I shoved a few more bites of noodles in my mouth and then slid off thecounter.
He was sitting, cradling a stack of books in his hands when I went back into his livingroom.
When he looked up, there was nomask.
His handsome features were empty, save his eyes, which begged for something I didn’t quiteunderstand.
11
Dorian
She couldn’t seeme like this. I turned away and took a long inhale to press all the crazy spiraling in my brain down into a manageable pocket. A rejection, so what? People dealt with it every day. I could too. Except my mind wouldn’t just let it go, inserting whispers like: do other people have so much sin to carry around? Do other people have death on their hands like youdo?
I focused on quieting all thought and instead stacking books. They were mostly out of order, with a few exceptions of little groupings that had stuck together in the fall. The leather-bound covers protected most of thepages.
Poor sad Hemingway lay open with bent pages at the corner of the rug. I shifted across the pile to grab the book, but Sibyl beat me toit.
No. Not Sibyl.Izzy.
She handed it over, twisted her legs underneath her to sit, and began to stack books. I was thankful for the silence, not so much the long lingering concerned looks. We worked quietly, and I avoided glancing her way. The memories of that long lithe body in my arms were too fresh, not to mention the red stain coating my hands every time I glanced down at them for longer than aminute.
Holy hell, it was happening. The doctors told me I wouldn’t be able to last two hundred years. That my mental stamina would deteriorate. Maybe Izzy had been the trigger, releasing the guilt I felt about Sibyl, and now it became an avalanche soon to take out everything in itspath.
I looked up at Izzy who froze in the act of stacking two corresponding volumes together. “What? Why are you looking at me likethat?”
I usually had more control over my emotions and whatever the rest of the world got to see of them. I closed my eyes and forced the thoughts away, somewhere, anywhere, so Izzy couldn’t read them in myeyes.
I shuffled the piles I’d stacked forward, putting them back onto the shelf, and then surged to my feet and went to the bedroom. The slammed door behind me should keep her out, I hoped. I could hide like a coward until she left,right?
“Dorian?” she called through the door, and her voice was enough to have me reaching for the handle. I stopped. No. She had to stay out, get away, before I became unsafe, unstable,unhinged.
“Dorian? You can talk to me. What happened outhere?”
I grasped for any excuse I could think of before pushing myself to the corner and shouting across the room. “Nothing, I’m fine. I think maybe that butter wentbad.”
The soft scrape of her fingers sliding down the door echoed into the quiet. I prayed she’d leave, go back to her apartment, and forget about me. She’d made it clear she didn’t want me, so it should be easy for her to walkaway.
Dr. Robertson was the only person who could help me now. The last time I’d been at the science center they’d told me when the end came they could put me to sleep and stop my vital organs; very much like a prison execution but without the pain. Was that my only choice? Death by lethal injection after 150 years on this planet? After everything I’d seen and done and been through? It almost seemed like cowardice, cheating the punishment and karma I deserved for the atrocities I’d committed in my younger years. For the people I’d hurt. I couldn’t bear it if Izzy became one ofthem.
There was silence at the door, and for a moment, I thought she’d left. Then I caught a thump against the bottom of the frame. Her shadow stretched underneath and I could see the edge of her T-shirt under the door. She was sitting in front of it now. I cleared my throat quietly. “You should go home. I’ll bealright.”
Another thump and then a curse. “No, I’ll wait, make sure you’re ok. You might needsomething.”
I lay my head down on my arms as they crossed over my knees. Was this woman’s will forged in iron? I racked my brain for another way to get rid of her. Only one came to mind, and it would hurt us both. Could I cause her even a little pain to protect her from the looming avalanche that could engulfher?
Yes.
I let out a long sigh and climbed to my feet. It took five minutes to dress, my best suit and tie. Then I shaved and combed my hair. When I’d finished and looked in the mirror, I appeared the same perfect specimen I always presented. Nothing of the fracture in my mind was visible, at least to me. I even bolstered myself with a smile, one I’d known to be cold and unyielding. The hard part would be getting out the door without looking at her too long. If I stayed and met her eyes, then I might very wellbreak.
Was I strong enough for this? Not at all. I could already feel the micro-fissures under the mask beginning to spread. I didn’t have very long toescape.
I sat on the edge of my bed, slipped on my shoes, and set my cufflinks. Then I shook my shoulders and stepped to the door. I opened it carefully at first so ,she didn’t fall over, but then fast, as if I were jerking it once I could see she sat up straight on thefloor.
She looked up the long line of my body from her cross-legged position on the hardwood. “Goingsomewhere?”
I didn’t meet her eyes but stalked around for my phone, which I found on the shelf by the door. I sent a text Michael for the car and stayed turned away from her before I answered. “Yes, I’m feeling much better, and I think it’s a good night to hit the town. I have a friend who is meetingme.”
“A friend?” she asked. I locked onto how I’d felt when she told me she didn’t want me, let it sink in and strengthen my spine before I turnedback.
