hold me in his arms and find feathers to soothe whatever this has turned into since I arrived in this room.
Gray.
Soft hands begin rubbing my shoulders, gentle and pacifying as they sweep over my skin and arms. “There’s no need to be scared, pretty thing,” Faith murmurs. I’m not. Not scared. I’ll never be scared of Gray. There’s too much connection in us for me to be scared, but I am broken again all of a sudden. Unsure of direction or meaning. “He’s no Malachi. There’s no hatred there for him to expel.”
No, not hatred, but there is a desolation hiding in him. I can feel it in his gaze, in the barrier he keeps up regardless of the connection we’ve shared. I know it deep down because it’s the same one I’m harbouring, trying to ignore.
“Come on. Let’s get you ready for your party,” she says.
Party.
I don’t feel like a party anymore. I feel like sleeping and never waking up.
Perhaps dying.
Chapter 12
Gray
The watch gets slung on the bed, abandoned as irrelevant. It is here. Pointless, futile and meaningless. There is no time here. It all haemorrhages into more minutes and more hours and days and weeks until the passage of time seems limitless. Although – I reach for it again and strap it around my wrist – I do need an endpoint. A finish line to end on. Otherwise, I will fall down this slippery edge with her, not caring for closure, and blow logic and balance to the wind.
“This is all your damned fault,” mumbles out of me, as I thread the bow tie.
