AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Daniel’s voice rose in her mind, telling that blonde he’d hooked up with that Celia was lousy in bed. It hadn’t stopped him from trying to have sex with her minutes before that. Her hand clenched harder on the glass. She’d almost given into his demands.
It was a pattern, or so the multitude of counselors had told her over the years. She’d been raised to be a people pleaser. When her mother was happy, she’d always been less crazy. When Celia did something to help, her father would smile at her. Usually he’d only have eyes for her mother. Not that Celia blamed him. It was the moments he took his eyes off the woman that things went wrong.
The sudden chirp of the washing machine broke through her thoughts. Celia crossed, making quick work of shifting the damp clothes to the dryer. It took a few moments to figure out the functions, but soon the clothes were rolling around inside the machine.
Daniel hadn’t been the first man to complain. A normal relationship expected sex at some point. Celia could never seem to get that part right. It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested. It was more that she couldn’t turn her mind off. She would wonder if she was being normal, or if there was something else she could be doing, or if she should tell them that what they were doing wasn’t working.
She’d been fooling herself to think she could do normal, anyway. It was better when she didn’t fake it and stuck to her own company.
That would be hard to do living in a condo with someone.
First things first: If she wanted to eventually get out of her roommate situation, she would need money.
Celia washed out the used glass, setting it aside to dry. Then she pulled out her phone and started the process she was so familiar with. The later beep of the dryer interrupted her at one point, and Celia folded her clothes, surprising herself by placing them in the empty dresser in the room. Her duffel bag was still a bit damp, so she hung it in the empty closet. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she continued the job search.
After shooting off her resume to a few places, she sighed and set down the phone. It was the same as usual. Places that hired unskilled workers always had a lot of competition, but maybe she’d get a call back. College hadn’t been a possibility, not for her.
The brightness of the room was almost blinding. She trailed her hand over the splatters of color that covered the bedspread. The movement was reflected in the mirror. She stood, studying herself in it. Average was what she saw, and the tension within her faded. The height, the not-too-straight but not-too-wavy brown hair with a hint of red, the jeans and a shirt, all of it could be seen with a passing glance. It was only when someone looked too close that they noticed the too skinny frame thanks to the nerves that kept her from eating.
Celia stepped closer, peering at the feature men had pointed out. Bedroom eyes, they called them. The brown was toward the darker side, and the shape was a tad wide, though that could be from her angular face. She didn’t spend much time in front of mirrors, especially lately. She looked just like her mother had the last time she’d seen her. Only she didn’t have the vast energy that had bubbled under her mother’s skin, begging to be released. The crazy gleam that had often shone through the medication in her mother wasn’t present in her own eyes.
She hid it well.
Grabbing the folded blanket on the foot of the bed, she hung it over the mirror. The yellow of the frame was a horrid color anyway and deserved to be hidden.
She shoved her phone in her pocket and strode out of the room, closing the door behind her. She no longer felt like sitting and crossed over to the sliding glass door. The balcony didn’t draw her without the rain. Turning away, the wall art caught her eye. More splashes of color marked the canvases. It was bold and artsy, and didn’t seem like Trenton at all.
She crossed to the biggest one. The colors were even more vivid up close, and showed even less pattern, if that was possible. Just vivid reds, yellows, and oranges, crisscrossed all over. Celia blinked, feeling almost dizzy from it.
Trenton had said he’d had a wife. She let her eyes trace around the living room, but no photos of the two of them together graced the walls or shelves. Maybe it had been too painful of a reminder. One of her prior boyfriends had lost his parents while they were dating, and he had quickly packed away mementos for that reason. She’d held him while he cried, not knowing quite how to comfort him and hoping it would help. He’d left not long after that, so she doubted she’d gotten it right.
Celia didn’t understand what it was to care for someone so much that it hurt when they were cut out of your life.
Sick of her own thoughts, and of the condo that was so foreign, she crossed to the entryway, slipping on the shoes she had left there. They were still slightly damp, but were also the only shoes she had. Pausing after she opened the door, she realized that if she locked it, she wouldn’t be able to get back in. No key.
Looking back in, she was tempted to repack her duffel and take her things with her. It was a ridiculous urge. She’d just have to wait to return until after Trenton was home.
Turning the lock, she closed the front door behind her.
ThetemperatureinTheLast Shot Tavern was much more comfortable when she wasn’t soaking wet. Only a few tables were occupied by the lunch crowd, leaving plenty open, but Celia crossed to the bar again, sitting in the same chair as the night before.
Malcolm raised an eyebrow at her. “You’re living the life of leisure, coming in here this early for a drink.”
She made a face at the suggestion. “Just a ginger ale, please.”
He nodded, prepping it as he studied her. “You doing okay?”
Celia nodded. “I thought we should spend some time together, since we have it.”
His smile was the one that had drawn her in as a teenager. Pure joy seeped out of him, and genuine concern for others. He’d been patient, and eventually she had shared some of her past with him. It had created a bond, one that she stretched as far as it would go. She hadn’t found the breaking point yet.
It was too bad he was her cousin. He understood her in a way that she doubted anyone else ever could. And she had to admit, he wasn’t hard on the eyes. He hadn’t pulled his hair back, and it settled around his shoulders in a dark wave, only enhancing the muscle tone in his arms, shown off by the rolled-up sleeves of his button-down.
Malcolm slid a glass in front of her. “I appreciate it, but that’s not like you. Everything going okay between you and your roommate?”
She shrugged. “He’s at his job. It felt strange being there, that’s all.”
Malcolm hummed in his throat. “That’s understandable. Have you had any thoughts about what’s next? Are you moving back to where you’d been?”
