“I’m…”
I’m not okay, but Iamokay.
Bobby did nothing but scare me and tousle me around a little bit, but I’ll survive.
I’ll be fine.
Bronte’s arms tighten around me, taking the one word, instead of two, to his satisfaction because he doesn’t press on it anymore.
He just holds me and slowly rocks back and forth with me in his arms.
In each minute that passes, I’m able to breathe a little lighter, but my room is tainted with Bobby, and tonight that I don’t want to stay in it anymore.
Ever.
It’s another thing Bobby ruined, and I don’t feel safe anymore.
Even with the windows locked, moving forward.
Now that I know Bobby isn’t scared of heights or above climbing emergency stairs, my sanctuary has been violated.
“Where…is he?” I ask, my voice barely audible to my own ears.
“Gone.”
“Bronte…” It suddenly hits me that I’m fully aware my husband has means. Means that could mean making someone disappearpermanently.
“I wouldn’t dare kill him tonight with the possibility that someone saw him enter your building.” His fingers brush my hair. “Plus, I wouldn’t leave you. If he were to die, I’d be the one doing it.”
I pull away from him to glance up at his face in all seriousness. “Don’t say things?—”
“That I don’t mean?” He stares back at me with zero inclination that he’s joking. “I do mean it, though, Daydream. However…I’d grant him a miserable existence if it meant you not looking at me with guilt like you had something to do with it.”
“I do have something to do with it.”
“How so? Did you ask him to visit?”
“No, but?—”
“He does it again, I’m not apologizing, nor am I askingpermissionto kill him. Bobby is lucky the only thingshe’s going to suffer from are a black eye, a broken leg or arm, and a bruised ego.”
“You can’t?—”
“He tried torapeyou, Meirna,” Bronte snaps, glowering down at me now because we’ve crossed the line. Now, he’s pissed. “And he was going to do it with no remorse for what it would’ve done to you long term. What it would have done to us. You don’t think that constitutes for a bit of pain?”
What it would have done to us.
My mind races with how the aftermath of such actions would terminate revelations of what Bronte and I have become.
It would be hard.
It would…I dunno, I wouldn’t be the same. Bronte would never forgive himself for leaving my sight and…it’d be a difficult thing to maneuver and get over.
“I brought you something,” Bronte mutters through my silence, fishing in his suit jacket for something before he pulls out a small white paper bag.
Setting it on his lap, he unravels the top and pulls out a gingerbread cookie with a small flower on top of its head.
“I couldn’t make one,” he says softly. “But I thought you might like it.”
