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I keep turning and twisting under the blanket, the couch uncomfortable and too short. Kerry Jackson is sleeping a mere few feet from me, and that fact alone nags at my conscience, making me relive all of our previous encounters over and over again. All of them. Over and over. It isn’t pleasant. All the things I’ve refused to think of for so long finally catch up with me. When I tried to kill her.
When I lost everything.
No wonder I can’t sleep.
While she is tucked away safely behind the bedroom door, I take the opportunity to boil two eggs and serve myself a few slices off of ham that I find in her fridge. I also wash my ruined shirt that will never look the same again, but it will have to do until we get back to civilization.
We.
I.
I don’t know.
I can’t fucking sleep.
She offered herself to me. As if she sees herself like nothing but a piece of meat. I don’t get her. I thought she didn’t want to touch me. I can’t help the twitch of want, the voice at the back of my mind urging me to take the opportunity. I twist and turn and end up entangled in the blanket. I feel filthy.
Sleep has almost, almost claimed my tired body when an agonizing scream pierces the night, loud enough to drown out the whining and groaning from the storm outside.What the fuck!I’m up and shoving the couch to the side in a fraction of a second. She’s up to something. I feel it.How the fuck can she get out of the house from in there?
My cheeks heat up as I push the couch back into place after yet another fucked up encounter.‘Babies do that.’Right. My shoulder aches and I tremble from exhaustion as I fall back onto my temporary bed. I feel stupid. I don’t like feeling stupid. The feeling that I have fucked up beyond what’s salvageable keeps eating at my heart, making me nauseous, making me feel something I haven’t felt since after I tried to do Kerry in—remorse. I’m a monster. I’m nothing but a fucking monster.
What the fuck am I doing here?
Kerry
There’s a knock on our door, I’m back in San Francisco for some reason, Dad’s alive but I have Cece too. When I open the door there’s a crying, tormented Christian outside. I try to shut it again, but he stops me and begs me not to shut him out. Cecilia comes running, she’s little still, but she can speak and she calls him daddy. When I turn around, I see my father with a gun in his hand. I turn back to Christian and he has a smoking hole in his chest. Sorry, he whispers before he falls.
And Cece screams. For her father. For what I can’t give her.
She wakes with her normal chatter. I can barely lift my head from the pillow. I remember dreaming, so I must have finally slept a little. I think I dreamt ofhim.
“Momma, baba, ‘fut.”
“Are you hungry, sweetheart?” She nods.
Stumbling out of bed, I realize I’ve slept in jeans, T-shirt, sweater, socks… all of it. I’m sticky and dirty. I haven’t brushed my teeth since yesterday morning and there’s an intense pain in my stomach, from hunger I figure, even though I can’t sort one pain from the other as my whole body protests when I move.
The wind howls outside our little house. Will it ever end?
Any of it?
I knock on our prison door. There’s a shuffle outside, the moving of the couch, and thenhesuddenly stands in my doorway. His eyes void of light, his cheeks hollow. Like in the dream, I realize with a shudder.
“Are you still here?” I sneer.
He grins tiredly. “All these things I don’t know about you, sweetheart. Like your morning mood, for instance.” His voice is dry, lacking energy.
For a moment he appears so normal, and so… so tender, I have to look away. I don’t want to see. “I’m not your ‘sweetheart’,” I hiss. “And put something on, for Christ’s sake!”
He’s still naked from the waist up, but has wrapped himself in a blanket. The sight makes my stomach clench, and what frightens me the most is that it isn’t from fear and disgust. Not even now. Not even after last night. A shudder runs through me. The main room is cold. I need to get a fire started. It should have been done yesterday, but I was a little preoccupied.
“My shirt’s still wet. Well,hellothere.” His tone changes and his features brighten. The difference is like night and day.
I glance down and find that Cece has taken an interest in the man before me and is peeking out between my legs, smiling, waving and flirting with him. It stings somewhere deep inside and I snatch her from the floor, cradling her to my chest, stopping the little game between them. She’s too little. In her innocence she still can’t judge who’s good or who’s bad. I have a lot I need to teach her. “Can you get out of my way? I need to make her some breakfast.”
He glances at the kitchen. “Sure. Let me just have a look in there first.”
I can’t believe what he’s implying. “How do you expect me to cut the bread without a knife?” I snarl.
