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“Shut the door,” he instructed, and though I wanted to tell him to fuck off, I closed the door all the same. His fingers flipped to the next page, landing on a drawing of a dog. The left half of its face was realistic, while the other half was a skeleton, the two halves separated by a thick line; my specialty. “When did you first know you were different than everyone else?”
I walked toward my bed, but I didn’t go to sit down. I remained standing, wrestling with all of the anger inside—anger towards Gareth, anger about Erin being missing, anger about myself for still being drawn to the asshole in spite of everything he’d shown me since I’d first stepped foot in this house.
“I don’t know,” I answered him. “When did you first know you were a raging psycho?”
That got him to smile. He set my sketchbook down on his lap, angling his head up at me. Behind his glasses, his green eyes twinkled. He was a lot calmer than he’d been earlier in the car, a lot calmer than I thought he would be.
“Oh, Brianna. I’ve always known. It’s what sets me apart from everyone else.” He tapped the drawing with a single finger. “Have you ever killed anything before? And I don’t mean stepping on a worm or some shit. I mean something bigger, on purpose.”
Okay, that was a little too personal.
I stormed over to him and snatched my sketchbook out of his lap, closing it and hugging it against my chest. “No, now get out of my room.”
Before I’d cut myself, Gareth would’ve leaped up and said this was his house, that I couldn’t tell him what to do, and that he could do whatever the hell he wanted. But something must’ve been bugging him, because he got to his feet, and instead of saying any of that, he whispered, “When will you stop lying and face the truth?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The breath Gareth exhaled then was a loud, explosive sigh, and he moved to stand directly in front of me, an intense look on his face. “You lie and say you’re nothing like me, but the truth is,” he paused, lifting a hand up to my face and cupping my jaw between his thumb and the rest of his fingers, “you’re just like me.”
“I’m nothing like you,” I hissed out the words, wanting to pull back, to take a step away from him and let his hand fall to his side. Feeling his hand on my face, his warmth flooding into me… it was too easy to close my eyes and forget what a monster he was.
“You are,” he urged, leaning closer to me. His face inched toward mine, the fingers on my face digging into my cheeks a bit harder. “You’re just like me, and because you’re just like me, you should know the moment you hurt yourself, the only thing I could think about was making sure you didn’t die on me. Why the fuck would I give a shit about Erin or whoever else when you were bleeding out?”
So this was Gareth once again trying to convince me he had nothing to do with Erin’s radio silence? I didn’t believe him. I didn’t.I couldn’t.
“You think I went with you to the hospital and then left? You think I abandoned you to hunt that stupid girl? Why would I leave your side when you’remine, Bri? You’re fucking mine, do you understand that? I don’t care about her. I only care about you.” The hand on my jaw fell to my neck, angling my head back.
“How can I trust a single word you say?” I spoke through my teeth, fighting the way my body reacted to his nearness. It was like Gareth had a secret switch that controlled my body, a button that made certain parts of me instantly warm with desire. Something that could make me temporarily forget just how crazy he was.
Gareth’s chest rumbled. I could tell he was close to snapping, but he managed to keep himself under control as he whispered, “What can I do to make you trust me?”
Spin me around, throw me on the bed and…wait. No, I couldn’t say that. “Tell me what happened to Erin.”
“I let her go,” he said, his other hand lifting to my face, the backs of his fingers sweeping along my cheekbone. “I’m telling you I didn’t do anything to her. I didn’t. On my life, I swear it.”
Swallowing, it was like pulling teeth to mutter, “I just… I don’t think I believe you, Gareth. After everything—”
Gareth pulled himself away from me, taking his hands and his heat with him as he put five feet between us. He glared at me, nostrils flaring. I’d bet anything acting so calm wasn’t easy for him; maybe he was working on himself, trying to, I don’t know, be better for me. But that didn’t change the nagging feeling I had that he did something to Erin to try to teach me a lesson.
“Fine,” he hissed out the word like it was venom on his tongue. “If that’s how you want this to be… so be it.” He stalked out of my room after that, slamming the door as he went and leaving me alone to wrestle with what just happened.
He’d sounded… well, he’d sounded like he was telling the truth. He’d sounded like he’d meant every single word. But it wasGarethin question; you couldn’t trust Gareth farther than you could throw him, and I definitely couldn’t toss the asshole that far.
I put my sketchbook in my nightstand, slow to close the drawer. The day had absolutely exhausted me, so I went to flip the light off and crawl into bed, even though it was only eight. Early to call it a night, but the day had seriously questioned my patience and my gullibility.
I’d be stupid to trust Gareth, just like I’d be stupid to trust Rick. Seriously, the only person I could trust here was myself… and even that got sketchy depending on the situation.
Before shutting my eyes for the night, I checked my phone one last time, hoping against all odds there’d be a message from Erin saying she was sorry for not responding with an excuse as to why she hadn’t been in school. But there was nothing, and as I rolled over to go to sleep, I couldn’t shake the worry nestled deep within my soul.
Something was wrong. I knew it.
Sleep took me, the exhaustion from the day’s events getting the better of me. It was a heavy sleep too, one that took hold of every part of me and refused to let go, the kind of sleep that was so impactful your mind didn’t even have the energy to dream.
That was until I heard Gareth’s voice in my dreams, whispering my name: “Bri.” Even in my dreams, the way his voice could drop to such a low timbre made me shiver. “You’re mine, Bri. Mine.” The finality in that last word made my heart skip a beat.
Through a haze-filled lens, I dreamed of Gareth whispering that over and over in my ear as he made my body his, as he reminded me just how possessive he could be. I could distrust him, I could hate him, but at the same time, even my dreams revealed my darkest desire.
I dreamed that he took my neck in his hand as he pulled down my pants, that his face hovered over mine in the darkness, free of his glasses, as he spread my legs and pushed inside. The sounds that came from me showed just how good it felt, even in my dreams.
