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A muscle ticks in his jaw. “No. You want space. I’m giving you space. For tonight. Lock your fucking door.”
And he steps away, gets in his car, backs out, and drives away, leaving me standing, staring after him.
* * *
I sort of haunt my house after he goes. The door is locked, but I jump at every small sound, every creak and sigh and crack of the house. Those are sounds that usually I don’t even notice but tonight . . .
Tonight, this place feels empty.
More than empty, I decide as I curl on the upstairs sofa in the media room, a throw rug drawn about me, some stupid movie playing on the screen about spaceships and lasers and funny-looking aliens. Some new movie one of the dancers raved about a few weeks ago. I’m not really watching it, just coasting as it plays, something to stare at and try and keep my mind occupied.
But my mind is on the house.
On Christian.
His absence.
That’s what it is. This place just doesn’t feel empty, there’s a Christian-shaped vacuum. Hell, he was here one night, and it feels like he was here for a small forever. Like he’s ingrained into the surface and soul of my house.
I want to resent him for that.
Just like I want to resent him for leaving.
Unreasonable, I call my reactions. My therapist would say I’m testing ground and spout a whole lot of things. She’d warn me against starting a relationship because often, people like me dive headfirst into unhealthy involvement and call it intimacy when it’s just getting naked.
Or she would say maybe I’m not ready for something I’m trying to rush into.
But I don’t really want to be naked.
Not in that way. Not in the down to the bone and bare the soul naked.
I sigh and hug a cushion tight.
Why am I even here? Knocking at a door in my head when that’s not on the agenda. Christian is here for a job. Most likely one my brother and father have given him. Protect me.
He keeps on about our connection, that thing that’s deeper than mere physical attraction. I don’t even know what that is. What he means.
Sex is sex. Intimacy is something different and maybe I could handle it. But Christian, he doesn’t want sex or intimacy. Well, he does. But he wants something more, something my therapist doesn’t talk about, something that might have been damaged by what happened to me; he wants a piece of my soul.
This isn’t love.
And no matter what he says, I’ve been damaged. I wear it daily. I got used to the looks, but after the kidnapping, the rapes, and the abuse, I see through the haze of drugs, of the things I did because I was out of my head and sometimes just not able to react, and sometimes . . .
I take in a sharp, deep breath. Sometimes I felt things when they used me that makes me so dirty, so horrible, I can’t face it.
I don’t deserve a man to look at me like I’m good and whole.
My phone buzzes, and I reach for it because I need something, anything to distract me. Maybe it’s him.
The call isn’t from Christian. It’s from an unknown number. I set it down again. When it starts again. This time the call states blocked number. Shit. I don’t want to talk to anyone, but what if it’s about Ellie?
I have her mom’s number in my phone, and there’s no reason the hospital would call. Anyone calling me about her is going to be someone I know, and whoever this is . . . they can leave a damn message.
Turning off my phone, I sit up and switch off the TV. Maybe I’m such a mess because of the nightmares. And it was a hell of a day.
The house still mourns Christian’s absence, and I want to yell at him. My stomach is in knots and my throat tight, and I hate him all over again. Not because he touched me, or wants to take a piece of me I’m not willing to give, a piece I don’t even know if I have to give. No.
No, I hate him because he left when all I really wanted, down deep, was for him to force himself in that insufferable Christian way, back here, me into his arms.
