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CHAPTERELEVEN
Taylor
I didn’t wait to see if Dean left. I knew he would. He’d done his good dead for the year, soothed his wretched soul or whatever he was trying to do. I didn’t care.
I only wanted to complete this process. The doctor had explained I could take the four pills orally if I waited twenty-four hours, but I didn’t want to. So that meant I had to insert them into my vagina then lie down for thirty minutes.
After stripping off my clothes, I took a shower, waiting for the tears to come, but they never did. Probably because I’d cried them all out in my car. In front of the last person on earth I’d ever want to.
And yet some small part of me, some atom-sized part of me, was…happy?
No. That light feeling threatening to curl the corner of my mouth couldn’t be happiness.
Gratitude? Sure.
Relief? Yeah.
But happiness?
It couldn’t be.
Dean Hargrove was my direct competition. The antagonist in my nightmares. The infuriating voice in the back of my head. There was no way I even held an electron’s worth of happiness that he was there with me today. I assumed the stress of the whole situation was getting to me, and I turned off the water to wrap a towel around myself, tucking the end in by my armpit before sliding an elastic headband around my hair. Then I shoved the pills up.
The doctor warned me the process could start as little as thirty minutes after, though it would most likely last a few hours. So I tossed my work clothes into the hamper and stepped across the hall to my bedroom to find my comfiest clothes, and I stuck an extra-large maxi pad in my underwear before lying on my bed.
When the thirty minutes were up, I figured I should eat something and made my way to the kitchen. I gasped at the familiar figure standing there, and he whirled around, a soapy sponge in one hand, a pot in the other. He took an immediate step toward me. “Are you okay?”
“Am I okay?” I repeated. “What the hell are you still doing here? I told you to go home.”
“No one else is here, so I thought I’d stay.”
I licked my suddenly dry lips and rubbed at my forehead. “I’m fine, really. You need to go home.”
He turned back to the sink to apparently finish doing the dishes.
“I…” I trailed off, unsure what I was even about to say.
I can do it.
I’m fine on my own.
I don’t need you.
None of them felt right.
“I know you can do it,” he said, and I wondered if I’d voiced my thoughts out loud. “But I saw them sitting here and had to do something. This place is a mess.”
“It’s not a mess.”
He tipped his head toward the table, where mail had been stacked into a neat pile, then nodded his chin to the counter, where all my bits and bobs were lined up like tiny kitchen soldiers. “Random pieces of mail and salt and pepper shakers on a counter are not a mess.”
“It’s clutter.”
I took the clean pot from him and dried it off before putting it away. “I don’t need you to do any of this.”
“I did some reading. Google says you might feel nauseous, so you should eat something light.” He dried off his hands and pointed to a steaming bowl of soup on the table in the living room, along with a plate of apple slices.
I bit into my lip to keep my chin from quivering, and I breathed through my nose a few times. “Thank you, but I’m fine on my own. I planned it this way. It’s the weekend, and I can be home by myself.”
