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“On your skin? Cream. Ointment.” My head shakes. A derisive snort comes from him, his arms folding as he keeps looking at me. “Cruel bastard. Always knew he would be. That should help you understand him more.” It doesn’t, but I listen on in hope that it might. “Does it hurt?”
“Yes.” It does. Everything does. I’m raw and bleeding and so sore I feel like my muscles might give up the will to keep me upright soon. I ease sideways in the chair, shifting my weight off the holes that took so much passion from him, and pull the comforter closer to me.
“It wouldn’t have done so much if he’d creamed you,” he says, snarling about something. “He meant for you to remember it for as long as you could.” His brow arches, as he picks up a paper, as if that should be enough for me to understand everything. I still don’t.
“He wants me to hurt?”
“He couldn’t stay, but he wanted you to feel him on you as long as you might?” He snorts again and flicks the paper wide, looking at me over the top of it. “Cruel and possessive. Also, idiotic.”
Oh.
The maid comes in carrying a tray of food covered in a silver cloche, two glasses of juice beside it and another small vase of flowers.
“I didn’t know which you preferred, mam. Orange or apple juice,” she says, putting the tray in front of me. “I’ve taken the liberty of bringing vitamins pills for you. Please call through if you’d like anything else.”
She hovers, as if waiting for something. “Thank you,” I reply.
Still she doesn’t move. Just smiles at me. And then I hear Malachi dismiss her, quietly, and she’s gone in an instant, barely a trace of her ever being here.
I lift the lid and look over the food, part ravenous and part disinterested in any of it.
“Youwilleat it one way or another. I suggest you take the easy route,” Malachi says.
I look up at him and find him still hidden behind his paper, but the threat is heavy enough in his tone that I can hear the smile from him regardless of seeing his face or not. I keep looking at him, unmoving, and wait until he looks at me across the top of the paper again.
“Did he tell you to make me eat?”
“Yes.”
“Why would he do that?” Nothing but his eyes and them continuing to look at me. Hard, focused, ever presently half amused at me, or anything. “And why, if he’s left me and can’t offer me anything but the time we had, would he leave me in so much pain that I have no choice but to remember him?”
Still nothing. No words. No help.
“Malachi.”
“Hannah.”
“Help me understand.”
“I might. But first eat your food before I force it into you in some way.” His head dips behind the paper again, the crinkle sharp as he straightens it out and huffs. “So many holes to choose from.”
I sigh at the non answer and pick up my cutlery, not able to deny the smell of it wafting beneath my nose any longer. I am hungry. Regardless of pain, or hurt, or feeling lost in the middle of conundrums I can’t find reasoning for, I need food and then more time to think.
I chew and swallow, savouring the taste and yet barely tasting it over the memories of his hands and his mouth and his scent. Everything seems insipid in comparison. Lacking. Even my own tongue feels like an invader inside a mouth that’s always belonged to me. I roll it around the food, attempting taste and palate again, but it continues to hold nothing but movement and action.
Still, I eat until the food’s gone and the plate is clear, picking up the juice soon after to drink them both down, too.
“Good,” he says. “And the vitamins.”
My eyes roll and I pick up the small pills, swallowing each one like a good little girl. I feel like Mr Vanciter is watching my every move and I’m back at school again, enough so that the thought of orders takes me straight back to feeling annoyed and belittled. I was good at that – teaching. I enjoyed it. And then Rick and his fucking career came and blew my life away, as if irrelevant to forward momentum. No more. I’m not having men make me feel irrelevant.
“I’m done,” I muse, standing.
In more ways than one.
My feet walk me away from him, heading in any direction but him and his non answers. I need them. I need more. I’m hollow and empty and filled with thoughts I have no reply to. He couldn’t have said goodbye? Thanked me for our time at least?
Asshole.
