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She yawns. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”
“Your back doesn’t hurt at all?”
“No.” She gets up on her elbows and stares at me. “Holy fuck. Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, why?”
“Look at your neck.”
I get out of bed and step into my discarded boxers. I make my way over to the mirror above Eleanor’s dresser, and that’s when I see the bright purple bruises decorating my neck, which look alarmingly similar to a handprint.
I glance at Eleanor, and my stomach sinks. I don’t remember her hands being anywhere near my neck last night, and the bruises are dark enough that I would have felt if she was digging her palm into my fucking jugular.
“Did you do this?” I balk, though I already know the answer.
“No! I’d never! It looks like someone tried to choke you. That’s not my thing!” Eleanor says.
“I’m not trying to kink-shame,” I start, “I just don’t remember this. How much wine did we drink last night?”
“I only had a glass,” Eleanor says.
“Same here.”
The mark across my neck is dark and deep, and the fingers are much larger than Eleanor’s slim fingers.
For a moment, I press my hand against my throat—the bruise throbs. My hand is much too big.
Eleanor gets up and stands beside me. She grabs my dress shirt off the ground and wears it as a nightgown. It looks cute on her, but it doesn’t lessen the mystery of what happened to us last night.
“I didn’t scratch your back,” I whisper, like I’m trying to convince myself.
“I know you didn’t. I would have felt it. I—" She reaches up and traces the imprint on my neck. “Joseph, I had a dream last night.”
“About what?”
“I had a dream that Beatrix was trying to kill you,” she says so quietly I can barely hear her, and my stomach plummets.
“Fuck, I’m gonna need some breakfast first before we get into this shit,” I blurt.
We make our way downstairs. Eleanor follows me into the kitchen, grabs two slices of bread from the bag, and pops them into the toaster. I retrieved a container of eggs from the refrigerator and set a pan on low heat.
I crack the eggs into a bowl and concentrate on making scrambled eggs, something logical and simple, a task I’ve known how to do since I was six.
“So, when you say she tried to kill me, what do you mean? Did she try and smother me with a pillow?”
I ask as I pour the eggs into the pan.
Eleanor butters the toast and puts it on two plates. “No. She was choking you. She was sitting on your chest, wrapping her hands around your neck. She was pressing so hard that your eyes were bulging. It was terrifying,” Eleanor whispers as I add a dash of pepper to the eggs.
“It was just a dream,” I reassure her.
My bruise throbs as I serve up the eggs onto our plates. We eat in silence. It hurts to swallow, but I finish my toast anyway.
I check the clock on the wall above the stove. It’s almost ten. “Fuck, I have a meeting at 10:30. I can’t go in looking like this.”
“I have concealer,” Eleanor exclaims.
After breakfast, Eleanor carefully coats my neck with powdered concealer, which turns the deep purple into a softer violet.
