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After a long moment, he pursed his lips, stepped back, and held his hands up.
His friends had since shut up, maybe sensing this wild energy in me. I felt unhinged. This wasn’t a normal reaction for me. But ever since my time with Matteo and now weeks later being alone and feeling more lost than I ever had in my life made me not act like myself.
Fuck this guy. He was so privileged and probably got everything he wanted. The entitled prick had fucked with the wrong girl.
“Leave me alone,” was all I said. We were in a standoff for several moments before he took another step back and then another.
“Big fucking mistake.” And then he turned and left, his friends following.
I didn’t move, keeping my eyes on him the entire time. It was only when they disappeared around the corner that I slowly lowered the knife and exhaled. A rush of adrenaline moved through my veins, and I breathed out again, feeling more centered with each passing second.
God, why did I ever think that just because I left Desolation my life would be easier? Safer?
Being completely honest and frank with myself, moving away made things feel a lot harder than they ever had been.
A lot scarier. Definitely lonelier.
I got back to my apartment, locked the door, triple checking it, and kept the knife in my hand. I ran that bath, grabbed a cold beer, my dinner and tablet, and for the next hour and a half disconnected.
But my anxiety never waned. In fact, I felt it growing stronger with each passing moment.
Chapter21
Liliana
Iwasn’t sure what had woken me, but it felt like ants were moving over my skin. I rubbed my arms and sat up in bed, looking around.
After finishing three beers, I’d climbed out of the cold bath, dropped into bed, and blissfully let the beer whisk me to sleep.
It was still dark, the muted glow of the streetlight across from my apartment building casting a sliver of light through the part in the curtains. The clock on the nightstand said it was only three in the morning.
An idle thought thathe’dcome for me played through my head. But it had been weeks since I left Matteo, and he hadn’t reached out to me.
I felt like I was being watched countless times but played it off to my new surroundings. There always seemed to be a tingling on the back of my neck whenever I went out.
I lay back down and stared at the ceiling, watching as the headlights from passing cars occasionally moved across the room. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something just wasn’t right. I reached under the pillow, the knife tucked safely underneath my head, and curled my hand around the handle.
After ten minutes of not being able to fall back asleep, I got out of bed, threw on an oversized sweatshirt, and grabbed the knife to take with me into the kitchen.
I stood by the sink and sipped a glass of water, the small clock that hung on the wall ticking down the seconds.
I looked out the kitchen window and felt that tingling on the back of my neck again, that tightening on my arms. And then I heard shuffling, maybe scratching, down in the alley right below the window.
Investigating what made that noise was something only a fool would do, the kind of person who was the first to die in a horror movie.
Fuck that. Not me.
I took my knife, went back to bed, and didn’t sleep the rest of the night as I stared at the ceiling because I knew I wasn’t alone.
Chapter22
Liliana
The next week, I was in a fog, a bubble of going to work and coming back home. I didn’t go anywhere aside from places like the store or laundry mat, and, instead, sequestered myself away like a hermit.
I’d created a self-imposed prison.
It was a monotonous life, and the longer it went on, the more I hated it. The last month had made me feel as if I were living in someone else’s life, walking in their shoes, trapped within them, and able to see everything. And through it all, I couldn’t react.
