AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Because the silent treatment is too hurtful.
And the dance an hour ago gave me a little hope, though I am not sure what I am hoping for.
This man rips my confidence into shreds, leaving me yearning for something I can’t quite explain. I want to kill him and fuck him. I want to spend hours alone with him talking and laughing and touching him. And I want to leave and never see him again.
But we are apples from different trees and never had a chance at anything but sex. And that—that—is the most painful thought that drowns me every moment of every day when he is around.
“You don’t have a single friend, Archer,” I say, hearing my voice cracking and desperately trying to hold back tears as I start retreating toward the door. “Because you don’t care about people. And when they realize that, they walk away. Every. Single. One of them. And it serves you right.”
“Kat, please,” he says almost in a whisper, just standing there, staring at me, quiet and composed as always. Making me mad.
I take another step back.
“Please, let me finish what I came here for. As quickly as possible. And I am off this island. I promise. I don’t want to ever see you again after this.”
I turn around and leave, silence following me all the way to the door.
57
ARCHER
I stand dumbfounded and numb.This evening is some fucked up retribution for every mistake I ever made. Every person I ever hurt. Every wrong word I ever said.
The phone rings, and I pick it up by reflex.
“Does she know yet?” Marlow is like a mediator between us. But I don’t need a mediator—Kat just told me what she truly thinks of me.
“Who cares,” I blurt, feeling strangely dizzy.
“Arch, do you want me to bring her back? Do you want me to stay with you? Let’s go to the Center. Or the beach. Anywhere. Some—”
“Stop-stop-stop. Nick, please.” I palm my face. Calling him by his name is a slip-up, but his voice is suddenly too foreign, slicing through the vacuum inside me. Everything—outside, inside, my heart—feels empty. “I need some time alone, okay? Keep everyone away from me. I need a moment.”
“Sure.”
He says something else but I drop the call.
Immediately, the phone rings again—Congressman Reich.
I drop it.
It rings again—Margot.
I kill the call.
It beeps with a message, then another, then another, and I turn it to silent mode and tell Corlo to lock the door.
I pour myself a glass of cognac to the brim, drink it slowly but steadily, and when the glass is empty, I pour another one.
“Corlo, dim the lights.”
Theoretically, I know the sequence of bad news. You have an influx of cortisol. You think about it more and more, it stockpiles in your brain, changing the chemical reaction, decreasing the production of dopamine and serotonin, plunging your mood lower.
Psychologically, this means you withdraw yourself from reality first, then avoid your feelings, then jump headfirst in, start attacking and blaming yourself, then others.
I exhale heavily, trying to keep myself under control.
I could get drunk.
