AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Eyes set to kill, Brandi leaned on the table. “I want answers just as much as she does.”
* * *
“I started seeingDayton my junior year. Nothing serious, I was dealing with some mild anxiety; questioning my major and my career choices. Pretty standard.” Erin conjured a knowing smile but it departed in a flash, here and gone with the awe-inspiring beauty and quickness of a lightning bolt. “He was easy to talk to, so I kept going back.”
“Were you still his patient when you two became romantically involved?” Kenna interjected, pouring more coffee from the carafe. The waitress had long since surrendered her serving duties.
Brandi’s form was rigid beside her, unflinching as her sister opened up about what she’d kept hidden for years.
“No, I’d stopped attending sessions with him at that point. I knew I liked him, but it didn’t feel right to pursue that interest under the circumstances.” Erin’s hand trembled on the handle of her mug, a crack in her carefully built armor.
Was Kenna a sadist for making these women recount their haunting memories? The simple answer was no. She didn’t take any joy from seeing the anguish plastered on their faces. But her motivation to engage in these discussions tied back to settling her own paranoia, and that made her selfish at the very least.
“I started seeing a psychiatrist off-campus. I’d planned on going to Dayton’s office and confessing my feelings, but he approached me before I had the chance. It was like he already knew I had a thing for him.”
“Heisa psychiatrist,” Kenna said, mirroring his joke in the hospital. The remark resulted in a gentle elbow jab from Brandi. “All I meant is, he’s more observant than most people.”
“The sex was unreal, and the way he treated me outside of the bedroom? Even better.” Her rich voice lost its power. “I should’ve known it was too good to be true; we were doomed to fail.”
“How so?”
She felt like she was in Dr. Merino’s office, conducting a patient session without his interference.
“We were together for two months. In that time, Dayton learned everything about me, but he never breathed a word about his past—college, his family, his childhood. He’d always talk about work, mostly his shifts at the emergency room. Things were always very physical with us. Opportunities to talk weren’t exactly in abundance. I felt like maybe he was hiding something, but I didn’t have time to mull that over.” Her gaze flitted between the two younger women, eyes misting. “I found out I was pregnant.”
Brandi stared at her sister with fierce incredulity while disorientation swallowed Kenna whole.
The room spun, a maddening pirouette of color, before coming into focus once more. A sour taste spread in her mouth that had nothing to do with the acidity of the subpar diner coffee. Had she heard Erin correctly?
“Once I told him about the pregnancy, the Dayton I knew morphed into this cold-hearted bastard. He told me I had to get an abortion, that it was the only logical way to deal with the situation. I told him I was keeping it, and he basically said not to expect any support from him.” A single tear escaped, rolling down her cheek. “I went to the dean. I wanted to see him punished, but nothing came of it. Raza told me that he couldn’t interfere with the relationship since it didn’t happen while Dayton was my psychiatrist.”
“That’s bullshit,” Kenna and Brandi uttered in unison.
She knew for a fact that wasn’t true.
Psychiatrists were ethically bound to not involve themselves with either current or former patients. Maybe the dean had been worried about what light it would’ve painted the university in had word of the scandal gotten out.
“Nine weeks into the pregnancy, I had a miscarriage. Call it divine intervention. Dayton and I weren’t on speaking terms, obviously, but I gave him a courtesy call.” Erin paused, appearing to consider whether she wanted to push forward. She looked out the window and lost herself in the rainy scenery. “He said something … bizarre. It was enough to make me never speak to him again.”
In what universe was a miscarriage considered divine intervention? Kenna’s pulse picked up speed. Its erratic beating nearly dissuaded her from asking the next question.
“What did he say?”
“He was talking about why the pregnancy failed.” Erin’s voice cracked and gave way to a raspiness. Her mouth fell open but the words were in no hurry to follow. “He said, ‘There’s too much light inside you to give life to such darkness.’ I’ll never forget those words.”
“Sounds like the devil to me,” Brandi mumbled.
She planted her palms on the sticky underside of the table. It may have been disgusting, but she had to make sure she was rooted in reality, that the three of them hadn’t entered some alternate dimension. Because in this dimension, Kenna spent five days a week with this monstrosity.
Her stomach went rock hard. If someone were to punch her, she’d feel nothing.
Erin slid on her raincoat, signaling the end of their discussion. She rose from the booth and fanned her hair from the coat’s collar. “So, I never asked, what’s your connection to Satan in-the-flesh?”
“He’s my mentor. It’s my final semester of undergrad.”
A stiffness settled over Erin, resembling someone who had been asked to identify the body of a family member amid a brutal crime scene—and her face was a haunting portrait of that moment of recognition.
Nostalgia. Quietly mourning and so obviously immersed in something that was once hers.
